I noticed it most in the way that they used storyboards. Joel and Ethan storyboarded almost every shot of their movie, motivated by economic concerns as much as aesthetic ones. If a scene was mapped out shot-by-shot, the art director, wardrobe department, and cinematographer all knew what was needed from them. The actors saw storyboards, in their “sides” — shrunken copies of the script pages that would be shot on a given day — and had a clear idea of what the camera was doing in each one of their scenes.
Preparation and due diligence is key.
