I can't believe you interviewed him. That is amazing! The rest of this post isn't directed at you specifically, you probably know this and much more. Evangelio

I can't believe you interviewed him. That is amazing! The rest of this post isn't directed at you specifically, you probably know this and much more. Evangelion perhaps popularized this kind of shot, but there's an interesting broader history and context. In general, this kind of shot is called an establishing shot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishing_shot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishing_shot [An establishing shot] establishes the context for a scene by showing the relationship between its important figures and objects.[1] It is generally a long or extreme-long shot at the beginning of a scene indicating where, and sometimes when, the remainder of the scene takes place Some directors like Yasujiro Ozu used a more enigmatic or abstract sort of establishing shot (or quasi-establishing shot) dubbed "pillow shots" by one film critic: https://dangerousminds.net/comments/yasujiro_ozu_and_the_enigmatic_art_of_the_pillow_shot https://dangerousminds.net/comments/yasujiro_ozu_and_the_eni... A "pillow shot" is a cutaway, for no obvious narrative reason, to a visual element, often a landscape or an empty room, that is held for a significant time (five or six seconds). It can be at the start of a scene or during a scene. At a minimum, in Ozu’s work, these pillow shots inject a sense of calm and serenity and contribute to the elegant and stately pacing of his movies. The term “pillow shot” was coined [...] by the critic Noël Burch in his book To the Distant Observer: Form and Meaning in the Japanese Cinema: “I call these images pillow-shots, proposing a loose analogy with the ‘pillow-word’ of classical [Japanese] poetry.” At least several of Ozu's works feature power lines in these shots: http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/category/directors-ozu-yasujiro/ http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/category/directors-ozu-yas... This context is something I feel a lot of people miss when discussing those shots of power lines in Evangelion, perhaps ascribing to them more symbolic significance to them than Anno intended -- they are a stylistic hallmark of Evangelion, but aren't unique to Evangelion.