One*3

Cloverfield notes.

I decided to watch Cloverfield for some in depth research on handheld camera techniques and their application(s) as a story-telling device.

I found the constant hand-held style was sometimes jarring because of its continuous use, but otherwise was really effective in the context of this particular film. The opening sequence was awesome! It established the timeline, setting and some character background in an effective and rapid way which allowed the audience to quickly grasp where they were and what was going on. That is something that the film achieved numerous times - the freehand style easily establishes the terrors of the moment and easily evokes an emotional response from the audience.

The editing of the film was appropriate to the filming style which allowed sudden cuts and clips from other dates and events is incredibly effective in providing background to the characters without extensive scenes that would have chewed up alot of screen time. This editing style also cut down on the visual effects in a sense; some of it was partially hidden due to the flickering etc, but it would have been compositing hell! They did hide some of the effects (such as pulling Beth of the pole) which was a smart approach to reducing their workload which would have been considerably increased because every shot would have required motion tracking. I thought they effectively created a mystery about the 'enemy' destroying the city, although I felt the monster's identity was revealed too early and was a tad stereotypical which was a bit of a let down.

There were those quieter (albeit terror filled) moments with calmer camera movements and allowed the audience some breathing room and helped keep the film rooted.

I am looking into some other films which implemented different filming techniques for more reference points.