One From the Heart is a great example of cinematic theatricality - films that are styled after theatrical productions to facilitate visual communication of the narrative. Director Francis Ford Coppola had almost every piece of production design for the film built and shot in Zoetrope Studios which was owned by him, using no digital special effects. This not only looked amazing, but gave the visuals a stylistic twist that made it feel like a huge stage production. Although this film pretty much bankrupted the studio with its 23 million dollar production budget, the miniatures and lavish backgrounds that came out of it were absolutely spectacular, and i think really showed off how much you could achieve with set construction in a soundstage. It also pushed Coppola to pioneer a more economic method of filmmaking by shooting and editing a visual storyboard on videotape, allowing for a reference during the actual shooting of the film. This ended up birthing the practice of having a live video assist with monitors, so scenes could be altered and changed min-shot. The use of miniatures in filming really intrigues me as miniature making is a hobby of mine, and i love being able to get details and effects done in miniature in a way that makes it almost indistinguishable from seeing scenes in real life.
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