What I mean by favorite here is
"what I often find myself greatly admiring when I notice it's done really well"
gonna go with Director of Photography (cinematographer). with emphasis on the photography.
Some things I've watched recently that illustrate this role.
- Saltburn, great use of vertical space with the 4:3 aspect ratio, lots of color and natural light. Summer is captured well.
- Crash (1996), Lots of night scenes (always tough to get right), the setting looks appropriately dark, grimy, and mechanical.
- Fight Club, also a (literally) dark film and looks great.
I'm always impressed with good sound design--particularly foley. It really makes a world of difference to give an environment the right tone and make it an immersive scene.
At the more entry levels of filmmaking, nothing separates the wheat from the chaff faster than sound. Not only is it very underrated by a lot of budding, amateur filmmakers, but it's so easy to get wrong and so difficult to get right. A lot like finding a drummer for a fledgling band, finding a good sound designer is super hard to find, but so important.
The best boy.
Not only a hilarious title, but also is basically the right hand of production. Generally speaking they are going to be more hands-on than the producer, and when the best boy does their job well, nobody notices, but if the best boy fucks up, everybody knows and complains about it onset.
Gonna give a shoutout to costume design. Iconic characters like Jack Sparrow and casts like Lord of the Rings are really highlighted by their costumes.
Anybody got other iconic costumes that stick out to them?
ooh good pick. Barry Lyndon has great period costuming, BR2049, being sci-fi, has lots of imaginative costuming.
I've always been a screenplay guy. If the script sucks, you got nothing. And I'll tolerate bad production if the writing is good enough.
Edit: wait does the screenwriter actually count as part of the crew?
yeah cinematography is such an art form. like many things in film, you often only notice if its done badly. but sometimes you notice how exceptionally well it is done, that is more rare and very impressive.
I think editing is also an incredible skill, keeping the story coherent, giving it rythm and flow and pacing and mood, etc. also something you usually only notice if it is done badly.
I'm with you on the cinematography. when done right it is transporting and can bring you into the place and/or emotion without hijacking your attention from the foreground narrative. it's just like, you're there and the context is hostile, beautiful, or subtly oppressive or all 3. I'm thinking of that one guy from S1 True Detective or the way the worlds Tony Gilroy built in Andor, as seen "from below".
then there's fuckin David Fincher's whole move where he completely seized your visual agency so much that when the movie is over, you're walking around looking at shit all weird for 30 minutes or so. I love it. I tried to replicate it once and it is insane, even with what few tricks I've heard he uses.... besides like 30 takes and decades of experience.
I’m a day late, but my choice fits that: cast driver. Get the actor to work on time and you can sleep or read theory all day.
Edit: my answer is dumb if you’re watching the movie, but if you have to work on the crew, it’s nice work.
Non-dumb answer is either cinematography or sound.
All of my actual experience with Movie magic has been with tangentially through editing.
One of my college buddies edited student films and some freelance internet video (very early youtube) and I have always found the art of editing to be really fascinating. The editor takes a bunch of different shots and music and creates context and concessive vision which I think is pretty damn cool. The thing I liked was hearing him talk to the director or video creator and talking about how/what the vision for something is. It gave me a real appreciation for the behind-the-scenes of movie magic.
