Best uses of hand held photography.

Batutta

Batutta

Major Contributor
Inspired by a tangent on the Spider Man 3 thread, I thought of making my list of the best uses of handheld photography. In no particular order--

1. The 13 minute climax of Children of Men
2. The boat sequences on Jaws, which were all done hand held by Michael Chapman and which he rightly bragged about on the DVD Special Features.
3. The "Demon-Cam" in Evil Dead 1 & 2. Not exactly hand held as the camera was bolted to a plank of wood and carried by two guys, but I'm not splitting hairs here.
4. The show 24. They've always done it right, never overkill or fake looking like NYPD BLUE. Also great use of split screens.
5. Aliens, specifically the first attack in the processing plant. Cameron in general has always used hand-held exceedingly well, and this is still his best movie.
6. The entirety of Saving Private Ryan. The story doesn't hold up on repeat viewing, but it almost doesn't matter. You can't shoot a WW II movie now without being influenced by Spielberg's work here.
7. 28 Days Later. Pioneered some now overused horror movie camera techniques, mainly frantic high speed shutter shots of crazed zombies attacking the camera accompanied by loud shrieking noises.
8. The Lord of The Rings movies. Sometimes a little too frenetic for my tastes but pretty groundbreaking for a fantasy film. The camerawork helped ground the films in reality and gave them an immediacy and emotional intensity the genre often lacks.
9. Battlestar Galactica (new version). More for the space battles, which look like they're shot by documentary cameraman in space. A brilliant choice that pushes the art of special effects photography a little further.
10. A Hard Day's Night.
 
Any John Cassavetes film, Most notably Faces and A Woman Under the Influence. Also: Breathless and Night of the Living Dead.

I love the use of hand-held. It is in fact my own person style. I listed many other films, but then I realized, although I love the looks of them and they are well shot, the use of hand-held wasnt really an innovation. For the films I listed, hand-held was new and very anti-Hollywood at the time they were made. That's why I'm going to have to disagree about 24, and most movies nowadays, really. If we're talking about the look of hand-held, then I'd agree it looks cool, but in terms of innovation, it isn't really. It's kind of obvious and contrived. Hand-held used to be a radical way of creating realism and invoking a very specific feeling. Now, it just seems like it's used to make things look "Intense" or "realistic". I don't think any of what I'm saying makes sense. I guess hand-held just means something different to me.
 
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love the use of handheld in Breaking the Waves, The Son and Rosetta, Morvern Callar, and Lilya 4-ever. I hope to push the envelope on handheld camera work in my own feature this fall. I've developed some interesting character-based motivations for it and look forward to incorporating it.
 
Good choices, Batutta.

Though if you like Galactica, you should check out the sadly short-lived sf series "Firefly," the entire visual aesthetic of which BG has lifted in its entirety, from the frequently blown-out highlights, to the handheld live-action, to the gorgeous, verite-style space sequences (the same VFX company, Zoic, did the effects and won an Emmy for Firefly, and does the effects for BG).

I love the look of BG, but Firefly did it first and features phenomenal cinematography and camera operating. Frequent and gorgeous use of lens flares too.

In addition to most of your picks, here are few more of my favorites:

Husbands and Wives
Se7en (the "chasing John Doe" sequence)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind

And let's not forget the films of the French New Wave, that pioneered the use of handheld cinematography.

Batutta said:
Inspired by a tangent on the Spider Man 3 thread, I thought of making my list of the best uses of handheld photography. In no particular order--

1. The 13 minute climax of Children of Men
2. The boat sequences on Jaws, which were all done hand held by Michael Chapman and which he rightly bragged about on the DVD Special Features.
3. The "Demon-Cam" in Evil Dead 1 & 2. Not exactly hand held as the camera was bolted to a plank of wood and carried by two guys, but I'm not splitting hairs here.
4. The show 24. They've always done it right, never overkill or fake looking like NYPD BLUE. Also great use of split screens.
5. Aliens, specifically the first attack in the processing plant. Cameron in general has always used hand-held exceedingly well, and this is still his best movie.
6. The entirety of Saving Private Ryan. The story doesn't hold up on repeat viewing, but it almost doesn't matter. You can't shoot a WW II movie now without being influenced by Spielberg's work here.
7. 28 Days Later. Pioneered some now overused horror movie camera techniques, mainly frantic high speed shutter shots of crazed zombies attacking the camera accompanied by loud shrieking noises.
8. The Lord of The Rings movies. Sometimes a little too frenetic for my tastes but pretty groundbreaking for a fantasy film. The camerawork helped ground the films in reality and gave them an immediacy and emotional intensity the genre often lacks.
9. Battlestar Galactica (new version). More for the space battles, which look like they're shot by documentary cameraman in space. A brilliant choice that pushes the art of special effects photography a little further.
10. A Hard Day's Night.
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Billy Pilgrim said:
I love the use of hand-held. It is in fact my own person style. I listed many other films, but then I realized, although I love the looks of them and they are well shot, the use of hand-held wasnt really an innovation.
Click to expand...

I wasn't really interested in who was first, just the most skillful uses of hand held as a filmmaking tool. Just because you did something first doesn't mean you used it best. I probably would have gotten to the Cassavetes films at some point, I just ran out of steam, but that's why we do these lists.
 
The Bourne movies have a great handheld documentary style that I loved seeing in United 93. Saving Private Ryan also ranks up there....

- Kyle
 
Yeah, the Bourne movies were great, and Paul Greengrass really bumped up the docu-style for the filming of the Supremacy. I'm really looking forward to the Bourne Ultimadum.
 
The Shield. Yeah I know, its a television show. But its got some amazing handheld going on. Some of the most immersive ive seen.
 
The Bourne Movies were great, except for the fight scene in the house for Supremacy. It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure that was actually one big blur. I know it was intentional, but I prefer how it was shot in Identity, where it was kind of a blur, but you could at least make out the fight choreography, giving it that cool effect that he's so fast you can almost not catch it on camera.

I very much agree with Battlestar Galactica. Some don't enjoy it, like my Father. It was the reason he never got into to. But I love it. Really feels like a docu crew on board that you never think is there.
 
Jarhead keeping everything shoulder-level handheld was really good. Not that it was a great movie, but I think that really adds to the feel of being there and kind of brings you back to war documentaries without being in your face about it. Wasn't it entirely handheld?
 
21 Grams
I don't know what it was really good handheld as much as was just appropariate and effective. the visual style, the narrative structure, the editing all worked well together

i also agree with the shield and both bourne movies
 
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