Welcome to The Queue — your daily distraction of curated video content sourced from across the web. Today, we’re watching a montage of the first and final shots of popular TV series.
Ending a show can be an incredibly emotional experience. Sometimes, small screen fare is a part of your life for years. And when it finally comes to a close, it can feel like you’re saying goodbye to a friend. Especially if the showrunners stick the landing and deliver a finale that feels…well, final.
If you’re anything like me, by the time you’ve journeyed through several seasons, character arcs, twists, and turns, you can’t remember all that much detail from a show’s inaugural episode. Least of all the specifics of its introductory frame.
Which is why side-by-side montages, like the one below, are so wonderful. They offer us a unique experience: a chance to witness the first and final moments of a show together at the same time.
The comparisons are evocative, from seemingly intentional mirroring from the likes of Lost and Sons of Anarchy to the poetic punctuation marks of Mad Men and Breaking Bad. All in all: it’s a fascinating exercise in visual storytelling that, unless you seek it out (or have a very good memory), may have gone unnoticed.
Watch “First and Final Frames of Series“:
Who made this?
This montage comes courtesy of Celia Gómez, a video essayist based in Madrid, Spain. Specializing in side-by-side comparisons, Gómez’s past work has been selected as a Vimeo staff pick. You can check out her back catalog of video essays on her Vimeo page here.
More Videos Like This
- This video reminds me a lot of the “match cut.” And wouldn’t you know it, Gómez has a fantastic, illustrative video highlighting the match cut technique by way of its best uses in cinema history.
- And here’s another one of Gómez’s videos, where she teases out every single cinematic reference in The Simpsons (spoiler: there are a lot of them).
- If you’re wondering if a similar video montage exists for the first and last frames of films, the answer is a resounding yep. It’s a two-parter by Queue favorite Jacob T. Swinney, and it sets the opening and closing shots of 55 films side-by-side.
- The Sopranos features one of the most puzzling, emotional, and enigmatic final shots in small-screen history. Here’s The Take with a breakdown of what that mysterious final frame actually means.
- And, if you’re looking for a similar breakdown on what Don Draper’s concluding meditative getaway means in the Mad Men finale, The Take has got you covered.
Related Topics: Cinematography, The Queue
