The 'found footage' genre, in my opinion, is one of the most compelling ways to shoot horror films. The events on screen are usually seen through a camera of one or more characters involved, who often speak off screen. The filming is done by the actors themselves as they recite their lines off camera. It generally has shaky camera work and naturalistic acting is often used. This genre dates back to at least as far as the 1980s in Cannibals Holocaust, it then became increasingly popular after the release of the Blair Witch Project, 1999, and Paranormal Activity, 2007. The 'footage style' really allows the viewer to believe in what they are seeing; it more relates to the viewer, like it is something that they could have recorded on their video cameras at home.
The Paranormal Activity series has most definitely become one of my favorite movie series because of the way that it is shot. It really makes me believe that all these events are true. Sorry for the spoiler if you actually believed that this series is real. One of my favorite camera shots throughout this series was used in Paranormal Activity 3.
The device that created this amazing shot was the "fan cam." One of the actors in the beginning placed a camera on top of an oscillating fan allowing the camera to record multiple rooms. This creates a lot of tension in many different scenes throughout the movie, not only from the speed that the camera was oscillating but also the placement of the camera. Having the camera set up in the living room which is between the kitchen and the dining room. There were so many scenes that used this camera to scare the hell out of people.
Having the movie being recorded in more of a naturalistic way, but also having unique shots, and having the movie be part of the found footage genre definitely work for these movies. When I watch these movies I have to admit I get a little frightened to sleep alone at night. These are must watch movies in my book!
In the year 1999 a movie called the Blair Witch Project came out. It was a horror movie based off a story about something called the blair witch that lived in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland and killed people who went camping. The movie is based off of 3 friends who are making a documentary about this phenomenon. The movie made millions when it came out because the people that made it were very clever.
The whole movie is shot half on a hand held consumer based camcorder and the other on an actual film camera. In the entire film, aside from the woods, they use 2-3 actual locations one of which is a parking lot. Also, aside from the 3 main characters there are maybe 4 other people in the whole film. They shot and produced the entire thing for roughly 25,000 dollars but made millions at the box office. This is because they spent a ton of money on advertising and they started hyping the movie about 6 months to a year in advance. During the ads they played they hyped the movie as the scariest thing ever. Because of this insane advertising, hyping the movie as the scariest thing ever, everyone who went to see it was extremely scared. The funny thing is, is that the movie itself is horrible. Its not very scary and its very poorly acted. The way in which it is shot is confusing as well because they switch between the film camera and the camera the main characters are using for there documentary a lot. I really don't like this movie but i also appreciate how the producers made millions because they were very clever. It proved that advertising is extremely powerful. This was also one of the first movies to use the internet to advertise for it. The movie was touted as a true story online and thus millions were already wrapped up in seeing it.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Faking Reality
This past weekend I saw the new film Apollo 18. It was a good movie, a great idea, good acting (crapy ending), but the most interesting thing was that throughout the entire movie, both before and after, it pretended that it was an actual collection of leaked footage from the government. This seems to be a phenomena that has taken hold since the Blair Witch Project. Thriller movies pretending to be based on true events.
This is different than a Mocumentary. A mocumentary is a fiction film that presents itself as a documentary, they are usually a satire or a parody, and almost always comedic. The new trend of thriller films that present themselves as fact are serious or scary. Films like Paranormal Activity and Cloverfield are filmed in such a way as to appear to be raw footage. Apollo 18 uses this technique as well,as if the footage we are seeing was originally filmed by those in the movie. Some films take this a little to far. The Fourth Kind is a film about an alien abduction and the film makers made it seem as if it were real. they even went through the trouble of have two lead actresses, one as the "Real" women in "Historical" footage, and another to be the actress playing the "real" woman in the dramatizations. They faked news releases and created a website of facts so that if you looked into the film it would seem true. They even went as far as to not credit the actress who played the "Real" women in the historical footage, to make her seem like a real person.
This new take on thrillers is an interesting trend. I believe that this way of marketing and presenting a story makes more people want to see it. Inside every viewer is a little part of them that wants movies to be true. So if the film presents itself as true, it makes it more interesting and gives it an edge. I feel that in the near future we will see many more films that are completely fictitious but present themselves as factual, simply because it sells.
