The “found footage” conceit is the latest filmmaking fad, but should it stick around?
YES
Over the past few years, there has been a wild increase in the number of found footage-style movies saturating the market — films that are shot in such a way as to imply they are simply an editing together of clips and video discovered by the studio.
In February alone, audiences will see rampaging super-powered teens in the film Chronicle and the premiere of Paranormal Activity creator Oren Peli’s The River, a primetime horror TV series composed entirely of so-called found footage.
Yes, many of these movies focus on horror, but if we began considering found footage as a stylistic choice instead of a gimmick, all its possibilities would start to show themselves. There are plenty of producers and viewers excited about its low-budget potential to tell great stories, and from an artistic standpoint, the faux-realism of the filming method has plenty to offer daring filmmakers.
The found footage approach isn’t a new filmmaking tool, however. The most recognizable movie filmed in the style is The Blair Witch Project, released in 1999, while the earliest example dates as far back as the 1980 cult classic Cannibal Holocaust.
It may not be new, but since the indie-to-mainstream success of Paranormal Activity in 2007, it seems that found footage has found itself a stable audience in our highly technological era.
In this day and age it’s as if everyone with access to the Cineplex also has access to YouTube, smartphones and camcorders. When someone captures an event on his or her iPhone and posts the video online, the entire world has access to the story from that particular point of view.
Given the context of our society, this genre of film isn’t a gimmick at all; rather, it is a fairly accurate — if hyperbolic — portrayal of how we all as Internet media consumers experience a lot of the world around us.
The only gimmicks in these films are elements that would be considered gimmicks in any style of movie, such as the ubiquitous pop-up scares that litter lowbrow horror films.
While the found footage process has its own tropes, most naysayers are just projecting tropes from bad horror movies onto the found footage genre simply because the vast majority of discovery-style motion pictures are indeed horror films.
There are several exceptions to the omnipresence of the horror theme, as with 2010 fantasy TrollHunter or the unhinged serial killer satire Man Bites Dog, circa 1992.
That’s not to mention Chronicle, which is more of a superhero adventure than anything else, and the upcoming Todd Phillips-produced Project X, a black comedy.
Yes, it certainly is scary to pretend that a movie you’re watching is actual footage of something that someone experienced, but I think it’s important that Hollywood producers and directors take note of all the untapped possibilities with presenting a found-footage film.
While audiences may get tired of Hollywood constantly trying to scare them, it’s doubtful they will ever get tired of a good story told in an interesting way. Found footage could be a great style of filmmaking, if we gave it a chance to breathe.
— Zachary Berman
NO
Once upon a time, raw footage of an actor looking straight to camera always fell to the cutting room floor. In later years, editors saved the frames to compile a DVD blooper reel.
Now, the slow-burning mainstream movement of “mockumentary” television, along with the “found footage” trend in recent horror and sci-fi films such as the Paranormal Activity movies and the upcoming Chronicle, is gaining traction. The idea is that someone stumbles upon footage of an eccentric community of quintessential Americana or some unthinkable, horrific acts. Luckily, cameras were on hand to record the action.
Now, a TV series favoring talking heads and handheld camerawork over artistic cinematography or sitcom environment is no longer designated as the quirky underdog. “Breaking the fourth wall,” or addressing the audience during a theatrical production, is nothing new, even if it is jarring at first. Bill “the Bard” Shakespeare had Othello‘s Iago make eyebrow-raising cracks at Elizabethan theater-goers long before John Krasinski perfected his secretary-seducing eye roll-smirk combo on NBC’s The Office, or, for the BBC original fans, before Martin Freeman honed a sigh that would represent late-’20s disillusionment.
The cast of trophy magnets on ABC’s Modern Family and NBC’s hit Parks and Recreation mastered The Office’s mockumentary formula of a bland setting (a meek paper company, an elderly patriarch’s family dynamics, a small-town governmental department) sprinkled with zany characters you can’t help but root for. They thrive because they provide relief to the average viewer, who watches a character make his or her own life’s mundane plot more amusing by association.
The issue comes when bandwagon jumpers forego innovation. Upcoming projects in the genre are rather recycled. Hulu is debuting Battleground, a mockumentary of a Wisconsin political arena (Amy Poehler’s ears are tingling, but it seems more The West Wing than Parks and Rec), and there are rumors abuzz of an Office offshoot following Dwight Schrute’s beet farm. I wish I were kidding.
The only person who might succeed in perpetuating the trend is the man who arguably sparked it, Ricky Gervais. His forthcoming BBC2 series featuring heavy celeb cameos stars Warwick Davis (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2) as an exaggerated version of himself trying to land back on the Hollywood hill.
The project is titled Life’s Too Short, a tongue-in-cheek reference to Davis’ dwarfism. However, if a refreshing original idea gets crowded, no matter how talented its company, by definition it is no longer unique.
— Hilary Weisman
berman @umdbk.com,
diversions@umdbk.com
