Holiday Road!

“Why aren't we flying? Because getting there is half the fun!” ~ Clark Griswold

Accompanied by their children (Dana Barron, Anthony Michael Hall), Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) and his wife, Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo), are driving from Illinois to a California amusement park called Wally World. 1983 was the year.

For fun, I found this fake magazine insert on the internet today and thought I’d share it with all of you. You can almost hear Eugene Levy showing this ad to Clark just before he pushed, er rolled it off the lot.

Furd 1983 Wagon Queen Family Truckster. Twice the headlights, 4x the woodgrain. Half the mileage. If you think you hate it now - just wait till you drive it.

R - Rack Focus

A Rack Focus occurs when the Camera Operator, or a dedicated professional Focus Puller who is assigned only to dialing the focus on the lens, turns the dial of their focus, physically, which causes the lens to force the viewer’s eye to travel to a new image which becomes in focus. An example would be to show something in the background (deep) or the foreground of the shot (shallow), and then the focus shifts to the new thing.

The technique is use to bring attention to something behind, or in front, in the same frame. It can be used to show the audience something the character might not be aware of, or sometimes when a character realizes something is in front of, or behind them. The rack focus can be used in comedy and also in drama. Sometimes it’s subtle - like the sidewalk crowd shot of Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie, or 2006’s The Host, specifically the hospital corridor scene. Other times it can be used in dialogue between two people without the need for an edit point.

The roll of the focus can also be called ‘selective focusing’ a ‘rack’ or a ‘pull focus’, depending on the Director of Photography or whom ever calls the shot.

Post Credit Sequence

A Post Credit Sequence can be a throwaway scene, out-takes or, as fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will quickly tell you, they can be an important epilogue that happens during or after the end credits have finished rolling. Sometimes both.

It’s used as a bonus for audience members who stick around to read all the professionals who helped create the movie they just watched.

And, it’s also a great way to generate word of mouth about the bonus scene that creates important ‘buzz.’

Great examples are The Muppet Movie (1979) Airplane (1980), Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), many of the PIXAR movies, Napoleon Dynamite (2004), and Captain Marvel (2019).

Feel free to let us know which Post Credit Sequence was your all-time favorite!