Comments on: The Birth of Cinema-Vlog-ité? http://newteevee.com/2007/11/25/the-birth-of-cinema-vlog-it/ NewTeeVee Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:57:43 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: Why Wasn’t Cloverfield Released Online? « NewTeeVee http://newteevee.com/2007/11/25/the-birth-of-cinema-vlog-it/#comment-229482 Why Wasn’t Cloverfield Released Online? « NewTeeVee Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:11:44 +0000 http://newteevee.com/2007/11/25/the-birth-of-cinema-vlog-it/#comment-229482 <p>[...] shot glimpses of a monster too large to be captured on DV tape. Hollywood’s treatment of cinéma-vlog-ité winds up being a hackneyed mode of storytelling that gets in the way of the story and leaves me [...]</p> [...] shot glimpses of a monster too large to be captured on DV tape. Hollywood’s treatment of cinéma-vlog-ité winds up being a hackneyed mode of storytelling that gets in the way of the story and leaves me [...]

]]> By: Henri http://newteevee.com/2007/11/25/the-birth-of-cinema-vlog-it/#comment-172007 Henri Mon, 26 Nov 2007 03:53:26 +0000 http://newteevee.com/2007/11/25/the-birth-of-cinema-vlog-it/#comment-172007 <p>Two things strike me about this - is that sort of "handheld video camera" style of filmmaking necessarily vlog inspired, or is it more of a response to the proliferation of video cameras in general? Vlogging is a specific form of videoing and uploading to YouTube, and generally with some sort of commentary about it. I think that there's a larger community out there that still just videotapes crazy shit when it happens around them and then sends it into the traditional news outlets (the tsunami footage is all online, but it was booming on CNN, too).</p> <p>And either way, is it really an attempt to market their films to a younger audience, or can it be a method of making the crazy shit seem more immediate, and therefore the threats more real? There's this strange sense of "holy shit!" that I feel when I see the explosions in the Cloverfield trailer that I don't get when I watch Daniel Craig leaping around on construction cranes, even though I obviously realize that both of them were staged and fake. I'm just not as desensitized to the grainy video version of staged fakeyness yet. Like in Southland Tales, actually. The footage of the nuclear bomb at the beginning of the film seems raw and real, and stands in direct contrast to the blatant Hollywood fake look and feel of the rest of the film.</p> <p>Oh, and lastly, I haven't seen it yet but the new Romero Zombie film is reportedly filmed in this style, too, which also just sounds AWESOME. It'll be like the zombie apocalypse is really happening!</p> Two things strike me about this – is that sort of “handheld video camera” style of filmmaking necessarily vlog inspired, or is it more of a response to the proliferation of video cameras in general? Vlogging is a specific form of videoing and uploading to YouTube, and generally with some sort of commentary about it. I think that there’s a larger community out there that still just videotapes crazy shit when it happens around them and then sends it into the traditional news outlets (the tsunami footage is all online, but it was booming on CNN, too).

And either way, is it really an attempt to market their films to a younger audience, or can it be a method of making the crazy shit seem more immediate, and therefore the threats more real? There’s this strange sense of “holy shit!” that I feel when I see the explosions in the Cloverfield trailer that I don’t get when I watch Daniel Craig leaping around on construction cranes, even though I obviously realize that both of them were staged and fake. I’m just not as desensitized to the grainy video version of staged fakeyness yet. Like in Southland Tales, actually. The footage of the nuclear bomb at the beginning of the film seems raw and real, and stands in direct contrast to the blatant Hollywood fake look and feel of the rest of the film.

Oh, and lastly, I haven’t seen it yet but the new Romero Zombie film is reportedly filmed in this style, too, which also just sounds AWESOME. It’ll be like the zombie apocalypse is really happening!

]]> By: Karina Longworth http://newteevee.com/2007/11/25/the-birth-of-cinema-vlog-it/#comment-171430 Karina Longworth Sun, 25 Nov 2007 17:23:26 +0000 http://newteevee.com/2007/11/25/the-birth-of-cinema-vlog-it/#comment-171430 <p>Brian DePalma has said that REDACTED was his attempt to essentially make a movie dramatizing the way the war has been documented and debated on the internet, in order to bring what he perceives as an "underground" conversation into the mainstream. That's one of the problems with the film, I think--when we can watch something like Alive in Baghdad, it seems a little condescending for DePalma to think that we need an old Hollywood guy like him to make a fake war vlog in order to open our eyes. It's also debatable whether or not an indie film, at the moment playing on less than two dozen screens, is really more "mainstream" than anything online.</p> Brian DePalma has said that REDACTED was his attempt to essentially make a movie dramatizing the way the war has been documented and debated on the internet, in order to bring what he perceives as an “underground” conversation into the mainstream. That’s one of the problems with the film, I think–when we can watch something like Alive in Baghdad, it seems a little condescending for DePalma to think that we need an old Hollywood guy like him to make a fake war vlog in order to open our eyes. It’s also debatable whether or not an indie film, at the moment playing on less than two dozen screens, is really more “mainstream” than anything online.

]]>