Como explicado no livro de Jason Bailey The Ultimate Woody Allen Film Companheiro Allen estava desenvolvendo seu estilo visual gradualmente, estabelecendo a maioria de suas “impressões individuais” ao longo dos anos 70 e 80. Este estilo de enquadramento parece ser uma ligeira variação de uma ideia do seu Annie Hall cinematógrafo Gordon Willis :
Woody developed another of his “individual imprints” in Annie Hall—the surprisingly radical idea of a frame that actors move in and out of freely, rather than one that captures their every move. It occurred accidentally; while shooting one of the Alvy/Annie dialogue scenes, Allen went to Willis with a concern. “I said to Gordie, ‘Hey, if we shoot Keaton this way, I’m going to be offstage when I do my joke,’” he recalled. “And he said, ‘That’s okay, they can hear you.’” It was a simple realization for Woody, but revolutionary. (“In every movie there’s at least one scene where nobody’s on and there’s just talking,” he’s said. “I throw one in always in honor of Gordon.”)