Found Footage Films.
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There is a style of filming called “found footage” and though used a bit loosely at times with hybrid shooting styles , it’s typically a filmed as though someone is using a camcorder or phone, or even a house camera or webcam that capture the events. Though it can be in any genre, it’s by far used within horror. There is even a horror found footage streaming app for $7 or so called POV horror. Some of the more popular films to hit mainstream done in this way was the “ The Blair Witch Project” , “What We Do in the Shadows”, “Cloverfield” and “Paranormal Activity”. Some of the more recent niche or lesser seen films would be “Be my Cat”, “Creep” and “Late Night with the Devil” which is also a lost episode creepypasta film.
Instead of a different thread for each film, which I think may grow even more boring then this one, thought I would see if it’d can exist as just a thread for all of them.
Also don’t presume films are family friendly. Check ratings and so on before making it your Sunday dinner family film lol.
Instead of a different thread for each film, which I think may grow even more boring then this one, thought I would see if it’d can exist as just a thread for all of them.
Also don’t presume films are family friendly. Check ratings and so on before making it your Sunday dinner family film lol.
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I was disappointed at the end, though, when there was clearly a second camera involved. Maybe that was the point of it, the "murdered" friend wasn't murdered after all, and was actually hunting his travel companions, or at least the famale one.
But having it be a found film after such an ending doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
I like the kinds of ambiguity that come with the idea of "found film" or other artifact that becomes art. Things absent their original context can be quite demanding of one, to the point that one feels compelled to create it -- and in doing so, creating art. There is a broad range of craft or visual art that rely on found or ephemeral documents or objects. With film, there is enormous opportunity - depending on the completeness of the story and how or what is told - for the viewer to create the back story, or fill in what is missing, interpret what is shown. In which case, no one is watching the same film.
Which scene requires a second photographer?
Do be careful, though, people, of inadvertently introducing spoilers. I didn't know, for example, that in The Blair Witch Project, *The others, everyone else, was dead or cursed.*...
That knowledge might possibly spoil the film for me, should I be inclined to watch it, which I ain't. Now.
It's right at the end, @KarlLB, when the known remaining characters have gone through the house. I think it's at the point where the female character finds the remaining guy standing in the corner in the basement. Unless there's someone else about, there's only one camera that should be going.
My impression, having seen it once, was that there would have required a second camera to record. Read a bit about the end online earlier today, and it seems I'm not alone in wondering. Even people who have studied the ending a lot have questions.
However, part of what makes "found film"/"found object art" interesting, and work, I think is the ambiguity and the distortion that keeps the ambiguity in place. They don't lend themselves to a single, unified interpretation, which deliberately keeps the questions of "what happened" and "what is it" in motion.
It's ok to just leave it. I don't know that @Skovand had started the thread to help me analyze BWP.
It’s basically a given for the overwhelming majority of found footage horror films that essentially everyone dies or is lost in some way. That’s part of making it found footage is that those involved are not around and someone stumbles upon the footage.
It’s like saying there is violent deaths in a horror film.
Even knowing that the typical outcome in FFHM is that most of not all die or is somehow lost won’t really detract from the films. They are more set up as mysteries and will usually say in the beginning that blah blah blah went out in blah blah and was never seen. This is their footage.
It’s like how many thrillers open up with what happened and the film plays out what and how. Or even with superhero films. We know in most that Superman, Batman or whoever is going to win. But we still watch the story as it plays out.
If you are interested in, they are supposed to be remaking Blair Witch. On tubi there are dozens and dozens of found footage films.
Just so.
I rather enjoy - when watching a thriller - picking out who is EVIL, and who is likely to end up DEAD. Sometimes, I get it right...
So, a fan of the Evil Dead series, then? 😛
I make assumed universal statements because every statement is. Some people like to be pissed on, but it’s safe to say people don’t like being pissed I’m so watch out where you point that thing.
So this really is not a contentious matter. Knowing everyone almost always dies in found footage films or becomes unavailable in some other way does not ruin the found footage films since it’s a given for the overwhelming majority of them, often in the opening scenes. As someone who has seen over a thousand, and goes to conventions and so on around horror this is a commonly known trope of FFHM. Just like with how most true crime stories, and detective stories about murders, opens up with the fact a pivotal character is dead. It’s part of the plot.
It’s like saying don’t tell me there is a slasher in a slasher film, and then trying to argue being told there is a slasher is detracting from the slasher. It’s a given .
So the universal statement that knowing the people are dead in BW before seeing it does not detract from the film in any way. For fact, the opening scene is “ three people went missing never seen again “ a year later their footage was found. The marketing for BW before it came out 25 years ago was about the footage of dead hikers making a documentary. Many people watched it, under the impression they were seeing the real final moments of some people who went missing.
How about this. What are 10 of your favorite found footage films? Mine would be Creep 1&2. Hell House LLC 1-4, VHS85, Incantation, Willow Creek, One Cut of the Dead, Temple, Do Not Watch and Be My Cat. Some that I’m really looking forward to is Among the Dead, Bloat, Creep Tales, Children of the Woods and Shelby Oaks.
Typically found footage is not the same as documentaries, though some FF is a subcategory known as mockumentary which is a fictional documentary. But I’m ok if anyone wants to discuss whatever. I was mostly just testing the waters to see what kind of movie watchers were here. Perhaps more FF fans will show up later.
It’s definitely an interesting trilogy. My favorite was the first film through. There approach forward to sequels was odd to me. They essentially bought out other films still in the writing stage, and adapted them. There is always the hope they will create multiple film timelines like with Halloween.
It’s not for everyone. I like older stuff and newer stuff. I enjoy horror like Vampyr from 1932 or some of the bizarre silent black and white films featuring Houdini like “ The Man from Beyond”.
But if this is not your thing, it’s not your thing. It’s ok either way.