We all know that a really good episode of Girls or Broad City can be just as well executed and probably smarter than most of the movies that enter wide release in a given year. There's plenty of intellectual heft to TV, but sometimes it's nice to see how smart shows can be expressed visually. Internet shows like "Every Frame A Painting" do great stuff for helping to highlight film, but is there an equivalent for TV?
Celia Gomez's supercut of the first and last frames of iconic television series is a step in that direction. You might remember this as hearkening back to Jacob Swinney’s “First and Final Frame” Vimeo pieces, which did the same for movies.
Gomez’s piece highlights just how circular and elliptical certain series can be. Nobody will be surprised that Mad Men or Lost have carefully thought-out image systems that play out throughout the series, but seeing them presented here is an amazing reminder of just how specific those shows could be. The video highlights the care with which images are selected, composed, and presented to us. More minor shows, like Californication, even hold up well under this rubric.
And don’t worry, Friends fans, there’s something for you in there too.
Watch the video below, it’s truly awesome.
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