Not a new thought, but well said

I should be moved on to A Single Man by now for my Adaptations class, but I'm still lingering on Shawshank Redemption because a) I like that movie a lot, and b) there is so much good bonus material. I'm listening to the director's commentary and he's talking about a scene in the mess hall about half way through the film. There are a lot of people talking, but he didn't have a lot of time to shoot it. So rather than shoot each individual who speaks they did a long drifting take that slowly moves in to just the two main characters.

"I thought that was such an elegant solution. And not just a great concession to the amount of time I had to shoot it, but also just a more positive creative solution. Sometimes when you have to make those decisions under duress you wind up doing more elegant things than you would have otherwise if you had all the time in the world to shoot it. And I have Roger Deakins [the DP] to thank for that lesson. It was a wonderful learning experience working with him." -- Frank Darabont (writer/director)

When casually watching you won't even notice that shot. If anything you'll notice that it starts with a lot of people talking, but when it gets to the heart of the matter and it's really just the two of them you will only see the two of them and you see them up close to really get into their eyes and their hearts. But probably most of you won't even notice that, you'll just be caught up in the story. Even I didn't notice it until it was pointed out. But once he said it I thought, oh, that was beautiful.

When you're shooting a film you have to sit down and make decisions for every image that people are going to see. To be so elegant that nobody sees the effort you put into it is really the goal.
More good thoughts from him:

• Pick your battles. You might have big ideas for every scene, but you won't have the time/money for all of them. So apply them thoughtfully.
• Keep the story in the foreground and the details in the background.
• Sometimes the red truck is red because that's the coolest period truck you can find.