This article marks the death knell of this site. It's perfectly acceptable to have an opinion of a film but it is simply beyond pale that site that purports to the interest of filmmakers and publishes an opinion that a film not be made because of the content of it's speech. This article is problematic and fascist. Enjoy the temporary bump in views.

I think the nuance of what is being said here is lost in the claims of the title. Over-rated is a loaded word. I feel like the question being posed here is key - how much should be sacrificed for art? It's easy to romanticize the extent to which Coppola went to make the movie but where do we draw the line between art and abuse. This is a much more important take for filmmakers to contemplate than whether or not to buy the next 6K camera.

The analysis is on total shot length not so much the actual frames themselves. There's not really much you can gain from these thumbnails - where as you can learn a lot more by actually watching the scenes play out

Porting over a concept for illustrators is the flaw in your argument. Yes those concepts aid in producing realistic perspective, but as filmmakers capturing reality, we already have realistic perspective created for us. On top of I don't think artists use perspective lines when drawing portraits or anything up close - I could be wrong because I'm not an illustrator... Anyhow as filmmakers -we're not creating perspective to simulate reality - the horizon as a tool is not that particularly useful for us - let me demonstrate.

I figured you might argue that there is always a horizon even if you don't see it or that it is obscured. The problem with that is now you are arbitrarily adding information to the frame that was not there to begin with.

Take for instance this rather innocuous shot from Fargo of William H. Macy:
http://i.imgur.com/RBDokV2.jpg

Is the horizon at the middle of the frame - at the top where his eyebrow is - at the bottom where his sleeve cuffs are?

The answer is "who cares!" There obviously has to be a horizon somewhere. But to go looking for it for your composition is to grossly ignore the real elements of composition in the scene - the framing, the angle of the talent to the camera and relationship to the light.

More troubling is how framing plays into or ability to gauge it. Take this shot from Vertigo.

http://i.imgur.com/pKt5LvD.jpg

Is the horizon at A or B?

Now look at this uncropped version of the shot:

http://i.imgur.com/23hSCFL.jpg

The assessment of where the horizon is is totally based on visual cues we can gather from them image - in the first example there are no visual queues - in the second, we have some more information from the sides of the curtain but that's really it. At best we're guessing completely blindly about the location of the horizon - an imaginary line that really has no bearing whatsoever on the way that shot looks.

Then you have this anomaly of a shot from Melancholia:
http://imgur.com/a/JvbeW

Now we're talking about gross abuse of the horizon line. ;)

Which brings us back to the original assessment - the utilizing the horizon line in any situation where the horizon is not visible or otherwise clearly evident in a shot is simply problematic as a tool for composition. Too many variables clutter up our understanding and focusing on it takes away from the classic approach to composition that includes camera-subject angle relationships, leading lines, shape, positioning, weight, light direction, etc - in other words stuff that's IN the frame.

In other words a healthy dose of Ockham's Razor is needed ;)

There is far too much time spent on talking about a "horizon" in this video. Very rarely will we be shooting in a perfect plane demonstrated in the video. On top of that when shooting any Interiors we no longer have a Horizon reference. Far too many variables to make a general statement. Instead there's something to be said starting by matching camera and subject height as a neutral starting point and perhaps the interplay between subject distance and angle of tilt which leads to the whole thing of a client requesting: "get me and the sign in the background".

Regardless of whether it's interlaced or progressive, the American frame rate for TV is the oddball frame range: 29.97 or 23.976. If your project ever sees a TV at any stage (even for monitoring), you need to use these frame rates.

The ONLY time you would operate in whole numbers is if you're going to straight film out. Even if you do use the oddball frame rates, every film printing company can cope with it. DCP also do whole frame FPS.

But the conversion these days between 23.976 and 24 is pretty easy and you'll never see the difference. Stick to 23.976 for the most compatibility here in North America.