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Topic: Cloverfield- Be Warned!!

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All Forums : [General] : Off Topic Forum > Cloverfield- Be Warned!!

#1 23 JAN 2008 at 3:18am
SirDave Guild Master Posts : 4940 Joined: 17 OCT 2002 Location: US Status : Offline	So I read & listened to reviews of Cloverfield- how it was a return to the concept of movies in the genre of Alien and that, overall, it was a recommended movie. And, oh yes, be warned that it may cause dizziness because of some use of a 'moving camera'. One reviewer thought that the presentation of an amateur-grade movie was unnecessarily exaggerated because pretty-much everyone has learned how to hold a camera steady and many videocams now offer 'steady-cam' options. But that's about the extent to which camera motion was mentioned. Okay, I say to myself, Alien is one of my all-time fave movies and, sure, I can handle 5, 10, even 15 minutes of even a wavering camera. So off I go to Cloverfield with my little bag of 94% fat-free popcorn. Now, picture me one hour later walking out of said movie with a headache and that somewhat nauseated feeling one has after coming off of one of those rotational rides at a theme park. Let's be perfectly clear here because absolutely none of the reviews, written or spoken were: This is not just 5, 10 or even 15 minutes of a wavering camera. This is virtually every single frame of the movie from beginning to end (well, AFAIK, since I didn't stay for the final 24 minutes of the damn thing). And we're not just talking a bit of motion such as used to be popular 10-15 years ago when it was popular to try to, or so they said, emulate what the moving eyes of humans looking at something are supposed to see. This is the motion of a camera where the camera person might as well be 5 years old- the camera moves up & down, back & forth, pans at warp speed and then between scenes you are obligated to see the ground, the sky, the walls, the floor, whatever...as if one is swinging the camera by its wriststrap and has forgotten to turn the damn thing off. Not to mention that, all the while, we are expected to believe that any idiot would continue to film during and after being attacked by monster thingies that have just taken some major chunks out of one of the girls he's with. Abrams and all the reviewers who neglected to mention the full extent of this idiocy should be sentenced to watch this thing after eating a full meal! The future ain't what it used to be!
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#2 23 JAN 2008 at 5:47am
Caroline JA+ Overseer Posts : 16540 Joined: 28 JAN 2007 Location: AU Status : Offline	My sympathies SirDave. I dislike intensely the hand held wobbly camera effect - even for a few minutes. The adverts for Cloverfield intrigued me but when I saw the trailer I decided against it. Now I am relieved that I won't be missing anything worth my time after all. So you even walked out - Good For You. I've done that before now.
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#3 23 JAN 2008 at 2:20pm
Ivinia Guild Master Posts : 4459 Joined: 7 JUN 2003 Location: US Status : Offline	A timely post Sir Dave. I just caught this article in the news that says the same thing: http://www.koco.com/news/15112533/detail.html Me thinks I'll pass on this one.
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#4 23 JAN 2008 at 5:31pm
SirDave Guild Master Posts : 4940 Joined: 17 OCT 2002 Location: US Status : Offline	*Originally Posted By Ivinia (23 JAN 2008 2:20pm)* A timely post Sir Dave. I just caught this article in the news that says the same thing: http://www.koco.com/news/15112533/detail.html Me thinks I'll pass on this one. One of my biggest gripes (aside from the total affectation of using this sort of filming method in the first place) is the misinformation spread about this film such as in the article mentioned above where this girl named Hastings says 'Take a Dramamine and you'll be fine'. Well, no you won't. This isn't the same as the typical motion sickness such as you would get in a moving vehicle or even from something like a roller coaster. This is wild swinging in your field of vision that is going on almost constantly. Also, as I tried to described above, you aren't seeing this through the viewfinder of a typically-taken home movie that you see for a few minutes. You're seeing it through the viewfinder of a really badly-taken home movie for the full 85 minutes! The future ain't what it used to be!
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#5 23 JAN 2008 at 9:30pm
Caroline JA+ Overseer Posts : 16540 Joined: 28 JAN 2007 Location: AU Status : Offline	I don't understand how anyone can say the wobbly camera effect is more realistic to what a person sees. I don't look out upon the world in a wobbly way.
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#6 23 JAN 2008 at 10:01pm
Terry Penrod Grand Inquisitor Posts : 6693 Joined: 16 OCT 2004 Location: US, Texas Status : Offline	. Nobody except for a those with severe tremors views the world that way - unless they're a bobble head on the dashboard of a car with really bad shock adsorbers that's barreling down a very bumpy road. The movie btw sounds perfectly dreadful. Cheers, Terry
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#7 23 JAN 2008 at 10:15pm
Andromus Guild Master Posts : 5537 Joined: 6 NOV 2002 Status : Offline	I despise the wobbly camera style. Though it never made me feel ill until I watched The Bourne Ultimatum last summer. I put up with it, but I felt dizzy and a little nauseated during the worst of it. I found myself looking off to one side at times. I loved the first two Bourne films, but it was really disappointing to see them use that style to the extent they did in the third movie; that's no way to enjoy a film.
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#8 23 JAN 2008 at 11:52pm
SirDave Guild Master Posts : 4940 Joined: 17 OCT 2002 Location: US Status : Offline	Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding: This is not the 'wobbly' camera style used as a technique in past films especially several years ago when it became a trend for awhile. This is presented by what is seen by someone who as I said is either a 5 year old or an idiot adult filming a home movie with no ability to keep the camera still or pan at a normal speed and includes periods (between what is actually purposely being filmed) where the camera is swinging around when the filmer is running or falling or has just dropped the camera down to swing from the wriststrap. Another warning. Think about how bad it might be and then double that. It is the sort of thing where the movie starts off and you say, 'Okay, I think I can handle this', but then it gets worse and worser and worser... And then at about the 30 minute mark, you say to yourself, 'Omigod, the whole movie is going to be like this!' > The future ain't what it used to be!
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#9 24 JAN 2008 at 4:02am
Caroline JA+ Overseer Posts : 16540 Joined: 28 JAN 2007 Location: AU Status : Offline	This movie sounds like a perfect excuse to sit in the back row and make out. I've never done this you understand, but I've seen movies where they do so I assume some people are happy to pay perfectly good money NOT to watch a movie.....er.... just like SirDave did.
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#10 24 JAN 2008 at 4:10am
chronotigger65 Journeyman Posts : 1143 Joined: 23 FEB 2005 Status : Offline	And to think I started a Cloverfield topic before the movie started and now everyone is talking about it here. :'(
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#11 24 JAN 2008 at 4:53am
SirDave Guild Master Posts : 4940 Joined: 17 OCT 2002 Location: US Status : Offline	*Originally Posted By Caroline (24 JAN 2008 4:02am)* This movie sounds like a perfect excuse to sit in the back row and make out. I've never done this you understand, but I've seen movies where they do so I assume some people are happy to pay perfectly good money NOT to watch a movie.....er.... just like SirDave did. If my wife had been at the movie I would have even turned down an offer of 'making out'- I had a headache... The future ain't what it used to be!
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#12 24 JAN 2008 at 4:55am
SirDave Guild Master Posts : 4940 Joined: 17 OCT 2002 Location: US Status : Offline	*Originally Posted By chronotigger65 (24 JAN 2008 4:09am)* And to think I started a Cloverfield topic before the movie started and now everyone is talking about it here. :'( So Chrono- was that your Off-Topic thread #1,000,473 or #1,000,474?? The future ain't what it used to be!
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#13 26 JAN 2008 at 10:32pm
Helen Guild Master Posts : 3436 Joined: 12 OCT 2002 Location: US Status : Offline	My son told me the same thing, he went to see it last night and said it's probably not a movie Ill be able to watch since I have vertigo problems. WHY they think filming that way is appealing Ill never know. >
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#14 27 JAN 2008 at 6:13am
Mark Guild Master Posts : 3803 Joined: 10 OCT 2002 Location: US, Georgia Status : Offline	Yes, I cannot understand why directors think we'll be terribly bored by watching a still image for more than one-half a second. Is it because the images that have been selected for us to tell the story won't be moving along rapidly enough and we'll lose interest? That is one reason I was very unhappy with the Transformers movie. I know that tons of steel and things were being destroyed (in CGI and real-action) by colorfully indentified monster bots and transforming cars, but the filmic action moved by so quickly (except for the underbelly of the girl star's torso - no complaints there, I suppose) that I really didn't understand what, who the heck I watching, and most of the time: what was going on. Only during "tender" moments - like when one of the stereo-typed-jive-voiced-speakin' Transformers (a "good" guy) died did I realize "Hey, this is kind of human, I can relate." Granted, I'm not the target audience for this high-speed, Japanese-based anime graphic novel movie adaptation because I never watched the cartoons, so very many identities of the characters were lost on me. Add to the speed and outrageous volume just made the movie unpleasant and hard for me to follow. I've never been a Micheal Bay fan: the CGI-laden, quick-paced, car-tires-skidding-right-in-your-face action-style never really appealed very much to me. It has been so overused, so by now we have great high-concept movies like the Bourne trilogy falling into the trap of the "shakey-cam". And the unbearably close-up shots that last nary a millisecond: "Huh? What did I just see?" Was it important?" "What was that, anyway?" Movie-going partners: "SSSHHHH!" Only just so much of that to try and tell me a story I can tolerate. But in Cloverfield, this movie really seems to supposed to look as if the camera is held by someone running, falling down, dropping the camera - because supposedly if there was monster chasing you, you probably wouldn't be able to put the camera on a dolly (on tracks) so you would have a clear and steady picture of people running away from something. I liked parts of Universal's War of the Worlds because Spielberg and company made the street-erupting scenes and the tripod monsters-in-the-distance seem real, scary, and You. Were. There. And you could see everything real well. A story unfolded. He just didn't lay a camcorder on the street and announce for the extras and actors to run around berserk while asphalt was crumbling in the foreground of a scene. It's the new cinema verite - even if it is true-to-life. For example, if you were being mauled by a bear and trying to film it as it was happening...well...that's probably the way it would look: "Ahem! "Mr. Bear! "We need you to slow action here so everything just doesn't look like a bloody blur. Like it really is." "Thank you, Mr. Bear." "Action!" Of course, The Blair Witch Project and before that MTV had the quick-framed, high-speed swings and things (and there was a lot mentioned back in the '80's bout the short attention spans of tv watchers. Commercials are trying to sell a product within 7-10 seconds now, because one micro-flick of the remote - and it's on to the next thing). The best way an action movie works for me is it there is time enough to absorb at least a bit of what you are watching, and perhaps maybe those moments edited together can tell a story on film that won't make me go into a contusion with no spiritual or entertainment payoff. But if I do go see Cloverfield, I will have to bear in mind that is this film is meant to be filmed this way - from the hand-held camcorder of a panicked person (or persons). I'll take along a couple of ear filters, just in case, too. Certain movie theaters now have the volume blasting in higher decibel ranges than most rock concerts I've ever attended or played. Of course, being behind the P.A. line is a lot softer than being on stage. The performers have headset, wedge monitors, or sidefills and on-stage monitor-mix guys that won't try to deafen you. It's actually quieter onstage than in the audience. That Transformer movie just had my ears bleeding and I was glad I had kept a pair of earplugs handy in the car. They are very soft. You "roll" them into little cylinders, insert them in your ears, and then the ultra-soft sponge-y stuff will fill the crevices in your ears. And you can still hear every super and sub-sonic noise and line of dialogue you might ever need to hear during the movie. Please proofread your posts carefully to see if you any words out.
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#15 27 JAN 2008 at 6:56am
Caroline JA+ Overseer Posts : 16540 Joined: 28 JAN 2007 Location: AU Status : Offline	Bloody Hell Mark You don't say a word for months and then you talk the legs off the table. 8-) You owe this old lady a letter.
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#16 27 JAN 2008 at 7:04am
Mark Guild Master Posts : 3803 Joined: 10 OCT 2002 Location: US, Georgia Status : Offline	*Originally Posted By Caroline (27 JAN 2008 6:56am)* You owe this old lady a letter. " ." Please proofread your posts carefully to see if you any words out.
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#17 27 JAN 2008 at 1:09pm
Caroline JA+ Overseer Posts : 16540 Joined: 28 JAN 2007 Location: AU Status : Offline	Hmmmm........ Now is that D for Delightful.... D for Delicious..... D for Distinctive..... D for aDorable.... or D for Downright Demented? [smiley=rofl.gif]
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#18 27 JAN 2008 at 7:31pm
SirDave Guild Master Posts : 4940 Joined: 17 OCT 2002 Location: US Status : Offline	*Originally Posted By Mark (27 JAN 2008 6:12am)* But in Cloverfield, this movie really seems to supposed to look as if the camera is held by someone running, falling down, dropping the camera - because supposedly if there was monster chasing you, you probably wouldn't be able to put the camera on a dolly (on tracks) so you would have a clear and steady picture of people running away from something. But if I do go see Cloverfield, I will have to bear in mind that is this film is meant to be filmed this way - from the hand-held camcorder of a panicked person (or persons). Mark, is this supposed to be some sort of revelation? Of course, I (and I think we) understand what the theory is, but there are a number of flaws in the reality. First, video cameras are not exactly new. Almost everyone, except perhaps someone in the under 10 years category, can take a steady image these days. So, why are we subjected to the results filmed by an idiot who films and pans with a jerkiness and a speed that is both ridiculous and counterproductive to our enjoyment of the result- and I am talking, for the moment, about the part of the movie that occurs before the 'alien' arrives ie. at the party that is at the start of the movie and which, by the way, goes on interminably (at least 20 minutes out of what is a short movie- 84 mins). But, that aside, let's get to when the 'alien' arrives. Okay, you are ready to accept the fact that the film was meant to be filmed 'from the handheld camcorder of a panicked person (or persons)'. There can be no other reason for this except to accomplish some sort of 'reality'. With that in mind, would a person who is watching one of his companion girls be feasted on by one of the 'alienettes' (spider-like thingies that are presumably the offspring of 'big momma alien') continue to film? Plus, in an attempt to run away as fast as possible so that he was not the next one for lunch, would filmer-guy continue to film when not only would that slow up his speed, but since he's looking thru a viewfinder or at a teeny lcd screen and he happens to be running in a dark subway tunnel would be more likely trip & fall on his face (something I was praying for by this time). Is this some sort of reality or rather a misguided affectation? The future ain't what it used to be!
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#19 28 JAN 2008 at 1:07am
Caroline JA+ Overseer Posts : 16540 Joined: 28 JAN 2007 Location: AU Status : Offline	Reports of nausea are common so it's obvious SirDave's reaction and complaints are shared by a sizeable number of others. Let's not overlook the possibility that this was part of the 'artistic aim' and only convinces the film maker that his work was successful. One has to wonder if the film maker himself felt nauseous when watching this movie. Obviously it has been filmed and edited with great care to achieve his 'artistic' goals. Aside from the abysmal camera work, was the story any good? Would this have made a good movie with normal camera work? It's possible that the film maker wanted to create something unique that would get him talked about and increase his artistic status. I'm afraid that Art cannot by definition be defined. It is a subjective value judgement as to whether something is Great Art of just crap. And where Art is concerned we're all qualified to pass judgement.
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#20 29 JAN 2008 at 12:32am
jenmarie Intergalactic Janitor Posts : 62 Joined: 4 OCT 2007 Status : Offline	http://community.livejournal.com/m15m/17991.html#cutid1 Cloverfield in 15 minutes. Major spoilers, if you haven't seen the movie. OTOH, it won't give you motion sickness or cost money. "Undoubtedly, Sputnik inspired Americans, perhaps for the last time, to the idea of being frontiersmen,"&&&&For the LAST time? How depressing...&&How can we not be inspired to be frontiersmen? Let's go explore.
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#21 29 JAN 2008 at 1:01am
Terry Penrod Grand Inquisitor Posts : 6693 Joined: 16 OCT 2004 Location: US, Texas Status : Offline	. *Originally Posted By jenmarie (29 JAN 2008 12:32am)* http://community.livejournal.com/m15m/17991.html#cutid1 Cloverfield in 15 minutes. Major spoilers, if you haven't seen the movie. OTOH, it won't give you motion sickness or cost money. That was hilarious Jenmarie and I trust a lot more entertaining than the actual film. Cheers, Terry
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#22 29 JAN 2008 at 3:45am
Caroline JA+ Overseer Posts : 16540 Joined: 28 JAN 2007 Location: AU Status : Offline	What a funny writer Cleo is. I laughed out loud reading her version. Hope SirDave gets to find out how it all ends - if he cares anymore.
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#23 29 JAN 2008 at 11:25pm
anthony Journeyman Posts : 1270 Joined: 11 JUN 2003 Status : Offline	*Originally Posted By SirDave (27 JAN 2008 7:30pm)* ...would a person who is watching one of his companion girls be feasted on by one of the 'alienettes' (spider-like thingies that are presumably the offspring of 'big momma alien') continue to film? Well, maybe she was complaining about "all the football you been watching lately".
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#24 3 FEB 2008 at 7:09pm
Lucien21 Guild Master Posts : 4876 Joined: 9 JUL 2003 Location: 0 Status : Offline	I saw it today and there were plenty of warnings in the cinema about the strobe lighting and the shaky camera. As for the film it is SUPERB. The "awful camerawork" is meant to be like that it is a comment on the fact that the proliferation of mobile cameras etc most global news is now coming from amatuer footage (think 9/11). I actually didn't find it that bad (I don't suffer from motion sickness) and knew it was coming it was after all compared to Blair Witch. It's Blair Witch meets 9/11 and Godzilla. Entirely shot in camcorder (warning film not for the motion sickness sensitive) we start in New York at a party for Rob who is going to Japan. Suddenly there is a huge explosion. New York is under attack from an unknown force. What follows is a scary as sht voyage across New York as Rob and a small band of people try to survive amongst the chaos and reach Robs girlfriend. Catching glimpses of a huge monster running amok in the city while the Army battle it with tanks and rockets. It is mostly non stop from the bridge attack to the pants wetting subway tunnel journey to the finale. Superb SFX as you get glimpses of the monster, it's damage and the army attacking. Thankfully it never explains the attack or the monster which adds to the mystery and suspense. Unfortunatly the easter egg after the end suggests a sequel and this is one film that really doesn't need one. Refreshingly Brilliant. 5/5 Dear Diary, My teenage angst bullsht now has a bodycount.
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#25 11 FEB 2008 at 9:31pm
Stiler Journeyman Posts : 1460 Joined: 27 SEP 2004 Location: US, TN Status : Offline	I went to see this film when it came out (bit late posting here, just saw this thread) and i LOVED it. I don't get motion sickness or anything so the moving didn't bother me. To me I loved the way it was filmed. It really helped give you a perspective of being there with the main characters instead of a crisp perfectly clean style shoot from a out of person style cinematography.
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