shakiness/ movement on TV shows, WHY?

[Luke]

What is up with all the shakiness or movement from TV shows cameras nowadays, it makes me dizzy! Too many shows have way too much of it. What gives?

[gldnears]

WHAT? You don’t like ” reality TV “? Of course there’s ” real ” reality TV . . . and then there’s an attempt to con the viewer into believing that it’s ” reality TV “. Shaky camera, swish-pans, bad framing; It’s all a look that producers seem to want these days.

I remember cutting sound on a TV ” cop ” show in the 90’s which drove ME nuts. It was shot with at least two hand-heldcameras which swish-panned from actor to actor in accordance with the dialog. Maybe they thought they were saving money in editing?

Rick Crampton

[JackWolcott]

The shaky camera work — hand held camera for the most part — owes it genesis to the cinema verite of the 1950s and ’60s. Take a look at the Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cin%C3%A9ma_v%C3%A9rit%C3%A9) for this topic to get a great analysis of the origins. You can see it being applied to video in early shows like Jack Webb’s Dragnet and in I Spy. It was a natural aesthetic for the cop shows that followed, as Rick says.

I feel the same way about hand-held as you do; a little bit of it goes a very long way. A tripod or jib boom is still your best friend as far as I’m concerned.

Jack

[lmenningen]

Rather than thinking for themselves, perhaps these producers apparently all read and believe the same articles – in truth people watching “reality” don’t want to be watching something that looks like their neighbor took. What they really prefer is the same clarity and completeness of view they would see as if they are standing on the scene thenselves, watching with their own eyes.

[hal9000]

The handheld reality look is in now and has been for a while. It’s a look that some directors and/or producers want. In a real reality TV show like Cops the camera is handheld but the cameraman knows how to keep it steady enough. When they try deliberately to get that look it often looks phoney. I remember when NYPD Blue did it, they intentionally moved the camera about to make it look handheld even though it was on a tripod. The average person may not have noticed it but it was obvious to me. When they try too hard it can be damn annoying. I remember a director in a production that I was in wanted that look and he complained that I was too steady with the camera despite my best effort and when I had to fill in for an actor that didn’t show and the director manned the camera, you can tell the difference in the footage. Maybe they’re from two different schools (metaphorically speaking). The extreme cases seem to be fading, maybe the rest will follow.

[Luke]

@everyone, thanks guys for giving you thoughts on this. I was watching a TV show (series), the kind that look like they are done on film, NOT a reality show. That was super shaky as well. They have this almost identical shake on every scene and a couple of different shows.

[gldnears]

William sez:

” The handheld reality look is in now and has been for a while. It’s a look that some directors and/or producers want. In a real reality TV show like Cops the camera is handheld but the cameraman knows how to keep it steady enough. “

It’s possible to get a watchable picture using a shoulder-mount camera and short focal length.

Izzit possible that there is software which will give a film the shakes . . . sorta like the software which will inject scratches and blotches on perfectly good picture in order to emulate very old home film movies?

My past experience with some directors and producers is that they are not all original thinkers. If a particular ground-breaking look or style makes a lot of money at the box office, that look will spread like a plague thruout the industry. As I learned many years ago when I worked for ann advertising agency: ” There are NO new ideas “.

Rick Crampton

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