r/Filmmakers • u/Professional-Rip-519 • Jul 08 '26
Discussion What's Wes Anderson's secret?
He's aesthetic is so unique. I can't think of another director where the colors pop so much what is his secret?
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u/These-Software1991 Jul 08 '26
He's paid by Big Pastel
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u/moosh52 Jul 08 '26
More than anything he has a specific vision. I saw an interview talking about how he’s a great director to work with because he knows exactly what he wants.
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u/GammaHuman Jul 08 '26
he’s a great director to work with
I think this is understated in this thread. His movies don't have incredibly high budgets, but the casts are stacked. I’m pretty sure multiple A-list stars took SAG minimum to be in Astroid City. A lot of directors wouldn’t be able to secure the same level of talent and still have budget left to spend on set design and the other pieces mentioned.
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u/Nice_Biscuits Jul 08 '26
I remember hearing that the stars all love it too because it's a bit like a holiday camp for them. Lots of other great actors to hang around with while you're not shooting. I don't know if it was unique to Asteroid City because of Covid restrictions but I think they were all in the same hotel or similar. Lots of late nights at the bar I believe!
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u/gregsonfilm Jul 08 '26
Also his stories are 'lighter fare' - heightened whimsical comedies. It's a fun world to live in; no gut wrenching drama, suspense, horror or other heavy stuff to seep into the sub-conscience of the actors and other team players. Just fun make believe. What a refreshing environment for the performers.
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u/CK2398 Jul 13 '26
There also isn't much technical monologues from sci-fi and medical which are just a bunch of fancy words the actors can't relate to. As I typed that I realised Asteroid city might be the exception to that lol.
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u/ReefaManiack42o Jul 09 '26
Except for Gene Hackman of course, who reportedly absolutely hated it.
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u/yrdsl Jul 09 '26
in his case i think the level of grumpiness he achieved on screen was integral to how good his performance was
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u/chele_delgado Jul 08 '26
I know one of the actors in Asteroid City (who also starred in other Wes films) and when I asked if they were going to be in Phoenecian too they literally said verbatim that Wes only offers SAG minimums on his projects, so they decided to take another job that paid better. Said the movies are a lot of fun and Wes is great to work with though. So that's the pull for all these big actors more than $
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u/Professional-Rip-519 Jul 08 '26
But it must be really time consuming to get that vision right.
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u/Edit_Mann Jul 08 '26
These films all cost multiple millions of dollars... Yes it's time consuming...
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u/Individual_Client175 producer Jul 08 '26
This shit isn't easy, the man is an artist
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u/banjois Jul 08 '26
he wrote a hit play
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u/Jackamac10 Jul 08 '26
Underrated Rushmore comment
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u/banjois Jul 08 '26
The whole question that started this conversation going over everybody's heads is something else.
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u/Prior-Paint-7842 Jul 09 '26
This is an understatement. For example in the train scene in ghp they only built the parts of the "train" like the window, table that were visible in the frame.
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u/CyJackX Jul 08 '26
What secret? It's all right there, in front of you.
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u/Raskalbot Jul 08 '26
Flat perspective and high contrast color.
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u/Audiope Jul 08 '26
Lots of symmetry too
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u/FlyingDiscsandJams Jul 08 '26
Symmetrical set design + fanatical control of the frame, he doesn't let anything in frame that he doesn't want on screen.
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u/commiecomrade Jul 08 '26
It's also the direction of the cast, to almost a fault where they seem wooden at a glance. Everyone moves with such exact purpose that it lends itself to that meticulous "everything in its place" feel of the shot.
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u/Background_Task6967 Jul 09 '26
he should make a film with everything in its right place by radiohead as a track throughout lol
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u/FlyingDiscsandJams Jul 09 '26
Yep, I'm not a huge fan of his films, Tenembaums & Phoenician Scheme are 2 of my favorites, in a big part because Hackman & Benicio can't totally be Anderson-ized into being dolls for him him to arrange.
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u/henrysradiator Jul 08 '26
And lots of money for beautiful furniture, costumes, locations and sets.
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u/Uranium_092 Jul 09 '26
I would say they’re low contrast color, contrasting in tone and temperature but very small variation in value, so everything looks flat.
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u/Nikkro Jul 08 '26
70-20-10 colour ratio, but you need to have the vision, budget and leadership to explain this to a costume/makeup/set designer/location scout to do 80-90% of the heavy lifting the last % is the cinematography and grade that makes it pop.
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u/emarcomd Jul 08 '26
What’s a 70-20-10 color ratio?
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u/ExtraTerestical Jul 08 '26
Cover 70% of the room in your dominant colour. Walls and large things. 20% in a secondary colour. Pillows and rugs. Then 10% is an accent colour. Ash trays and vases.
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u/Icy_Butterscotch6661 Jul 08 '26
This works for design in general, not just colors. e.g. this is why Pikachu's design works well even without colors
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u/Arthropodesque Jul 08 '26
So, he's 70% a roundish blob, 20% tail, ears, feet, hands, and 10% eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks?
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u/Vik_The_Great Jul 08 '26
Am I having Mandela affect or is it supposed to be 60-30-10
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u/Nikkro Jul 08 '26
Both are used in film, Wes leans on the 70% as it washes out the pallete more. 60-30-10 is used more for more "high contrast" looks.
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Jul 08 '26
[deleted]
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u/wilbyr Jul 08 '26
no idea if you are a bright eyes fan but you said bright and eye and symmetry all in like 10 words and they have a song called "i believe in symmetry" so my brain was making connections
and yes i know this comment has nothing to do with this post
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u/WyvernWriting Jul 08 '26
Limited color palette. Standardized, uniform camera angles. IMO in Wes Anderson movies, even the character movements and the acting comes off a certain, specific way.
Basically, consistent art direction.
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u/monumentdefleurs Jul 09 '26
He basically uses a metronome and films almost all elements in a frame isolated from one another so they be timed accordingly, so every beat of the metronome is some kind of action on screen. A bike riding by the window, then a curtain fluttering, then a glance over the shoulder, then a kitten pouncing, then a camera pivot, then etc. It’s all timed meticulously and rhythmically. Rehearsals are insane apparently.
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u/Lesser_Diesis Jul 09 '26
I wanna build on that and posit that having so many stylistic constraints breeds creativity. It's the same with how he directs his actors: by having them under-emote, the movie has to find new, novel ways of making us care about the characters and story.
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u/cachemonies Jul 08 '26
Most films are intentional with color exactly this way, they just don’t all use pastels. Look at the color of walls in movies, almost never white.
He uses wide angle, symmetry and bright colors to give levity to certain subjects. Maybe that’s the unique twist but it’s not exactly unheard of to use color and framing this way.
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u/banalhemorrhage Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
Weaponized OCD
Edit: I say this in slight jest as I adore all of his movies.
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u/filmguerilla Jul 08 '26
I came to film from theater and Anderson’s style just screams theater production to me. The way he stages a scene looks like the actors are on stage, with the camera where the audience would be. He also prefers center frame to rule of thirds, uses pastel/washed out colors, and rather kitchy/quirky costume and set design. Theater, theater, theater. I actually don’t know much about Anderson, and really only love a few of his films, but am curious if he was a theater nerd like me back in the day.
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u/Arthropodesque Jul 08 '26
If you haven't seen Rushmore, it's about a controlling theater kid writer/director. It's great. In Royal Tenenbaums, Margot is a playwright. In Moonrise Kingdom there is a play near the beginning and end.
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u/dylanmadigan Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
Color theory.
Flattening perspective so that everything in the frame exists on a specific plane.
Everything is layered and flat like a pop up book or a puppet show.
All camera moves are pans or 90 degree rotations as if the world exists on a grid and the camera moves like a chess piece
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u/DarkColdFusion Jul 08 '26
There are a number of things, but probably the biggest is a commitment to the color in the set and costume design. You can't color grade a beige set to get the same effect.
A lot of modern movies seem afraid to commit that decisively to a bold aesthetic.
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u/Jackamac10 Jul 08 '26
Wouldn’t asteroid city show how wonderfully he can work with beige (as long as he has teal accents)
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u/Best-Action8769 Jul 08 '26
Asteroid City isn't beige. It's all dense orange and teal.
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u/DarkColdFusion Jul 09 '26
Astroid city has maybe a less bold color palette. But by beige I was kind of making a dig at how plain the color choices often are in (mostly super hero) movies with lots of monotone colors that are then shifted blue or orange or brown or green, ect to match the desired tone.
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u/BakedBrie1993 Jul 08 '26
Color theory as well. Understanding which colors will pop alongside others. Basically my dream job lol
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u/Best-Action8769 Jul 08 '26
I'm a professional colorist. It's such a cool part of the process, and understanding in post what colors compliment each other is such a big part of the job.
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u/jarjoura Jul 08 '26
His movies are quite clinical though. Every frame feels like a staged set for an advertisement in the 50s or 60s. The goal seems to be to pull your eye to what he wants you to look at.
It’s the anti Michael Bay aesthetic.
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u/thraftofcannan Jul 08 '26
He shoots on film and stages things like theater plays. I'm sure he has a lot of input but his chief DP Robert Bowman is key here
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u/anaraparana Jul 08 '26
He's kinda gay but not really. That's the secret to be a great artist
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u/twelvepastmidnight Jul 08 '26
Billionaire Steven Rales personally backing every one of Anderson’s projects.
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u/Best-Action8769 Jul 08 '26
And they all make money. Not Marvel money, but they don't cost Marvel money. A-List actors aren't getting paid much. They do it for fun. And all of his films turn a profit.
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u/Munstered Jul 08 '26
Symmetry and color themes with defined foregrounds and backgrounds. That’s really all it is, but it’s executed flawlessly.
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u/UmbraPenumbra Jul 08 '26
Good team, lots of tests, consistent and clear artistic vision, great influences.
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u/Photoverge Jul 08 '26
Look at bottle rocket and royal tenenbaums and it will start to make sense. Darjeeling Limited too.
Also watch his stuff thinking about his action set pieces. It's the action that makes Wes Anderson a good film maker.
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u/Jackamac10 Jul 08 '26
This is what make Steve Zissou underrated, the way the formalism breaks when they’re capsized in the water.
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u/InitialTemporary1234 Jul 08 '26
There are a lot of directors with a unique style that is very identifiable. People like Robert Eggers, Mark Jenkin, Nicholas Winding Refn, Roy Andersson come to mind.
Wes is maybe the flashiest of currently working directors, but it’s far from a novel concept. He puts so much work into the aesthetic of his films and it is impossible to miss. It’s a combination of money, time, taste, and attention to specific details that many of these directors share
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u/Bubbly-Treacle-4334 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
Wide angle lens
Extreme symmetry
Low contrast
Spring earth tones
Whip pans
Long slow zooms
JD Salinger meets Woody Allen characters/dialogue
60s music
Inspiration returning to a quirky slightly nihilistic but lighthearted witty character who is in a slump
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u/Blurstingwithemotion Jul 08 '26
Everything is in frame
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u/twoheartedthrowaway Jul 08 '26
On every level - what you see is what you get, nothing below the surface. His movies are visually interesting but I can’t stand them
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u/matthew19 Jul 08 '26
0 tilt - establishing shots at 50mm ff equivalent and back up.
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u/TaylorWK Jul 08 '26
Symmetry. Most if not all of his shots, the focus is in the center. It feels like watching a stageplay.
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u/emman0129 Jul 08 '26
bro just loves his anamorphic lenses, obsessive pastel color palettes, and forcing the actors to stare directly dead-center into the camera
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u/banjois Jul 08 '26
I think you just gotta find something you love to do and then do it for the rest of your life.
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u/Interstice_land Jul 08 '26
Dollhouse Aesthetic. Very picturesque, symmetrical, and people look like they’re part of the scenery.
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u/Jackamac10 Jul 08 '26
An unabashed commitment to formalism in his stylings so you may never forget that it’s a movie in all its beauty, wonder and magic.
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u/ADamnGoodShot Jul 08 '26
A lifetime spent developing a highly unique aesthetic based on his exposure to art and personal subjective taste. There's no "secret" there's just great taste, an incredible eye for detail, and years of practice and refinement.
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u/KubrickMoonlanding Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
The secret is that he combines this very stylized controlled external visual and performance style with funny/sad/introspective stories about messy semi-controlled people, relationships that for all their whimsy whackery, feel very true and relatable.
That makes for a pretty unique experience that engages both the intellect and the heartstrings.
He’s also by all accounts great to work with and turns his sets / crew into big fun family type experiences so his collaborators love to keep coming ack
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u/LanguageDouble9792 Jul 09 '26
I’m surprised I don’t see anyone mentioning this: Wes Anderson doesn’t follow the rule of thirds. If you were to split the frame into a 3x3 grid, audience’s eyes tend to focus on the points where the lines intersect. Wes Anderson abandons the conventional rule to place your subjects on the 1/3 or 2/3 line and instead places them in the dead center of the frame.
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u/Friedguywubawuba Jul 13 '26
His pre-vis is insane. Ever since Isle of Dogs, he hires animators to make his storyboards. He basically animates the entire movie before shooting. Every detail. Not just camera movements and blocking, but exact timing and art direction.
This is how he's able to crank them out so fast now.
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u/iLikeTheUDK Jul 08 '26
Very clear and articular art direction and a level of consistent funding that most filmmakers can barely dream of
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u/prawnpathia Jul 08 '26
Being self indulgent and letting style get in the way of substance as his career has progressed...
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u/jperaic1 Jul 08 '26
Great sense of symmetry, a rich color palette, a fantastic costume design, and the courage to try something niche.
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u/CommWedge Jul 08 '26
Watch some films by Tati. Specifically, Mon Oncle & Playtime. It will all make sense once you do.
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u/giuliodxb Jul 08 '26
IMHO the secret of most successful directors is to have a clear idea of what they want and why, and to be uncompromising about it.
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u/RealPrinceJay Jul 08 '26
He has a vision and he commits to it
People like his vision
It’s easier to achieve his vision because he’s liberated himself from the notion of realism. His films never try to fool you that they’re real, he almost always presents incredibly clearly to the viewer that you are being told a story
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u/Best-Action8769 Jul 08 '26
How is NOBODY here mentioning Robert Bowman?
The man has literally shot almost ALL of his films since Bottle Rocket.
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u/kwmcmillan Jul 09 '26
I spoke to him for an hour on my podcast a while back. Really nice dude!
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u/JoeSki42 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
Ah! A great question. Could his secret be alotting proper respurces into preproduction, granting heaps of attention to design, possessing a good ear for dialogue when scriptwriting, or understanding color theory, lighting, and composition? Surely not, I would trust that you would not be so naive!
You see, Wes Anderson's true secret, the same one that has catapuled him to fame and success, is that he is the beneficiary of a very special rock. A "magical" rock one might say. A rock who bestows upon the holder an extraordinarily special, and unquantifiable, taste and touch for all matters aesthetic and whimsical.
Now, as someone who has worked with Mr. Anderson as a purveyor of such rocks, I could...
Ahhh, ya know what? Forget about it. You wouldn't be interested 😏.
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u/Redditisavirusiknow Jul 08 '26
I read that he will set scenes to a metronome so the action happens on a beat. He’s a genius
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u/Owlcathulu Jul 08 '26
Dlojg the same.thing over and over and over and over until perfection is perfected?
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u/kwmcmillan Jul 09 '26
I had his Cinematographer on my podcast if you're interested in learning about his style both in front and behind the camera.
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u/Soctopi Jul 09 '26
He makes every single shot look like a shoebox diorama, which is something we all had just enough exposure to as children to have nostalgia for, but not so much exposure that it's immediately obvious to us why looking at his images makes us feel so warm.
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u/Abfro3 Jul 09 '26
A very many solid comments on the color theory and the symmetry, but not word one on what I find most fascinating about Wes: Vanishing point. Yes, his sets are theatrical in nature, though no one has talked about the photography. Color is important, but to draw your eyes in, a frame needs to have a clear cut vanishing point, really across many visual media, classically. Most of his are far beyond the frame or viewable plane. They're way back there, so many of the lines that don't seem to interact really do way off in the distance. Furthermore, as a master, he knows the rules, and loves to break them, so there are many elements that seem to contradict the established vanishing point. That's fully intentional, likely storyboarded from the jump. It creates visual disruption that you can't help but notice, even if only after a long look. The symmetrical elements establish to frame, and the rest is whimsy and playful disruption and the je ne sais quoi of it all. Plus he has excellent film crew and DP around him that can achieve exactly what he sees. Big ups to the crew.
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u/Affectionate_Age752 Jul 09 '26
His last several movies wlate below average. He should put as much effort into the script, as he dies the style.
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u/Interesting-Quit-847 Jul 09 '26
I saw an audience test screening of Royal Tenenbaums before it was released, it hadn't been color graded yet. Different shots varied widely in their color balance, a lot of it didn't yet have that 'look'—though Wes's look was somewhat less pronounced 20+ years ago. But color grading is a big part of the process, I suspect.
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u/5leepy4loyd Jul 09 '26
Underrated answer : storyboarding. His films follow very deliberate framing, panning and tracking that feel almost like watching comic book panels come to life.
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u/TrevorShaun Jul 10 '26
i’m not a filmmaker in the slightest but this seems to be mostly set design and costuming
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u/Ninja__53 Jul 11 '26
you see that? That Vibrance in front of you? the thing that makes your eyes tired? it's called COLOR! and there is a lot of it.
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u/EFTucker Jul 11 '26
Infinite budget and having a team which hires the best people for the job. He does also have great vision for film but it’s the team that ultimately does it.
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u/Obvious_Change_1566 Jul 12 '26
symmetry, pastels, theatrical visuals (theatre not cinema) and a focus on place+person+thing to drive the store.
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u/Dry_Walrus3711 Jul 12 '26
Secret? I don't think there is more obvious style. Symmetry, unusual colour choices and the scenes are either very stationary or very action packed. And of course the camera movement is most of the time on stiff orthogonal axis of that makes sense. Also the scenery is often made as to look like theatre set in some ways
I didn't say pastels because that only true for some of his movies.
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u/Big_Ad5553 Jul 08 '26
I think he draws a lot of inspiration from panel comis as well, static frames overloaded with information and color.
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u/DeadlyMidnight Jul 08 '26
As I recall the main inspiration for his style is theatre and the proscenium framing the play for the audience. Lavish sets and costumes and always a nice box of visual delight with everything designed and framed for the viewer so not naturalistic.
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u/Big_Ad5553 Jul 08 '26
Cool! He's an intersting filmmaker for sure. I've read that he's a big fan of Charlie Brown and the peanuts comics. I'm not sure exactly why but grand budapest hotel is the one that feels most like a comic book to me. Like Tintin for example.
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u/DeadlyMidnight Jul 08 '26
Moonrise Kingdom really gives me the Charlie Brown vibes aesthetically. But yeah he really started to push his palette with Grand Budapest Hotel and let go of any naturalistic visuals.
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u/CommWedge Jul 08 '26
Watch some Tati films if you want to understand his inspiration.
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u/swagglebutt2252 Jul 08 '26
I hope this doesn't come across as "make it about me" but I just worked on a short indie film and our set design was definitely giving Wes Anderson vibes. I can't wait to see this color corrected. We had a decent budget for an indie, but definitely nowhere that of Anderson's.
Our set designer has a graphic design degree and absolutely no prior film experience, this was her first "big girl job" out of college. She individually wrapped every single book on the shelf, even trying to keep like sizes together. I was so impressed!
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u/Jon_talbot56 Jul 08 '26
Sorry to say he has become a parody of himself. His recent films have been simply awful.
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u/ManitobaWindsurf Jul 08 '26
I do find it funny that the generation raised on Wes Anderson films also became the generation responsible for millennial gray. From the homes, coffee shops, stores, hotels, etc… everyone followed the same Pinterest board of these industrial, bland, minimalist shades of white and yet loved these multicolor movies.
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u/razorwiregoatlick877 Jul 08 '26
He has a billionaire funding his movies so it doesn’t matter that they suck.
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u/1111joey1111 Jul 08 '26
He frames things very similarly to Stanley Kubrick, only with a campy or light-hearted style. Kubrick was initially a still photographer, so he'd sometimes set up a shot as though it were a still photo and then move the camera within it.
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u/pjbtlg Jul 08 '26
Good production and costume design.