shaky camera: love or hate?

shaky camera: love or hate?

  • Love it! it makes everything better!!

    Votes: 2 1.4%

  • Hate it! it makes me sick!

    Votes: 45 32.4%

  • Only when it's done right.

    Votes: 92 66.2%
  • Total voters
    139
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
1) Shaky cam
2) Zooms that stop, backup, then adjust a couple of times more.
3) visble focus adjustments, due to shallow DoF, moving camera, moving people, etc.
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those too!

speaking of shallow depth of field.. ugh. it's nice, but like everything else, if it's overdone/not used in the right situation, blah... can't stand it. it's like watching a movie filmed under water.

azharrison said:
The shakey cam thing is a bit overdone and to obvious in many movies. I am a HUGE fan of the Bourne series... but that technique was used extensively in the second and third Bourne films.
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i haven't seen the Bourne films in quiet a while, but i read that in the second and third, every single shot was framed. common!
 
The only time I watched something and thought it added to the look and feel of the film, is Bloody Sunday. It was purposely shot verite, and it worked for this film. It was really the only way to shoot this film.
 
BLahey said:
I think it worked for: The Shield, BSG, The Bourne Flicks and District 9. other than that it usually appears obviously deliberate.
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It's funny, these are EXACTLY the films that come to mind when I try to think of good handheld work.

District 9 is one of my all-time favorite movies, and I felt the handheld was immersing instead of distracting. All the shots were steady enough for you to see everything that you need, and the transition from documentary camera-operator POV to steady wides to shooting camera was so seamless that I forgot this movie began like a documentary :D

Some films I love even when I catch myself noticing the excessive shaking, like Ali, which is in my top 20, but there are some shots that take me out of the movie to consider the implications of the camera shake rather than being immersed into the scene by the camera shake.

Then there are some films whose directors need their hands slapped. I won't bother listing them; we all know what they are...
 
FWIW, shaky cam is shaky cam its not the same thing as shooting deliberately and precisely off the shoulder. I love shooting off the shoulder when it suits the style - check out the westfest winner, shot by Kholi Hicks. Not shaky cam, well executed off the shoulder fight scenes. Watch anything shot by Chris Doyle - he loves getting dirty with it and making the camera get right into the scene - again not shaky cam.

I wanted to make this distinction as it seems many seem to be equating steadicam as a minimum to not being shaky.
 
... and Steadicam is far from the minimum. Done right, Steadicam is very close to a dolly in smoothness - at times indistinguishable.

- Mikko
 
I hate it!

Having said that, it works for me only sometimes as POV or in scenes like the invasion in Private Ryan.
But even as POV one should use it only slightly since when you walk or run it doesn´t look that shaky at all.

Fumy thing is, we researched, engineered and invented the best tripods, cranes, steadycams, motion control rigs and all sorts of stabilizers for years. Now, that we finally nailed it - some folks throw it all over board and shake their cameras on purpose.

Frank
 
The shaky camera only exists so that uncreative critics can use a line about it giving them seizures and/or making them want to throw up.

I don't think you can love it, and I know it's trendy to claim to hate it - but in many pieces, a lightly-handheld (probably fluid-head, but loose) feel is the most natural thing.
 
BLahey said:
I think it worked for: The Shield, BSG, The Bourne Flicks and District 9.
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For me, it completely ruined Bourne Ultimatum. Made it absolutely unwatchable. I mean - a scene with two guys just sitting at a table talking while the camera bounces around like operator's a heroin addict who ran out of dope the night before? Come on... Ditto for Cloverfield, which was literally nauseating in the theater, although thankfully I managed to not actually puke. I did feel nauseous for a couple of hours afterwards however. Only time that's ever happened to me from a movie...

Bourne Identity is a whole other thing though. A truly excellent film IMO, and *vastly* steadier camerawork. Enough so that I don't really think of it as a shakycam film at all, and I generally *hate* shakycam, and am always very aware of it (which is half of the problem - the other half is that it sucks. IMHO..) .

So I don't exactly understand how one could say that it worked well "in the Bourne flicks".

But maybe I'm just being too persnickety here...
 
Bourne Identity was much steadier because they used an actual steadycam, where Supremacy and Ultimatum were shoulder mounted for the vast majority. I personally really liked it. I felt it added an element of realism. Kind of like, "Wait, that's not a smooth, polished move. It looks like the cameraman didn't know what was going to happen next, it must be real".
 
Ted Spencer said:
FDitto for Cloverfield, which was literally nauseating in the theater, although thankfully I managed to not actually puke. I did feel nauseous for a couple of hours afterwards however. Only time that's ever happened to me from a movie...
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Get a Bluray version of "Grand Prix"(1966), get a big screen, sit such that nearly your entire field of view is the screen... watch movie...

That's essentially how I saw "Grand Prix" when it was in 'Cinerama' Theaters... I got car sick...

I didn't even buy "Cloverfield"(2008)...

The 'reason' why "Grand Prix" had this effect, was, it was part of the move to 'realism', and cameras were mounted on Forumula 1 cars, and footage cut into the film... giving a 'realistic you are in the driver's seat' look... and for me that 'realism' included illness...
 
I hate shakey-cam. makes my eyes hurt, and IMVHO tends towards pretentiousness.
I was unluky enough to catch a spot of "Cloverfield" on the telly a couple of months ago. Had to shut my eyes and reach for the remote.
Perhaps I have an extreme reaction, but it's no good if you have to watch the movie with your eyes shut. (Yeah, I know ....)
Dave
 
The best point that I think is a PRO to the shaky cam is the Battlestar Galactica series.. I have seen people purposely shake their camera which I do not agree with. They would intentionally make dips, or shake the camera. Thats not what battlestar does. If you watch BSG, a majority of the time, the camera motions are almost like a person breathing (the slight up and down from inhale/exhale) or if a sound is heard, and you turn your head a tiny bit in the direction to hear a sound. It uses a natural approach to how a person might view a scene. Granted they do fast zooms to certain objects, but again it works. Its almost like your a person squinting to see something. In one episode, a fight scene between Apollo and Starbuck, the camera was all over the place as if you were someone trying to jump in and break it up. What I loved was when the camera followed (very fast camera motion) a punch thrown by Starbuck that hits Apollo's face and immediatly after, Apollo winds up to punch back and the camera almost has a human motion of slowing down, and reverses direction to follow the punch going back to Starbucks face (like a humanistic double take when you realize something is happening) in one shot. I know its hard to visualize unless you've seen it, but creating a shaky/humanist approach to the camera work has a time and a place and when done correctly brings the audience in...

my 2 cents :)
 
Sometimes it I think it's used to hide a bad screenplay, just like all the jump cuts and quick zoom-ins that are used on the TV show "The Office". Would the show be that interesting or funny without all that crap? Probably not.

Friday Night Lights used it pretty effectively with their long lenses, but their out-of-focus blips were sometimes annoying.

I think filmmakers notice that more than the general moviegoing publc. The audience may dislike a film like that but not realize why. Of course, either way, you want 'em to like your film.

- Craig
 
Craig_Tarry said:
Sometimes it I think it's used to hide a bad screenplay, just like all the jump cuts and quick zoom-ins that are used on the TV show "The Office". Would the show be that interesting or funny without all that crap? Probably not.
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While I agree that *sometimes* camera movement can be used to hide deficiencies a screenplay, I don't think THE OFFICE should be used as an example of that. In that show , the camerawork and editing styles are deliberately used to give it a documentary feel, like we're watching "real life" being recorded.
 
"Man On Fire" used it very well ... even though it was annoying to me when it was going on, when it finally stops it's like ........... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh ............
 
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