Im posting to praise you actually discussing your link. This is exactly what for me the perfect fediverse would be. If you just posted this as I link I would have clicked and seen nothing to interest me but Im going to give it a view if I get the time later and at the least I might remember it to go search for something like it based on the convo.
this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2025
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I’ve been subscribed to this guy for a while now, ever since this video came up on my recommended feed. I love his soothing, almost ASMR delivery, and the points he raises about filmmaking are always superb. One of my favourite YouTube channels.
Thank you for this comment, sounds like a very interesting channel indeed
Guy seems insightful enough for me to take seriously but I'd much rather watch two of those films than his 3.5 review. Looked in the comments briefly and did not see it but is there a list somewhere?
The list is in the description of the video.
He does plenty of smaller video essays, but this was something he’d been working up to for a while.
One of my biggest issues, maybe the biggest with the content that I want to like (such as Wheel of Time), is the sterility of the set and costuming.
yes, these people who have been travelling by horse and foot for the past week are totally perfectly clean when they arrive somewhere. yes, the medieval-era castle interior is perfectly swept and all the intricate stonework is perfectly dusted and all the wooden furniture is perfectly smoothed over
it all looks so goddamn fake and shitty, and it entirely pulls me out of it because it's so distracting and inappropriate
"He must be a king."
"How do you know?"
"Hasn't got shit all over him."
the medieval-era castle interior is perfectly swept and all the intricate stonework is perfectly dusted and all the wooden furniture is perfectly smoothed over
Were you expecting them to look hundreds of years old, because that's what all the castles you've seen look like?
Depending on the exact setting, some of the castles may well have been. Stone fortifications emerged by the late 10th century, full stone castles in the 12th, so a story set in 1400 might a castle 200-300 years old. By the late middle ages, it could be 400 years (although it will have moved on to more massive fortifications designed to withstand gunpowder artillery).
Outside of wartime, castles tended to be subject to the elements, and without imminent need, less effort was usually spent on their maintenance than would be required to keep them in pristine shape. Consequently, when the threat of war did loom, there was rush to restore or reinforce them where time had taken its toll.
So yeah, it's absolutely reasonable for a castle to look "old" or at least somewhat weathered, depending on time period and status of its master.
Sure but if there's still someone living in it then why wouldn't they keep it clean and have new furniture every now and then? My house is over a hundred years old but I still have clean curtains.
It's a place where people live and work, so while it shouldn't look abandoned, it shouldn't look continuously pristine, either.
Sure but if there's still someone living in it then why wouldn't they keep it clean
There will have been different standards of "clean" when you don't have our modern tools for keeping things clean. The exterior areas, for the most part, will have been as clean as a broom can get them.
Particular pet peeve of mine are stables ostensibly in active use, yet with floors as clean as if they'd just been powerwashed.
have new furniture every now and then
Of course, if they're wealthy enough to have fancy furniture made they will want to display as much and keep their furniture in good shape. Still, there's a difference between handmade furniture looking like it has been used, but well-kept, and brand new furniture made with modern machines.
Also, I find it hard to believe that the guardhouse or servants' house or other buildings within or around the castle would maintain the same standard.
Either way comment wasn't aimed at the furniture and equipment so much as the general shape of the fortifications, which is a lot more labour-intensive to keep in pristine condition than getting a new set of chairs.
I still have clean curtains.
Handspun, -woven, -tailored and -washed?
We take some amenities for granted, but making cloth was a lot of work before the Spinning Jenny came and made the most arduous part (spinning thread) a lot quicker.
As above, wealthy nobles will have displayed that wealth through conspicuous amounts of fabric in their clothing, tapestries, curtains and more, all kept clean and in good repair. That can be used as a visual device: a noble whose house is bare is in dire straits.
Peasants on the other hand tended to wear things for as long as they could, then turned them into cleaning rags or whatever other purpose they could find. You wouldn't expect a white, unstained table cloth in a peasant home (partially because white is a lot of work to achieve and keep without modern bleaching and detergent).
The issue mostly comes down to a consistently clean and pristine presentation, even in places where that level of cleanliness would have been impractical to achieve and maintain. A castle that has seen battle will have some cracks or chipping in towers, maybe missing some "teeth" (merlons) in the crenellation that might have been replaced with makeshift wooden cover and never fully restored, you get the idea. When everything looks like freshly built, it just strains credulity.
no, I was expecting them to look like they're actually lived in spaces, not pristine sets
Oh so it's not just me being a cranky old man then, good lol. Really interesting video thanks!
The thing that bothers me a lot is that fire is rarely real anymore. Even in big budget films but you see it everywhere. And it’s noticeable because fire simulations just never look very real.
Compare Fury Road 1 vs 2. The difference is very obvious in some places.
Movies on VHS still feel the most real to me.
Probably also something to do with the fact almost every movie then was mixed to a Nagra.
All these little beautiful mechanical subtleties add up.
Also everything mentioned here is true in music now too. "Fix in the mix. Record as dry as possible. Di everything, dont use mics" basically take all soul and risk and creativity out of music. Which is why audio quality has suffered greatly in modern times for the majority of popular music.
The VHS era movies had not only analog sound recorded with Nagra recorders, but analog visuals filmed with film cameras, and finally, analog delivery on VHS. It would be the equivalent of a Vinyl album recorded and mastered on analog equipment.
Nice vid.
I always feel way more comfortable when I understand the 3D space depicted (the first part of the vid), not just for the visual awe but screenplay reality as well (eg if two ppl are shooting at each other in a tiny closet or a giant hall).
And yes, some animated movies or series (and even comics to some extend) do it great too, eg the 3D fidelity and persistence in this one (not just wide shots as standalone niceties, but how truthfully they are used by the story/charterers, the individual buildings that make sense and how/where they are connected to the rest of the surroundings, how characters travel in them, etc too):
Having a still from Sorcerer (1977) in the thumbnail instantly makes me want to watch this video essay. That is such an intense and amazing movie
The depth of field thing to me is a manifestation of a wider modern trend of thinking the audience has to be told exactly what's happening and what to think at all times. It's the dramatic equivalent of a network sitcom where the jokes all have to be explicitly flagged, and the studio audience politely wait until the end of the explanation before laughing.
This was an amazing breakdown and a high quality video.
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