Okay so here's the thing. I am by no means well versed in the land of big screen moving fiction. I've never seen Jaws, Rocky, The Goonies, Hocus Pocus (whatever the hell that is), Braveheart, Jurassic Park, the first 3 Terminator films, Titanic, hell I hadn't seen Shawshank Redemption until earlier this year!
I am a movie producers wet dream. Special effects can successfully keep me distracted for the full one hundred and fifty four minutes of a film (I'm looking at you Transformers 3). Plot often comes second. My memory is poor, my attention is lacking and I crave instant satisfaction from a cacophonous explosion of fire and brimstone as debris comes crashing down, missing our protagonist by an unlikely hairs breadth. Witty repartee between characters will have me hooked from the get go. When some kids are young they dream of being doctors or lawyers or even super heroes.
Not me.
Though I've often said that being Spider-Man would solve all of my problems. No, since I was young I wanted to be the funny side character of the show. The main character has way too much responsibility, the spotlight shines too brightly upon them. I wanted to be the buddy of the surly hero who would maintain the spirits of his friend with quick talking wit and insatiable goofy charm. Always having something to say seemed like such an amazing skill to me.
So when I say that I absolutely loathe "Shaky cam" and "Found Footage" movies with a fiery burning passion, you know that I don't say this lightly. I should explain.
I feel like it began with Cloverfield, though it might have reared it's ugly head long before that. Some director somewhere believed he was clever, nay, a VISIONARY in utilising the simplicity of a handheld camera following the events of a story, instead of several cameras on tripods that wouldn't give us a headache and motion sickness. Gone! exclaimed the director, Gone are the days of the Neanderthal and his stone age methods of capturing film. Gone are the days when man can watch a film and feel safe in the knowledge that they would not have to squint to properly see through the blurred movements of the silver screened footage.
On that day that man made a mortal enemy in me. Because you see, here's the thing. While this type of filming may have been a novel enterprise and an artsy retro style of filming that no one else could have possibly thought of, it became something much more.
It became, ladies and gentlemen, a plague! And it was contagious. It spread to more and more films. The term "Film Maker" now applied to any of the thousands of misguided saps out there with a handheld cam corder and delusions of grandeur. Shaky cam told them that low budget need not be a road block to success, but a ramp into the heavens of unsteady glory.
It gave them Hope.
And you know how I hate things that instill hope.
Now even big budget films like Star Trek and Man of Steel use a shakier camera to make it seem more "realistic". I'll tell you right now, if I want to see a film of some guy doing the dishes or hoovering the carpet I will implore that you grab the nearest handheld device with a camera and start making magic. But I when I pay to see a film about an alien, that looks like a suspiciously handsome and buff human being, crash land on Earth, get adopted by some sterile farmers and discover that our air and sun gives him super strength, then you know that I am not there for realism.
Long story short just put the camera of the frigging tripod, okay? Okay.
Final thought, found footage, much like shaky cameras has been done to death. Seriously, it's not an impressive way to tell a story. Are you listening big time movie executives that clearly read this blog?
But then again this is all coming from a guy who legitimately enjoyed the Green Lantern movie...
What?
Superheroes, gooood. Ryan Reynold, gooood. Blake Lively, GOOOOOD.
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