# A short rant...



## jks9199 (Aug 14, 2010)

How much money was wasted developing Steadicam and similar technology to keep a camera still while filming?

I ask only because it seems of late that nobody is holding the cameras steady when they film movies or tv...  They shake, swing, bounce...  It's a wonder we don't have legions of people motion sick in theaters and living rooms! 

:barf:


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## Omar B (Aug 14, 2010)

I'm with you man, I cannot stand the shaking camera at all.  Not only that, but now we have camera men who cannot frame a picture (why is the subject in the top right corner of the screen with the angle all weird?).  But we have directors who insist on making things look real by shaking the crap out of the picture (because in real life everything shakes!)  We also have editors who won't let a shot sit, it's a million cuts within one line of dialogue.  Oh, and the cinematographers who seem to hate all light and color in movies.  Because everything looks all better when all the color and life is drained out of it, I'm tired of every movie looking like Fight Club.

I literally puked in the theater watching the second Bourne movie.  No really, I ran out of the cinema to the nearest garbage can and lost a pretty expensive Italian dinner.  I can even tell you which scene it was, when two government muckity mucks were sitting down in a restaurant talking about getting Bourne.  For some reason, a simple scene with two people and the camera was shaking, the edits would not hold a single shot for more than 3 seconds, and everything was in this weird dutch angle as if the camera man needed a level taped to the top of his camera.  Also, as I mentioned before, the colors in those movies are absolute crap.

Remember back in the day when they would put the camera down and let the scene play?  When you could see what all the players in the scene were doing?  When the scenes was not chopped to nothing?  When the colors were bright and vibrant?  Errol Flynn's Robin Hood, Goldfinger, Herbie the Love Bug, the first 20 or so years of color films were a beauty to behold.

_How much money was wasted developing Steadicam and similar technology to keep a camera still while filming?_  $14.00, really, you can make a steadicam rig that works for $14.00.  http://littlegreatideas.com/stabilizer/diy/ or http://www.yb2normal.com/DIYsteadicam.html http://www.yb2normal.com/fancy.html  It's all in the counterweight and point of balance.


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## jks9199 (Aug 14, 2010)

My wife had something on the other day, and I think the director must have had some sort of religious aversion to simply filming the scene.  They were shooting it through glass walls, weird angles, weirder lighting, switching cameras every second...  It was making my eyes hurt trying to watch it.


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## Omar B (Aug 14, 2010)

I know what you mean man.  I'm a huge film nerd, but the weird thing is, I'm becoming more of a TV guy than a movie guy.  Because for some reason (maybe it's because they went to film school) TV directors know how to film, light and edit a scene.  Check out Stargate SG1, Stargate Atlantis, Eureka, Warehouse 13, The Good Guys, The Human Target, Dr Who (I could go on) all good shows with pretty conservative budgets, but they look great!  Where are those guys when they want a director?  The last TV guy who made the crossover to movies was who did Martial Law, Smallville, The Shield, Dark Angel, CSI and CSI Miami before doing Disturbia and Eagle Eye.

Another good example is Spielberg, he started out doing TV, and there are a bunch more.  There's this huge gulf between trained directors who shoot efficiently, get the shot that's serviceable and moves on.  There's a certain discipline that comes with working with a TV budget and time constraints.  Any wonder why I love TV miniseries?  I think they are the best of both worlds.

Then their are these guys who jump right in to movies and don't see anything wrong with turning a multi million dollar project into an art project or experiment.  Guys like Paul Greengrass and a bunch of other directors who think that telling a story is not sufficient.  There are very few of them out there who can genuinely deliver a work of true high art, many of them try, most of the time we all suffer with vertigo because of it.


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## Carol (Aug 14, 2010)

Omar B said:


> Remember back in the day when they would put the camera down and let the scene play?



Heck yeah.

And when I finally came in,  Debbie was home from work, and I told her everything about my dinner  with Andre.

One of my favorite movies..and its just two guys talking in an abandoned hotel.  They filmed the movie in their overcoats because they were on such a tight budget, they couldn't even afford to heat the plac....yet they produced a masterpiece.


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## Touch Of Death (Aug 15, 2010)

If you have to ask how much a steady cam is, you can't afford it? I did motion picture in the ARMY (don't hate me), and the rule was to do everything on a tripod. Its a good rule. The new Fad these days is to ignore that rule and we are all paying for it.
Sean


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## Archangel M (Aug 15, 2010)

It's that whole "artistic breaking of conventions" thing. I noted that after Saving Private Ryan came out that whole "shaking cam" thing seemed to be everywhere.


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## jks9199 (Aug 15, 2010)

Y'know... I don't mind the camera moving a bit, or even shaking a little bit if it makes sense for the scene.  Something like filming a scene where a bomb blows up... and the camera is supposed to be showing a character's point of view, not some omniscient window into the events.  But it shouldn't be the whole freain' movie -- even if it is a character's point of view!  In real life -- our mind filters all the little jiggles and movements that we do all the time and we percieve a steady, smooth flow, right?


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## Omar B (Aug 15, 2010)

I think a lot of directors forget that the camera serves as the audience's eyes.  We don't stand on one leg hopping when we are watching events unfold, we stand and observe, so I don't get the whole jostling thing.  But then the whole industry has become a reason for guys to impose their artistic vision on movie making, in a way that seems to not make you want to look.  

Artistic vision on screen from a guy like Tim Burton who has a unique  vision, Cameron, Spielberg, Hitchcock, Ford, Scorsesi, guys who put  across a unique artistic vision and you can actually see it.  Or you  have movies like Sin City, 300, Cassher, Goemon, or a TV show like  Sanctuary that are very artistic and even impressionistic in their use  of the digital back-lot technique for world building.

Some of my favorite guys working right now aside from the TV guys are the dudes from NFL films.  It looks great, every shot is perfect and most of the time it's done live from a production truck (remember the production truck?  A movie could be made right there on set pretty much).  My favorite concert DVD ever was Slayer's Live Intrusion because it was filmed by NFL films.  They got a clean, clear picture, great sound, every solo be it guitar, drum, bass or scream got the close up it deserved.  I sometimes wish those guys would do movies too.


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## MA-Caver (Aug 18, 2010)

Archangel M said:


> It's that whole "artistic breaking of conventions" thing. I noted that after Saving Private Ryan came out that whole "shaking cam" thing seemed to be everywhere.


I've noticed that as well... makes movies very hard to watch or even enjoy when you can't focus on what's going on because the camera. It is as Arch said... artistic breaking of convention. Eventually someone will get back to basics and film scenes along a dolly track and editors will stop making a gazillion cuts and splices in order to win "best editing" at the academy awards. 

Remember as with all things we the people can simply STOP going to these movies until Hollywood (aka: powers that be) figure out that we don't like what they're doing... 

...kinda like what we COULD do to the wankers in Washington D.C.


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## Omar B (Aug 21, 2010)

Great little tutorial related to the $14 steadicam I posted about earlier.  http://www.hulu.com/watch/172595/at...ild-a-steadicam#play-queue#continuous_play=on


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## Cryozombie (Aug 21, 2010)

You wanna know Why?

Its not what the audience wants.  Just like they don't want unique stories that arent 3x over remakes, and they don't want classic entertainment.

*Rolls Eyes*


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