I've just spent a week at the Independent Film Festival Boston where I saw about 12 films. I noticed something that has come up from time to time here on Indietalk - Shaky versus Still camerawork. There were many films that deployed both techniques, but I saw the contrast most notably in two films.
Beneath the Harvest Sky, which opened the festival, is a gritty coming of age story about two teens in a rural town on the Maine/Canada border. The entire film, every frame, is shot in a very shaky style. You can see what I mean in the trailer below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfYMlSN1aTc
I know a lot of this is personal taste, but I have to be honest and say that for me this style became very distracting, very quickly. If you look at the trailer, they had some great shots, great locations and fantastic lighting, but then it was all defeated by the extreme jumpiness of the camera at the edges of the frame.
As a contrast, the Jenny Slate film Obvious Child, which I also saw at the festival, was pretty locked-down. One thing I noticed is that the camera gets bit of shakiness only when showing us Jenny's POV to the audience. You can actually see this in the trailer below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2GN3wdfqbA
I also noticed this in short films. In one in particular, they had a great location and several really good shots that seemed well composed, but the camera seemed almost as if the DP was shaking the camera a little extra on purpose.
Like I said, I think this is a matter of personal taste, but do some people find shaky-cam a bit distracting?
Beneath the Harvest Sky, which opened the festival, is a gritty coming of age story about two teens in a rural town on the Maine/Canada border. The entire film, every frame, is shot in a very shaky style. You can see what I mean in the trailer below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfYMlSN1aTc
I know a lot of this is personal taste, but I have to be honest and say that for me this style became very distracting, very quickly. If you look at the trailer, they had some great shots, great locations and fantastic lighting, but then it was all defeated by the extreme jumpiness of the camera at the edges of the frame.
As a contrast, the Jenny Slate film Obvious Child, which I also saw at the festival, was pretty locked-down. One thing I noticed is that the camera gets bit of shakiness only when showing us Jenny's POV to the audience. You can actually see this in the trailer below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2GN3wdfqbA
I also noticed this in short films. In one in particular, they had a great location and several really good shots that seemed well composed, but the camera seemed almost as if the DP was shaking the camera a little extra on purpose.
Like I said, I think this is a matter of personal taste, but do some people find shaky-cam a bit distracting?