Shaky Cam - Your Thoughts? (Forked Thread: The new Star Trek movie is...)

[Pbartender]

Obviously, since it was my quote, my vote is "Can sometimes ruin a film for me" (but heavy emphasis on the 'sometimes' - it can be effective if done well, as I do understand the intent to make you feel the action).

Unfortunately, in the past couple of years it has been very poorly done in a surprising number of movies - I chalk it up to lazy cinematography or general incompetence...

...A little goes a long way, I'd suggest.

This is awfully close to how I feel about it...

If used sparsely and appropriately, it can really enhance a scene. But it's easily overused... In recent years, it seems to have become a crutch and a cover-up for directors who want to show high action combat scenes, but can't seem to afford a good choreographer.

In Star Trek it didn't bother me too much... The scenes in which it was used generally it made sense to use it. For example, the fight scene on the rumbling, unstable, dangling platform high above the planet's surface, or on the bridge of the starship frantically dodging through a field of debris that keeps bouncing off the hull. If the used too much more than they did, I would have gotten annoyed.

 

[EricNoah]

I'm not sure I buy "it's supposed to feel like a documentary" as the main reason to use it. In "Blair Witch" or "Cloverfield" sure, there was an actual camera in the story and it was acknowledged.

In Star Trek, never once did I feel like it was implied that there was a cameraman in the room. So ... I guess the technique is supposed to imply that the viewer is the camera, so to speak? If the camera is shaking, that's where I would be shaking because of the movement of what is going on in the immediate area? I guess I can see that. In the Kelvin battle, when the "camera" is kind of sucked outside the ship and it goes dead silent, that was pretty effective I guess - I kind of felt like I was pulled out there for a moment.

Still not sure what lens flare is supposed to do, though - all it does to me is make me think there is a big piece of glass between me and the action.

 

[WhatGravitas]

I guess I can see that. In the Kelvin battle, when the "camera" is kind of sucked outside the ship and it goes dead silent, that was pretty effective I guess - I kind of felt like I was pulled out there for a moment.

This sums up how I think of it - a cinematic device to convey action and motion.

And in Star Trek (and BSG), I thought it was used pretty well and the film (and the series) would be worse without it. Hence I like the effect (as long as it is used in moderation, but that's true for everything) and think it's something that's probably going to stay in the repertoire of camera usages for quite a while (just like big, panning beauty shots of scenes).

And I have to say, in Star Trek, I knew it was there, but it didn't really register as being used - it was a pretty good use of it.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Pbartender]

I'm not sure I buy "it's supposed to feel like a documentary" as the main reason to use it. In "Blair Witch" or "Cloverfield" sure, there was an actual camera in the story and it was acknowledged.

It depends on the movie and the scene, to some degree.

Take a look at how it was used in Battlestar Galactica, for example...

Typically, the shaky cam was used in the middle of a space battle, usually following the flight one or a few fighters. The view of the camera would grope around for a bit, before lining up on the subject, and then zoom in and out and focus and refocus erratically for a second or two. After all that, you'd be following the ship flying through space, with the small jitters of the shaky-cam bobbling it about a bit. That is meant to emulate a tracking scope, to put you in the viewpoint of an observer trying to follow the action through a telescope or a pair of binoculars or something similar--it's what the crewmen the Battlestar itself might have seen if they were looking out a window. It's also meant to remind us of the WWII gun camera footage you sometimes run across.

Onboard the starship Enterprise, a lot of the shaky cam work is a substitute for the old standby of rocking the camera back and forth and having everyone lean sideways, whenever the ship got hit.

 

[Klaus]

I tried watching Cloverfield on the TV and nearly vomited from motion-induced nausea. So very little, very discreet shakycam for me.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I absolutely despised the shaky camera in the most recent Batman movie, and the shaky camera during action sequences in the later two Bourne movies made them almost totally unwatchable.

I really enjoyed Cloverfield, and any shakiness felt very natural and was an important part of that film. It wouldn't feel as natural and real without all that motion.

I didn't even notice the camera shaking in Star Wars.

 

[Umbran]

I think shaky cam can be used well, but is more often used poorly. And, these days, the technique is simply used too often. Rather like 3D - it is being used in movies for which it simply isn't an enhancement.

 

[frankthedm]

shaky cam is physically harmful to me. While i enjoyed Blair witch in the theater, the headache it caused me was sheer agony. I also have trouble playing a lot of FPS games for the same reason.

By the time cloverfield rolled around, I had heard [here i think] Dramamine helped with shaky cam motion sickness, thankfully.

 

[Dykstrav]

I actually work in the film industry, and from what I've seen, shakey cam has gotten popular (at least in part) because it's cheap. Cranes and dollies are expensive pieces of gear, so when a DP tells a production manager that they don't need one, it's music to their ears. Professional steadicam operators are also expensive--most shows won't hire a professional steadicam operator for more than a day or two. It also saves on labor costs, since having less gear means that the production needs fewer grips to manage that gear. It also allows the production to move faster since the crew isn't waiting on the grips to set up a dolly track or crane, and saving shoot time saves labor for every department.

Personally, I hate the steadicam look. Some people say that it's "more immersive," but it looks extremely unnatural. Our anatomy and visual acuity tends to make things look level and steady, even when our bodies are in frenetic motion. Take a quick jog around the block and look around at several different objects quickly--things don't look like shakey cam just because you happen to be moving or changing the focus of your attention quickly. Shakey cam looks like someone that can't hold a camera steady (and in professional films, looks like someone who is too cheap to hire a steadicam operator or get a crane or dolly).

In short, shakey can absolutely ruins movies for me. It looks unnatural and inexpensive, especially when someone on a multimillion-dollar film can't srping the greenbacks to rent a dolly. But then again, these folks are making multimillion-dollar pictures while I work on movie-of-the-week stuff and direct-to-video releases, so make of that what you will.

When I direct, I try to get classically-trained instituional mode DPs. I'm probably one of the few people in the world under the age of sixty that still shoots a master shot then breaks up the coverage... Most people my age don't even storyboard or come up with a shot list any more, they just show up and shoot "what feels right." That sort of attitude also contributes heavily to the use of shakey cam.

Lens flare is also gaining popularity, especially with shakey cam, because it makes convenient points to edit. You can cut from shot-to-shot around the lens flares and (theoretically) the flare is distracting enough that the audience doesn't notice the edit. I personally think of lens flare as a technical error, but it somehow seems to be a badge of honor amongst those seeking an "indie" or "young" look for their projects. People are even deliberately adding lens flare into CG scenes to make them "more realistic."

One last deal, as long as I'm griping about technical minutiae... The use of soft focus is also way overdone. Soft focus can be used effectively in a dramatic context, but using it all over the place makes it look like the DP or director didn't want us to see something in the background (at best) or that the 1st AC doesn't know how to pull focus (which makes the shot look cheap and amateurish).

 

[Wombat]

For me a little bit of shaky cam goes a long way.

Originally it was used to give the "You Are There" feel -- look at late 60s/early 70s cinéma vérité for that level. Then came The Blair Witch Project -- again, handhelds gave a "you are there" feel, a "reality" to an unreal situation...

...and now it is used so often that if merely feels like, "Oh. They used shaky cam ... again. Whatever." Like many trendy ideas, handhelds have been overused to the point where they are ultimately a parody of themselves.

So, let's cut back on them a bit, okay? It's beginning to feel redundant. As I said, a little bit goes a long way.