Badmovies.org Forum

The thread about overrated action scenes made me think of this. I believe it was Odinn who mentioned that undercranking to speed up the action often looks bad in movies. It's one of those effects that, when done carefully, looks good, but when done poorly, looks awful. I was just thinking that the effect was used to much greater effect in Vanishing Point, where it is much less noticeable because some effort was made to make sure there was no other movement that would give the effect away. It's either the white Challenger by itself on the desert highway, or passing slowly moving cars. They practically doubled the speed of the car on film, and it looked good.

Another camera trick that takes a certain skill to use is day-for-night. How often does that come out looking like slightly underexposed afternoon? But if the exposure is just right, and there are no hard shadows or other telltale signs in the shot, it does work. In this case, I can't think of an example of good day-for-night, because there are too few (and probably many I didn't notice). There are too many examples of bad day-for-night to pick just one.

So, what are some other examples of camera tricks that can look like crap or like gold, depending on the skill of the filmmakers and the care taken?

The zoom is often the most overused and underappreciated tool in cinema. Too many people in the lower level of the movie industry have taken it for advantage and used it in the most absurd ways. Examples of good use of zoom are Robert Altman's zooming in on characters in his movie M*A*S*H. Bad examples are almost every kung fu movie, most spaghetti westerns, and even blaxploitation. People don't seem to realize that the zoom is a tool to draw attention to an object, not to behave like a roaming eye that has no anchor point. It's purpose is to emphasize an event by creating visual motion towards a subject.  It's usually hokey if used improperly, but if you can control the zoom, it's a great tool. In the movie I just finished shooting, I think I zoomed in on someone or something maybe four times in a 90 minute movie. I still think that was too much.

One of my peeves comes from Peter Jackson, of all directors.  During the hyper action sequences when he uses the shaking camera along with playing with the frame speed, it is really annoying.  You can see it during some of the fight scenes in the Lord of the Rings and also when the natives first come out and attack the visitors in "King Kong."

Speaking of zoom, you really have to mention the vertigo camera trick, where as you move back from your subject the camera zooms in, making the background seem to be moving.

Very tacky effect that has been used so much in a bad way that it normally doesn't add alot to the scene it's in, but for some reason I have a soft spot for it anyway, so much so that when it works well I almost feel like giving the filmmakers some kind of award!

I always find it kinda funny when they use ultraviolet black-out lights to imply darkness, especially when the filmstock is way too colorful.

"Another camera trick that takes a certain skill to use is day-for-night. How often does that come out looking like slightly underexposed afternoon? But if the exposure is just right, and there are no hard shadows or other telltale signs in the shot, it does work. In this case, I can't think of an example of good day-for-night, because there are too few (and probably many I didn't notice). There are too many examples of bad day-for-night to pick just one. "

They usually don't use day for night, but they use the roughly hour of time between the two to simulate light while still having enough for it to look like night.  There's a name for this, and a gigantic chunk of night time scenes in Hollywood films are filmed at this time..  There's a name for the two hours of a day when they can film for night scenes, but memory escapes me.  You've seen the effect hundreds of times in all likelihood.

As far as camera tricks that normally look crappy...  Solarizing and other video effects usually look crappy (think Redneck Zombies), but can occasionally be used to good effect.

Roger Corman and the Twilight Zone used to pull off of the swiviel camera thing, but Andy Milligan made it look like a dropped camera.

Also the psychedelic effect with Vasaline on the lense was okay until Andy Milligan did it in Body Beneath. He either used too much or used KY jelly.

When I bought my dad a DVD player, I got a box of westerns at Big Lots. I watched at Johnny Mack Brown film called Desert Phantom over the Memorial Day weekend.  The effect they used that drove me crazy was undercranking the fight scenes, which cause them to be in a comical high speed. It worked to make the Batmobile seem to go faster, or when people ran away from the Munsters or when the drank Granny Clampetts moonshine. However in a Western fight scene it looks stupid.

I've mentioned this one before, but I cannot stand it when there is something just off-frame of the camera that we know is there, but the character cannot see it even though they obviously COULD see it.  They use the camera FoV to define the character's FoV.  (there are times where this works, though, like if the camera is looking at the BACK of the character's head and the something is also behind the character; then it is reasonable that the character does not see the something).

This one is not really a camera trick but an editing trick, and I cannot stand it either: they show the same scene multiple times, either from different angles or over cranked or whatever.  For example, an explosion, a car jumping over something (or into something), etc.  You see it like three times, and it destroys the effect of being "in" the movie.

I really hate when they show somebody taking pictures and they frame and freeze the shot as if it was the finished picture. It just doesn't feel natural. I've promised myself that if I ever film something like that I'll just add the camera noise over the normal shot, without doing anything else. Or, if it's dark shot, I'll allow the flashes to be included, without any sound effects.

I also hate montages. Any. Probably it's because I watch CSI regularly and they tend to overuse them. They also can't be "normal" montages, you know, they have to throw any visual trick available in the editing program, and add "hip" music.