you can't just have some lines in a shot and go 'we have leading lines that's how you make a good shot' https://twitter.com/80Level/status/1351595345256591361

since several people have asked, the lines are in the background, yes, but they are trying to draw your eye to nate 'denim wearer' drake in the foreground there

look what bothers me about leading lines in 3d video games is two things:

1) in cinematics, this is not how we plan shots; shots are actually planned in relation to themselves. To think of shots as single static images is like thinking in 2d vs 3d

you are building shots _through time_ and so many discussions of video game leading lines are basically "uh well this is an object which is long, so it inherently has a line that goes that way, which is how we achieve leading lines"

as if the goal is to have them, which it isn't

it's like saying that you've built a house because you've put bricks in a pile, and houses have bricks in piles. No. You need to place the bricks with intent; they achieve a specific effect with specific structure. Just having lines doesn't mean your shot is good.

2) in 3d games the player controls the camera. One of the funniest things ever for me was when I played a level in Half-Life 2 Episode 1 looking one way and a director's note is like "look how smart we are for having this object move from A to B to draw the player's vision"

lo and behold I didn't even know the thing was there _because I was looking the other direction_.

Controlling the player's gaze in real time is difficult to do and not as valuable as people think it is.

It doesn't help that oftentimes you'll hear people talking about things that aren't even REAL, like the golden ratio (haven't seen it in this video yet thankfully) as a 'theory' for what makes for pleasing visual imagery and just assuming "this is good." https://www.fastcompany.com/3044877/the-golden-ratio-designs-biggest-myth

The actual artistry of good cinematography is about THE SUCCESSION OF SHOTS THROUGH TIME AND THE EMOTIONS ACHIEVED THROUGH SHOT LINKAGE.

example:

I have this essay I'm writing where I did a whole point on "because something makes money people make the assumption that everything it did must be worth emulating, which is really weird; nobody is buying a game because the level design has weenies in it"