Tony Zhou Is My Hero

You only wish you taught film form and grammar like Tony Zhou.

First, a disclaimer:  I get nothing, no money, not one thin dime for this endorsement.  I don't even know Tony Zhou.  But he rocks as an educator.  Videos from his "Every Frame a Painting" series offer would-be filmmakers 3-8 minute lessons  in film form and grammar.  Whet your appetite with his 3-minute essay on screen direction in Snowpiercer.

The Best Edited Films. Ever.

In the June 2012 issue of CineMontage, members of the Motion Picture Editors Guild ranked the 75 best-edited films of all time.  The top 25 appear below, but a statistical summary the entire list may prove instructive for students and teachers of film:

• Most of the films cited are from the 1970s.  None are from the 1930s (which makes sense, given the difficulties of editing which accompanied the changeover to sound).  
• Five Hitchcock films appear as well as four each directed by Spielberg and Coppola.  
• George Tomasini, Dede Allen, Michael Kahn, and Thelma Schoonmaker, are the list's most frequently-named editors.
• Guild choices also commend work of audio editors, with Walter Murch (6) and Howard Beals (5) cited most often.

1999 - Zach Staenberg