In my interview with REC co-director Jaume Balaguero for Twitch (watch here) we got onto the subject of keeping modern audiences engaged with cinema as a form of entertainment. To this end him and Paco were inspired to come up with the one handheld camera POV for their horror hit REC. It does seem odd that both their production and that of Cloverfield went into production and were shot around the same time. I’m not pointing fingers as I’ve never determined the true origins of this coincidence. There is a new groundswell in cinema making communities that in order to compete with the Youtube generation that they have to take the cinema experience one step further with even more entrenched and immersive experiences. Taking cinema down to one frame with one handheld camera seems to be a great way to raise the stakes and provide a very interactive experience within the sensibilities of modern audiences.
The one handheld camera movies are hardly new, but the form and style that both Cloverfield and REC realize are. In them they have formed the next generation of cinema. At the heart of this, both films want to plunge the audience right into the center of the action. So they employ one constant frame for the audience that is filtered with a “near reality but not reality” composition and editing style. We see long takes with a single handheld camera to establish that what we are experiencing might have really happened. The twists and turns an audience might in a typical film that is shot with multiple cameras and with masters and close ups, is completely thrown out the window. Now they have the audiences attention and much like a first person video game they are following the film along having no idea what will happen next.
In doing this new approach though, they create a new challenge – how to show reality with a handheld without alienating the audience and maintaining the tone and tension. You see when you do this approach conventional wisdom says that you should shake the camera ever so often so the audience is reminded that this could be real. So a new question pops up and that is how can one space out the shakiness. Neither film seems to be particularly sure about this answer. In REC you will notice they balance this out with more stationary moments that seemed damn near timed to when they can explode into horrific chaos again. In Cloverfield they do sort of employ this technique but mostly and to what I really think undercuts what could have been an amazing movie, they go for jump cuts. We get huge chunks of the timeline cut out so that we can jump ahead and avoid longer experiences of the shaky camera.
A scary experience drenches us in its atmosphere. It takes its time to methodically whirl us in its own pace without ever letting go. So with the one handheld camera POV films I think the next wave will instead of trying to employ more and more jump cuts to whisk around, will instead time out like REC when it’s appropriate to shake. The most important thing isn’t to wink back at the audience, but to keep them in the tone of your film with the appropriate level of tension. You don’t need constant shakes to do this and you can largely cheat and not do so. I know that sounds crazy, but I’m going out on a limb to predict the next wave of similar films will instead opt for stabilized handheld throughout with only minimal shaking. Jump cutting just does not work. There is no other way to do it. This new tide of cinema can really help take us down dark alleys and bright bridges we have never been before, but first they need to learn how to cheat and craft new conventions without caving in to the work before them. This new art will plunge us into longer takes and more immersive worlds where fiction and reality will blur and we will feel like were are in that holodeck room on Star Trek Next Generation.
Although too episodic and over relying on jump cuts I think in enough places that I find Cloverfield absolutely amazing edge of your seat entertainment. Where REC goes for intimate and practical, it goes for what if the world was ending romp and damn well nearly succeeds in pulling it off. You would be hard pressed to think that many moments in the film aren’t too far off from how they might really happen. Sure there is some initial melodrama, but when the going gets challenging and visionary, the film delivers in spades. It’s just too bad the film couldn’t properly glue the gaps inbetween them together to make something more cohesive. Hard to really complain though when they are right on the doorsteps along with the REC in trying to give us something new and most importantly a reason why going to the movie theater in the dark with a roomful of strangers can be so powerful.
Amazon.com Link:
Bu the Cloverfield [Blu-ray]
