#theory

Modal harmony extends tonal harmony by treating each church mode as a stable tonal center rather than a deviation from major/minor. Dorian mode (like…

Literary unreliable narrators are flagged by inconsistencies in the told story. Film has a different problem: the camera appears to show us reality di…

Sound in film is classified as diegetic (existing in the world of the story) or non-diegetic (existing only for the audience). A character listening…

Genre is a contract between film and audience. The slasher film, the romantic comedy, the western — each makes implicit promises about what will happe…

Deep focus photography (Citizen Kane, Gregg Toland) keeps foreground and background in sharp focus simultaneously, allowing complex staging in a singl…

Music theory is not rules. It is a vocabulary. When someone says "that chord is a ii-V-I," they're not saying "that's correct." They're saying "I rec…