I. Hate. Shakycam.

^ Well its irritatingngggggggg. D:

Remakes will never die out, maybe the rate they come out, but never die, they have been around for decades and decades and decades.

Re-watching The Strangers has led me thinking two things:

1. Damn this is a good film
2. Can someone please buy these people a tripod

In some films a hand held camera make sense, the recently discussed Blair Witch Project is a perfect example, it should be in hand held, it is how it is meant to be but in The Strangers I just don't see why, it is not a film that moves around a lot from one shot to the next, it does not use a lot of cut shots over all and yet throughout the film the camera cannot seem to stay still. It did not ruin my enjoyment of the film but I did notice it and it did annoy me.

Do you find similar things in films that annoy you and should it tripods be used more often than not?

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I guess I haven't seen many films with this... Someone mentioned "Blair Witch" which I have seen, but wasn't it supposed to be a low-budget film, that pretended to be real.. I guess I can understand that there. I don't mind when a director does it tastefully, for a few seconds, a short scene, but I would get sick of it after a while.

I can't remember what director said this (might be Wilder), but how silly it is to have scary music before something scary is going to happen. It takes the suspense, the surprise. I actually think silence is more scarier and would be more surprising.

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Lars von Trier uses it all the time, and well. Why would a character with an erratic state of mind be centered and shot steadily with a tripod (look at several scenes in Chinatown; they're shot with a handheld camera)? It seems contrary. Look at it the other way around, you could say the some thing for directors like Antonioni and Tarkovsky: they never move the camera, and rarely cut. Why would they use handheld for a film that's meant to be meditative and quiet? If you don't like it, that's fine, if you find it disorienting, that's fine too. But the director uses it for a reason. Dismissing it as "pointless" is silly

Handheld and shakycam are two different things .. and yes shaky has a whole lot of haters. There are definitely certain scenes where I personally would want to use it.

For example.. starship gets hit by missiles. Hell yes shake that camera!
Two people fighting… eh, no thank you. I don't enjoy it when I can't tell whats going on.

I really enjoy the handheld look of 24. I'm experimenting with handheld in my latest short.

I don't see how they're two different things. A quick look at Wikipedia will tell you that they're synonymous.

Perhaps you can explain to me then why they are two entirely separate articles, rather than a typical redirect for synonymous topics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaky_camera
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand-held_camera

As you can see, hand-held is listed as another name for "shaky cam"(which, to me, sounds more colloquial). But as for the separate articles, I don't know. There is no difference.

I don't know if there's a difference in the terms (though it's pretty hard to be prescriptivist about relatively new, made-up terms). But even if you think they're wrong not to use the terms interchangeably, the pertinent point for purposes of this discussion is that people who say they hate "shakycam" are not necessarily saying they hate all instances of handheld camerawork. All "shakycam" is handheld, but not all handheld is "shakycam."

Good point.

I would like to add that if it's handheld, it will shake. That's what happens when you move and hold a camera, unless there's a steadicam or a tripod. It may not shake uncontrollably, like in a Paul Greengrass or Marc Forster movie or something, but it WILL shake.

Right. And for the record, I don't really mind that. I'm completely on board with foster's earlier example, where he said he was okay with it when a missile hits a spaceship, where I know what's happened and am seeing the result, but not during hand to hand combat, where it stops me from knowing what's going on beyond a flurry of limbs.

Just going off the wiki articles, I would say the difference is that hand-held shake is organic whereas shakycam shake is artificially/purposefully induced.

Definitely has a blurred line and some cross over between the two. One time I was going to do a silent film with shaky cam because I thought it would be an amusing juxtaposition but my crew rejected both of those attributes

Handheld has been around for a long time but shakycam seems to be a relatively new phenomenon.

How did you guys feel about I am Sam or Takers? was that too much camera movement?

i like it. It's overused in some movies for my preference. Top tier makers use it as well.

Oh man, one of my pals who I regularly watch films with hates shakycam so much. Its hilarious to see him get all riled up. Sometimes I even specifically pick an extra shaky film (evil)

I think there's a line with shakycam. Used subtly it adds to a film, but it can be and often is horribly overused. If it seems justified in the context of the film, i.e. the film is kind of live, or dangerous or rough in some way then I am ok with it. Even then though there's a point where its 'shaky just to be shaky' and its very off putting for me. Subtle shaky and I have no issues.

"Shaky cam, also called queasy cam, is a cinematic technique used to give a scene an ENG (electronic news-gathering) or documentary look to persuade viewers that the subject or scene being filmed was happening live without rehearsal or any artifice. It is often used in fights and other action scenes. When used to excess, the shaky cam technique can make viewers feel sick."
https://www.videouniversity.com/articles/shaky-cam/

Now, why this? Why using this? What's going on in hollywood?
I remember in 2008 when TAKEN was out. A lot and a lot of friends text me something like "TAKEN IT'S A MUST SEE ACTION FILM", where's the action in that movie? I couldn't believe how bad the action was. It was the first time I saw how this shaky cam can be a dangerous thing for a action sequence. The Bourne Ultimatum was out in 2007, one year before TAKEN, and that was an ok use of Shaky Cam, it was a good way to show Matt Damon kicking asses without know how to fight. The director Paul Greengrass knows how to do it. But... today this is a disease. Even the editing this days looks awful!!
I mean, look at this:

What is this?
One day, I was watching Keanu reaching Patrick in the middle of a neighboorhood without getting lost on the sequences and James Cameron switching through 18 cameras just to show us Arnie shooting in the head of T-1000 on the elevator. And we can complete understand what's going on on the screen.
Now we got this:

RIP
I'm searching why they are using this in every hollywood action sequence today! But I can't find! Even Super Heroes uses Shaky Cam today. Hell, even Robocop and Elysium.
"They don't know how to fight"
Then contract people that can fight
Uma Thurman doesn't know how to fight but in Kill Bill in 2003 we can understand what the hell is going on on the screen.
Maybe you guys can help me figure out why so many bad action sequences!
The american independent home video it's doing a better job then BlockBusters. Undisputed for example.
Now, thank God we have John Wick, we can see Keanu on the screen, WE CAN SEE THE ACTION. That's an action movie. That's my reason to watch an action movie in the first place.

This is not action, this is pure shaky cam:


Now, look how good they can use shaky cam without make the viewers get lost:


I really want to understand this and really wish that they stop and take notes with John Wick. That's action.

Shaky cam is the mainstream equivalent of POV porn, it's supposed to "put the viewer right in the middle of the action!" or some such nonsense. It's a cheap gimmick and I can't stand it.

For me fights should be like ballet, I want to be able to appreciate the choreography in all of its glory. Can you imagine the atrocity of someone filming Swan Lake using queasy cam? The same should apply to martial arts sequences.

I don't mind it in certain Von Trier films like Dancer In The Dark. For the most part it is annoying though, yeah.

I was one of the few people that didnt like The Rock with Cage & Connery. It wasnt done with shaky cam but Michael Bay had the camera so close/right on top of the action I could hardly make it out, kinda like a shaky cam negative effect...without actually using shaky cam. Thats pretty bad actually.