I know why I didn't like Julie Walters in 'A short stay in Switzerland', and it was plain to see from the opening scene. The camera just couldn't keep still and for goodness sake, if you can afford Julie Walters you can certainly afford a tripod.
We were warned about 'explicit scenes of death' or some such nonsense, but there was no warning given that we were to be subjected to hours of wobbly camerawork, a style that film-school nerds think gives their work 'reality'.
The normal human brain steadies what it sees, it doesn't wobble or blur. So when it happens in an expensive BBC1 production it doesn't feel real, it does feel irritating. Here was a woman struggling with the demons within - yet we couldn't just watch her face as it was jiggling all over the screen.
tom.
I know you're not supposed to post the simple statement "I agree" after a post on the internet, but..... "I agree."
I agree to agree with those in agreement. :)
It can be done so well too with a bit of care and attention to detail... see the US dramas such as 24 & Lost.
I didn't watch that programme, I'm pleased I didn't now because I would be angry beyond words, nothing anoys me more than watching this type of thing, there seems to a lot of this trend of camera work.
And slow panning shots with out of focus foreground objects bluring the view moving across the screen, I just can't concentrate on the dialogoue with all that going on.
Words fail me
I bet Julie Walters has enough clout to get someone's ears boxed over this. If I look across the room at someone, that face is rock steady on my retinas. I can watch the person's face and imagine what they're thinking.
This is exactly what we couldn't do when Walters' face was jiggling about, yet here we were being asked to believe that dear Julie was planning suicide. Didn't work. Let us watch in peace.
tom.
I agree whole heartedly with Tom.
It can be done so well too with a bit of care and attention to detail... see the US dramas such as 24 & Lost.
'Lost' is indeed a great example of overdone jiggling about hand held nausea inducing distracting camera work. They say it conveys a feeling of excitement and action. It doesn't, what it does convey is a feeling of extreme irritation. :mad:
Same thing with shots that last a mere half a second between cuts, where your eye has little or no chance to take in the image before it is cut away to the next scene. Warnings should be given when this technique is used the same way that a warning is given in advance of scenes containing camera flashes.
I now seem to spend a lot of time arguing with inanimate objects
I watched it and it floored me completely. Honestly I didn't notice the camera shake that seems to have got your collective goats. Certainly due to my recent circumstances with the death of my Father I was closer to the emotive content than some but I thought it was excellent - one of the hardest things I have ever watched, and not because of the technical frailties you guys are talking about.
Sorry Fergie but we'll have to disagree on Lost, in my opinion it's extremely well made and I don't find the editing and camerawork irritating for the most part; whilst it's not always perfect it's usually far better than this side of the pond. Whilst I have not seen the BBC programme being discussed, I have often seen British programme makers attempting to emulate this technique often used in US dramas (CSI, Numbers, NCIS etc.), but getting it badly wrong. However, that said a few programmes have been very good too. :)
As a pro filmmaker whilst I'm not involved in shooting drama very often (I specialise in corporate and documentaries), as a DP or Camera Op. I would opt for steady tripod based shooting almost 99% of the time. However there are occasions when only hand-held or steadycam shooting is either unavoidable or necessary to enhance either the pace or timbre of the production. However IMHO to make the final cut during post the shot must be of a sufficient quality and contain acceptable movement or have sufficient reason for inclusion (whether or not the cutting is fast or slow). Unfortunately there are so many programme makers who I simply believe get it very wrong. Or possibly the editor simply does not have enough good footage to work with... this is certainly more likely and perhaps due to programmes often being shot by people who at one time simply would not have been allowed to use a camera. Cuts in programme making budgets have had a detrimental effect that many saw coming. Unfortunately skill levels in programme making have dropped considerably at the lower end of the scale. Like the old saying goes... "You pay peanuts... "
Jeremy, as you are suggesting, perhaps the content in this case transcended the need for technical excellence and it was the story that mattered more.
I didn't see the offending programme, but I managed to watch not more than 20 minutes of "John Adams" last weekend. It drove me nuts, permanently and randomly tilted camera, always waving about, except for one tracking shot on either a dolly or rails or both. It was so distracting the I simply gave up. I don't care how many Golden Globes it gets, it's rubbish and I can't stand it.
Clearly, the people who make programmes this way know what they're doing (remember "The Thick Of It"?) and do it deliberately for effect. That's fine, so long as they realise that it reduces their audience by 1 (me).
Try this good people. Look across the room or across the garden or across the football pitch. Notice how the image on your retina is rock solid, even if your heart beats and you sway from foot to foot.
More filmmakers should realise this, because watching the same thing on a TV or cinema screen doesn't allow our retinas and brain to work in the same way, and the image is always jiggly.
It's not always cinematographically wrong, and the Bourne Identity shows that the ever-moving camera can add immeasurably to the excitement when it's artistically called for. Watching a woman trying to commit suicide isn't exactly Jason Bourne.
tom.
First season of Medium was wobble city but it's much more enjoyable since they either sacked the camera man or bought a tripod!
PS Yes, I know it's not top drawer programme but it is switch off and veg TV
Tom, I agree entirely: the case for wobbly-cam is when there's lots of action observed from close up, putting the viewer just behind the actor. You've put your finger on the explanation, it's only when the action moves quickly and we're observing it from within the action that wobbly-cam helps, at all other times it's a distraction and a big one. I just hope that the fashion dies in the way that fashions usually do.
I couldn't agree more. Why is "bad" seen as "trendy"? :)
I reckon it's because they're doing something "fresh", that wasn't taught at film school. I just reckon it looks talentless and entry-level amateur.
At the risk of offending, I have to agree with those in agreement. Wobblecam is excrutiatingly annoying. Real life, using Eyeball Mk1 gives us, the user, a rock solid pictural reference of the world, complete with built in stabilisers.
The Steadicam revolutionised the world, and made the camera free of the sticks, and provided a natural point of view from the camera.
I'm open to all new techniques, but where it has me reaching for the bucket, due to the motion sickness of the wobblecam, then the moviemaker has lost another audience member - no matter how great the script.
Ben
I think hand held has its place but like others when directors insist on it as an effect and it is done deliberately then it just looks dreadful, The Bill where I worked used to do it at times and it just looked so naff.
Maybe I should wobble the levels of the dialogue up and down and see what the reaction is:eek:
Another wonderfully arty technique (not) is to opt for a tiny dof and constantly focus hunt. The camera occasionally lands on the talent / interviewee / object, but lots of the time it's exaggeratedly zipping between the foreground and the background.
Such camera techniques would get a boot up the bum if it turned out that's what second camera had been doing all day at the wedding, say.
tom.
As others have pointed out our brains have a built in steadicam so the only time that a wobbly shot is valid is if the watcher is supposed to be aware that it is the viewpoint of a camera. e.g. Cloverfield.
Recently finished this year's End Of the Pier Film Festival (Shameless plug!)
We had several submissions using gratuitous 'shakey-cam'. I'm pleased to report that none of them won anything. The exception was a US feature in the vein of the 'Bourne' franchise where it's use was amply justified.
I've written quite a bit about this in my book (nearly done now). The problem is that saccadic eye motion (sudden gaze-shifting, initated by a head movement) is ballistic, once launched it can't be stopped, but that during the move, the optic nerve shuts down to stop the blurring. What these clowns are doing is defeating ythe eye's very clever way of dealing with motion.
Incidentally, using too-short DoF brings on another problem, the Bokeh effect, whereby out-of-focus points tend to take on the shape of the iris. Taken t extreme, obje3cts appear to come back as recognisable objects rather than a diffused area, but they move in the opposite direction to the original because they're aliased, and a that is visually disturbing even though ti doesn't worry compressors. 'Criminal Justice' was the first programme I noticed it as a problem, although you can often see it in some shots on film once you know what it looks like.
Yes, I agree with you Tom and Alan and last night the END credits came on hallf way through Last of the Summer Wine programme. Another gimmick to annoy us?
LOTSW has been made for some years with dialogue going right up to the wire. Alan J.W.Bell hates the concept of someone talking over his production, and I reckon he's right. He starts the captions rolling but keeps dialogue going as well. But lately, the continuity people have still managed to talk over it all, wrecking the mood for me. I wish they wouldn't do it.
All the words of wisdom on the forum will not make any difference to the film makers at BBC etc.
There are too many people watching television who have no clue. As long as they are entertained that is all that matters.
One just hopes those people who are starting out and read these sort of comments will take note. Should they reach the hight of working for the Plasma screen in the living room
Having dubbed LOTSW 10 years ago Alan J W Bell is a true gent and it is good to see one of the old school still getting to make old fashioned tv.
I was just pointing out to the wife how simple the direction is on the current LOTSW and how most scenes are one shot with just the actors doing their bit, nice to see the superb pictures too and I see it is now being shot on digital rather than super 16.
Brian Wilde's son Andrew is still the editor too and I used to love dubbing it as it was such a gentle show to do, the crazy thing was I lived in West Yorks near where it is shot but travelled down to Teddington Studio's to dub it.
I too used to dub film inserts to LOTSW but more like 15-20 years ago. Alan J W Bell was a lot of fun. I'd love to be able to tell you about a Sunday lunchtime in Television Centre Club but I'd probably better not...
Great to see such a well established formula continuing to keep up with the technology.
Funny to think that 10 years ago Alan thought it would be the last ser as Thora Hord and Bill Owen were very ill and he didnt expect another block to be requested.
He is one of the best prod/directors I have had the pleasure of working with and it is a great credit to him to keep the simple art of televisual film making going.
As for wobbly cam I could just imagine his response to a request for that style on one of his drama's.
One other thing, I was always impressed with show that he puts on for the audience that come in to do the laugh track, a lot of the stars appeared and seeing a comedy hero from my school days Stephen Lewis (blakey on the buses) acting as the teddington studio caretaker and testing the mics above the audience was a treat.
With me and Rob being two of the old dubbers we just need a third to do our own "Last of the Dubbing Whine"
Sadly, I think that several of the early LOTSW dubbing mixers are now dead. That said, there are at least one or two others still with us, although I don't think they are members of this community.
The 'showing it to an audience' element placed a number of constraints on the mix, but not to its detriment.
I agree with Gary, Alan JW is one of the true gents of TV LE.
I always found it weird in the pre-dubs as the gaps were left for the laugh track, it always made sense in the final dub as Alan's timing for the editor was just right.
Tony Philpots music recordings always gave me a tear in my eye as it reminded me of my home in Heptonstall and those wonderful yorkshire vista's, not wobbly cam just a huge locked off shot of countryside!
Heptonstall on the opposite side of the valley and my house at the time is right in the middle, in the back ground is Hebden Bridge home of Calrec and beyond LOTSW country.
And minimal atmospheres with close up dialogue regardless of shot for the same reasons. Loved those wide shots! Always liked doing comedies, timing was always 'one of my things'.
LOTSW was the first freelance job I did. I retired from Kingswood, and was back there 2 days later to talk to LOTSW as a freelance. Then a very happy couple of days with the crew on the first days of the first video shoot. They were a very easy crew to work with, and Alan was an instant convert. I've got a mini piece-to-camera of him saying that LOTSW was the first BBC LE to go wide-screen, first LE to go from 16mm to super16, first LE to go stereo, and now first LE to go to HD (without even going through digibeta). the only issue we had with him was that he thinks like a super16 DoP, so he defines the angles he wants in terms of lens focal lengths at super 16 and lets action happen in the shot rather than chasing it, so we had to build an equivalence table into 2"/3.
Series 28 (2004) was on HDW750, next onto Viper and HDCAM-SR (because HDCAM chroma isn't good enough), and then upwards because they'd got Dan Mulligan hooked in, and he's now pushing F35.
Happy days :D
Filmed an episode of LOTSW some years ago right outside my house, on my daughters H8.
Gave some copies away to friends, can`t find one for myself now. But I`m sure I have one somewhere. The "old" gang were all there at the time. Happy days!