📝 DDC Editorial Style Guide

Welcome to the vault.

This document defines the editorial voice, content focus, and storytelling philosophy of Deep Dive Cinema—a film archive and digital sanctuary built for cinephiles who crave nuance, myth, and meaning.

🎬 What DDC Is (And Is Not)

DDC is:

A living archive of film history, forgotten formats, boutique releases, and buried gems
A conversation between metadata, memory, and myth
A platform for deep-dive, emotionally intelligent writing on cinema

DDC is not:

A news churn site
A clickbait factory
A generic “Top 10s and Trailer Drops” publication

🎭 Our Angle

We explore the esoteric, emotional, and technical aspects of cinema that mainstream sites skip. We’re not afraid of complexity—but we always write with clarity, care, and curatorial joy.

✍️ Tone & Voice

Element	DDC Style
Tone	Thoughtful, poetic, informed, reverent—but never pretentious
Voice	First-person when appropriate (Kev), cinematic and semi-anthropomorphic (Sage), or neutral curatorial
Humor	Wry, clever, Easter egg-friendly; no snark or cynicism
Perspective	Cinephile-to-cinephile. Respect for the craft, the creators, and the context

We write like we’re sharing a rare tape in a midnight diner, not lecturing in a film school amphitheater.

🎯 Focus Areas

We prioritize content with:

Technical/Craft Insight: mise-en-scène, cinematography, sound design, narrative structure
Production Lore & Lost Media: buried pilots, boutique label releases, VHS history, restoration culture
Tag-Centric Explorations: built from the DDC lexicon and metadata schema
Emotional/Thematic Essays: films as feeling, tone, archetype, or echo
ScenePromptSeeds & Visual Language: storytelling through snapshots, composition, and visual tone

🧠 Core Concepts (Use Often)

Term	Definition
Mythological Crossover	Films with no direct narrative link that feel spiritually connected
Resurrection Cinema	Films rediscovered, revived, or restored into cult status
VisualStyle Tags	Used to describe a film’s tone, palette, and mood visually
Archetype Drift	When a familiar trope evolves or erodes across genres or decades
ScenePromptSeeds	Short, vivid scene fragments used to summarize visual essence
Metadata as Meaning	Tags that serve as emotional or philosophical context—not just sorting tools

🛠️ Article Structures (Suggested Formats)

🔍 Deep Dive Essay

Intro hook with emotional or mythic tone
Background or production context
Scene breakdowns or technical focus
Lexicon/tag tie-in
Closing resonance (Why it still matters)