Camera Shots You Love or Hate

Post Reply New Topic

I personally can't stand the extremely long arc, where the camera goes around and around and around. Even the slow ones make me carsick!

Hate close-ups with shaky camera during action scenes. Please, just pan out and stop shaking the camera so I can actually tell what on earth is going on!!

Since the thread also mentions shots I love...

As far as near-future political sci fi is concerned, Children of Men certainly isn't bad-- it's got an interesting premise, even if the story gets a bit predictable and clichéd at times. From a technical standpoint, however, I have to give the film its due. There are some really spectacular camera shots, including experimentation with long shots. The first time I saw this particular scene, I was struck by the action of it, and the way the tracking from the center of the car immerses the viewer in the middle of it. The more I watch it, though-- especially knowing now how it was done-- the more impressed I am with the inventiveness of the whole setup. Choreographing such a complex four-minute long take so that everything runs perfectly smoothly couldn't have been easy.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en16i8BY4hI[/youtube]

I hate it when in documentaries when someone is talking and the camera is showing the side of the person's head. It its extremely stupid and I am always thinking "the camera is over here, just look to your left (it usually its the left)

It's funny because this is coming from an aspie. Neurotypicals probably want to see both a person's eyes even more than we do.

On another note regarding style But not specific shots, Overly shaky camera movement bothers me. Handheld camera work is ok because it looks natural. But some directors tell the camera operators to deliberately shake the camera excessively in an attempt to make it seem more real. Anything that distracts the audience from the story makes it harder to get into the story so this actually has the opposite effect. In the case of the hunger games, sw people came out of the theaters complaining of headaches.

Any camera shot by Michael Bay.

I saw the thread title and immediately thought of that!

When someone is talking to the camera, I want to see the front of the person's head and to be fair, I am undiagnosed.

Shaky camera movement is okay but they need to up the frame rate to 60 frames per second. Now that film is dead we can follow Doug Trumbull's advice and choose other frame rates rather than 24 frames per second. The Stanley Kubrick look will always be 24 frames per second.

My favourite type of camera shot, offhand, is the Dolly zoom, or the Vertigo Effect.

My hated type of shot is a rapid-cut sequence. Not all rapid-cut sequences, but at least one sequence, the initial car chase in Quantum of Solace stands out. The going from fast motion to normal motion shot used during the ice chase sequence in Die Another Day was also rather w**ky.