The Umbrella Academy

A new year has come and with it a new Netflix original. There’s nothing wrong with Netflix originals either, I actually quite enjoy them. Netflix originals have gained a great reputation among the years and have impressed many people around the world, along with myself. Completely ignoring the plot, “The Umbrella Academy” is a collage of great cinematography with an amazing music score. Every scene has been thought out and carefully planned with precise motions with the audience in mind, and it really shows. For example, one of the most recurring themes is the title. Before every episode and within the first three minutes of each the title card pops up. What’s interesting about this is that the title card isn’t a card. It isn’t text just put up on a screen, it’s something within the world. My favorite example from this is when a torn umbrella is blowing through the wind and then gets stuck on a tree branch with the title card being prominently displayed to the audience. Other examples include a lunchbox with the title card on it or someone who puts up an umbrella because it starts raining, etc. It keeps you sucked into this universe with doing this. If just a title card was put up on a screen then it would pull you out of that show so to speak. But here the title card is already within the world so it’s easy for the audience to see what they are watching, whether they know it or not. I could have talked about the incredible pans that the camera makes, and how this was a perfect camera position and how that camera position worked for this scene, but that not only would take up way too much time but it would also be basic. Every movie that has great cinematography should be known to have great camera work, I mean it’s literally what makes a movie have great cinematography. So saying how the camera pans well would be redundant. I liked the title cards so much because to my current knowledge I can’t remember the last time I saw something like this be done. In a movie, yes maybe I could’ve seen it and am just blanking but definitely not in any t.v. series that I’ve watched. “The Umbrella Academy” is a well crafted television series with many great cinematography moments that keep you interested and engaged with the story far beyond the pilot episode.