Sunday, August 3

2009: A True Story

I really like Blair Witch Project-style films. Yeah, yeah. It's gimmicky and often an easy way out ("What? I can make film and just not care about film quality? Awesome!"), but they also tap into how we have started to view the world. Video cameras are now everywhere, on almost every street corner and on almost every cell phone (yes, not mine... mock me). Almost every moment has the moment of being recorded and distributed instantly. Raw footage, unfiltered, is now part of our collective mind scape and watching film makers look for ways to tell stories with it is fascinating to me. Film has always had a voyeuristic quality and the highlighting that the frame of the camera can only capture a small rectangle of the whole, leaving things out in the boarders, is compelling. (See Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics for an interesting take on this concept and see the telephone scene from Rosemary's Baby for a perfect use of this in a 'traditional' film.)

I also like a good apocalypse story.

2009: A True Story, has potential. I hate the title but whatever.

Episode 1:

Edit: After I posted this I realized it is about 8 months old. After watching more episodes it is all pretty heavy handed, but at about 4 minutes an episode it's not too bad.

(via io9)