Pete Wilie
July 14th, 2005, 11:37 AM
What is your opinion of the shooting style of the 2002 movie Bloody Sunday (http://www.tvguide.com/movies/database/showmovie.asp?MI=44004)?
I recently watched (or tried to watch) "Bloody Sunday" on my 42-in HDTV. I found the so-called "documentary style" shooting to be extremely distracting. The camera movement went well beyond the Private Ryan "reality" shooting. In addition to that, much of the framing was people's backs. As characters moved in buildings and outside, mostly what you saw was a very shaky camera following the character from the back. There was so much of this I can only assume it was intentional.
I apologize if this offends anyone, but my assessment is if you were given a short clip of this movie without any identification, your reaction would be it was shot by a rank amateur who just happened to be there when it happened.
What I find surprising is the Amazon.com Customer Reviews (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/B00008DDHZ/ref=cm_rev_all_1/103-8625084-2010267?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=dvd). Quite a few people gave high praise for the "doco" style shooting. This style is clearly one of those "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" cases. Although I was very interested in the story, I just couldn't bear to watch the movie all the way through. To put this in context, I enjoyed "Private Ryan".
I prefer that the camera be invisible to me. I enjoy a movie the most when I feel like I am there, like a fly on the wall, somehow invisibly observing everything that is going on. As soon as I become aware of explicit camera movement, I am distracted, kind of like being woken up from a dream.
I may very well be in the minority here. I'm very curious what others think of the shooting style in "Bloody Sunday."
I recently watched (or tried to watch) "Bloody Sunday" on my 42-in HDTV. I found the so-called "documentary style" shooting to be extremely distracting. The camera movement went well beyond the Private Ryan "reality" shooting. In addition to that, much of the framing was people's backs. As characters moved in buildings and outside, mostly what you saw was a very shaky camera following the character from the back. There was so much of this I can only assume it was intentional.
I apologize if this offends anyone, but my assessment is if you were given a short clip of this movie without any identification, your reaction would be it was shot by a rank amateur who just happened to be there when it happened.
What I find surprising is the Amazon.com Customer Reviews (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/B00008DDHZ/ref=cm_rev_all_1/103-8625084-2010267?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=dvd). Quite a few people gave high praise for the "doco" style shooting. This style is clearly one of those "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" cases. Although I was very interested in the story, I just couldn't bear to watch the movie all the way through. To put this in context, I enjoyed "Private Ryan".
I prefer that the camera be invisible to me. I enjoy a movie the most when I feel like I am there, like a fly on the wall, somehow invisibly observing everything that is going on. As soon as I become aware of explicit camera movement, I am distracted, kind of like being woken up from a dream.
I may very well be in the minority here. I'm very curious what others think of the shooting style in "Bloody Sunday."