What, exactly, constitutes a perfect shot? Is it the composition? The lighting? The seamless combination of story and image? Portland-based filmmaker Geoff Todd thinks he knows the answer, and he’s been assembling a collection of singular cinematic moments on his Twitter account, @OnePerfectShot.
Todd has been running One Perfect Shot since February, when he debuted the project with—appropriately enough—an immaculately composed still from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001. Since then, he’s tweeted over 300 mini- movie universes, all drawn from his own eclectic movie-watching tastes. Here the 1973 Japanese samurai/softcore hybrid Sex And Fury sits comfortably alongside Ingmar Bergman’s arthouse masterpiece Persona, and The Tree Of Life and Spider-Man 2 are given equal weight.
“When I am watching something I take note of not only what strikes me but what it may remind me of so I can post those images,” Todd tells The A.V. Club in an email. “ For example, just the other day I was watching The Innocents, and there’s a shot that reminds me of The Good, The Bad And The Ugly.” So each shot is both a cinematography lesson and a recommended viewing list. But what makes them perfect? “I think a perfect shot conveys the very soul of the story it’s working with,” Todd says. “Whether it’s harsh lighting and quirky angles, or the rich aesthetics of someone like [legendary cinematographer] Jack Cardiff, the perfect shot is a story in itself.”