FRENCH NEW WAVE — GODARD CINEMATIC

VISUAL STYLE: French New Wave cinema as animation. Godard, Truffaut, Varda. Jump cuts, handheld energy, direct address to camera, intertitles. The intellectual cool of 1960s Paris.

COLOUR PALETTE: High contrast black and white as the primary mode. Occasional intrusions of flat colour — a red dress, a yellow book, a blue door — used for specific symbolic weight only. Never decorative.

COMPOSITION: Rule-breaking framing. Subjects placed at edges. Unexpected angles. The camera notices things other cameras wouldn't.

CHARACTERS: Stylishly ordinary. Dark turtlenecks. Reading books. Staring out of windows. Characters look directly at camera — breaking the fourth wall is standard, not special.

INTERTITLES: White text on black frames. Used to interrupt the visual narrative with a quote, a question, or a contradiction. Bold and slightly too long to be comfortable.

JUMP CUTS: Transitions are abrupt. Time skips. The edit is visible. This is intentional.

PACING: Intellectually unhurried but visually restless. Long holds broken by sudden movement. The rhythm is jazz, not pop.

No photographs of real people. No smooth Hollywood cinematography. Embrace the ellipsis.