# Does anyone actually like wobbly-cam? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 20, 2016, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711 "2016-01-20T22:11:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Leo\_Krupe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ebca7d/32.png) [@Leo\_Krupe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Krupe)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711/21 "2016-01-21T01:53:27Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Actually, now that I think about it, I seem to remember _ER_ doing “shaky cam” back in the 90s, although not always. Looking through clips, it’s definitely mostly handheld work. It’s been done in one way or another for decades. It’s just now that it’s become stylistically obsequious. Cause and effect with smart phones? Why not? Crazier things have been related. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711/22 "2016-01-21T01:58:26Z")
> [@Leo\_Krupe](#): > > It’s been done in one way or another for decades. It’s just now that it’s become stylistically obsequious. Cause and effect with smart phones? Why not? Crazier things have been related. Well, I think the look was becoming popular well before cell phone video was ubiquitous but I’m sure cell phone video has at least somewhat helped it along its way to audiences tolerating it. One show where it was a little distracting for me was _Friday Night Lights_ (2004), and that was before cell phone video was really becoming popular. Hell, I didn’t even have a phone that took decent still photos at that time. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711/23 "2016-01-21T02:04:50Z")
> [@Leo\_Krupe](#): > > It’s been done in one way or another for decades. It’s just now that it’s become stylistically obsequious. Cause and effect with smart phones? Why not? Crazier things have been related. Except they don’t really look like celphone footage. And they do look like documentary footage. And note in a lot of cases, its not just the hand-held effect that’s made to invoke a documentary. Stuff like the Office (in the first season anyways) was explicitly supposed to be a fake documentary. And shows like Parks and Rec and Modern Family have not just hand held cams, but pull the characters aside for “interviews” a la reality shows\*. \*(actually, now that I think about it, I’m almost positive that the massive popularity of reality shows is the reason for the ubiquity of the hand-held look. Audiences are so used to the conventions of reality shows that they quickly accept them in scripted shows. I doubt most people even question who the hell is interviewing the members of a random Modern Family on that show, for example). ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711/24 "2016-01-21T02:33:36Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > … > There are earlier examples, but I think Blair Witch (1999) started the current trend. > … Woody Allen used it the most in the beginning (1980s). He wasn’t the only one, but it was a trademark of his. [Shaky Camera](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaky_camera) > [@](#): > > In 1984, the Coen brothers and their cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld used shaky cam techniques in Blood Simple, then again in 1987’s _Raising Arizona_. Woody Allen’s improvisational style of filmmaking was matched with hand-held camera techniques in _Husbands and Wives_, shot by Carlo Di Palma in 1991 and 1992. The film’s opening scene uses the hand-held style to achieve a sense of “free-floating anxiety and terminal loss of moorings.” Reviewers joked that Dramamine was required to prevent motion sickness. Allen and Di Palma continued to use the technique but with more finesse and restraint on \*Manhattan Murder Mystery \*and subsequent films throughout the 1990s to save time spent on principal photography, and to stay within budget. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711/25 "2016-01-21T02:52:01Z")
Used in moderation, I don’t mind, and it can certainly lend an air of immediacy and urgency to an action scene. I’ve never gotten motion sickness as a result of wobbly-cam overuse, as I’ve read some other people do, but if it’s done too much I do find it a bit annoying. ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711/26 "2016-01-21T03:24:02Z")
I like it when it’s used in moderation for one scene or something to create an effect I hate it when the whole show is done like that I blame Modern Family. that really seemed to make it popular and The Office ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711/27 "2016-01-21T05:38:37Z")
> [@iljitsch](#): > > I kept hearing about how great Parks and Recreation is. Well, except the first season. And maybe the second. > > I watched the first seven episodes and the first episode of the third season. I hate the humor. It’s painfully unfunny. > > But that’s ok. Different people find different things funny. > > The thing I don’t get is the purposefully amateurish camerawork. The camera can never sit still. It wobbles, zooms like there’s a 3-year-old operating the thing and generally makes it really annoying and/or difficult to see what’s going on. > > Does ANYONE actually like that kind of camera work?? Forgetting the ‘wobbly cam’ issue for a moment, I have to ask were you a fan of _The Office_? Because _Parks and Recreation_’s style of comedy was exactly the same. And I don’t just mean the fake-documentary camera work but the writing, the performances, everything. In fact _P&R_ started development as a spin-off of Rashida Jones’ _Office_ character. And I found both shows to be exemplary examples of intelligent comedy (as opposed to crap like _Two and A Half Men_ or _2 Broke Girls_ or _Two Drooling Idiots_ etc.) As far as wobbly cam goes, it’s never bothered me. Like anything it can get over-used, but overall I find cinéma vérité to be an effective style of film making. It really enhances smart, deadpan, faux-documentary comedies like those mentioned. I even loved its used in the battle sequences in the _Battlestar Galactica_ reboot. It added a fresh element to otherwise stock CGI stuff. I’ve never suffered from the ‘motion sickness’ issue either (I loved _Blair Witch_). ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711/28 "2016-01-21T05:43:08Z")
Out of random curiosity, did the British version of The Office do the faux-reality show thing, or was that an innovation of the American version? ---
**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711/29 "2016-01-21T06:21:37Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Out of random curiosity, did the British version of The Office do the faux-reality show thing, or was that an innovation of the American version? Yes, it was also shot in mockumentary style. ---
**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711/30 "2016-01-21T06:26:57Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Exactly. Blair Witch is the first one that I remember being really popular, but that was an ultra-extreme version of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was being used before that on TV shows. That’s also more of what I think of when I think of “the cell phone look,” even though that was before cell phone video. [Here’s another video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb0P5t5NQWM) that I think exemplifies the “cell phone look” or, more appropriately, the “average idiot with a camera” look. I’m blanking on the viral ads I’ve seen that feature this, but there’s a good number of them shot with that herky-jerky style, the inability to keep anything remotely in frame for longer than a few seconds at a time, and the occasional peep from the camera operator. There’s a video game that has ads like these, but I just can’t find the right search terms. I think it’s an FPS and the ad features kids using the futuristic weapons from this game (like an anti-gravity gun or ion blaster or something like that) in a video that looks like its shot by a guy holding an iPhone, for that real-life look. KFC had a series of annoying ads that were shot in “cell phone” style. [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS8WCrndSsI) ---
**Author:** ![iljitsch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/77aa72/32.png) [@iljitsch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iljitsch)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711/31 "2016-01-21T08:50:10Z")
About wobbly/shaky cameras: I don’t get how people call this a “documentary style”. Ever seen a documentary? They don’t look like that. I guess “handheld” is more accurate, although that should then not be confused with “without a tripod”, as reality shows are typically shot without a tripod, but I assume with a larger camera off the shoulder rather than actually handheld. But go look at a show like Survivor. Yes, the camera moves a little because it’s not on a tripod, and once in a while they move to catch something that’s happening outside the frame, but they’re trying to _minimize_ the resulting instability rather than _emphasize_ it like on Parks and Rec or the new BSG. In PG-13 action movies they tend to use shakycam to make sure you can’t actually see the violence so they can get away with more of it without losing the PG-13 rating. Of course in a movie like Transformers I can’t tell (let alone care) which heap of CGI metal is pounding which other heap of CGI metal even if the camera would be completely still. I tried to rewatch the 2009 Star Trek a while ago, but I couldn’t because of the way the camera is used and it’s edited: like a TV commercial. Not sure about the camera stability, but it’s constantly zoomed way in, cutting back and forth very quickly. This made me very worried about the new Star Wars, because the old Star Wars is quite the opposite: many long, wide shots. Fortunately, JJ Abrams used those in the new SW, although some action is still slightly too tight and too quickly cut for my tastes, but not to such a degree that it’s a distraction. Note that it makes a big difference how you see a show or a movie. I recently got myself a projector, so now I see movies and many TV shows projected on my wall. This makes excessive camera movement very unpleasant, while you’d barely notice when watching the same thing on a cell phone. For instance, I never had a problem with Storage Wars when watching it on my TV, but the camera is too frantic on the wall. But at least they’re not going out of their way to make it worse, like on Parks and Rec, BSG and NYPD Blue. About comedy: My favorite sitcom ever is Ned & Stacey from 1995. I also like NewsRadio a lot, and Friends could be really funny in its hey day, they had very good writing. It’s not easy to make a dumb character funny, but they managed with Joey. Also see Home Improvement (mostly funny) and all of its imitators from the 2000s with loser husbands and harpy wives: not funny. I liked The Big Bang Theory and still watch it, but it has declined a lot over the years. Cringe comedy: certainly cringeworthy, but that doesn’t make it funny. As such I can’t stand The Office. In general, I hate characters that make stupid decisions, because you can see the fallout coming miles away and that fallout is never enjoyable to watch. This is one of the reasons I hated Battlestar so much by the end. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711/32 "2016-01-21T11:01:41Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > **Homicide: Life on the Street** used handheld cameras to very good effect; it emphasized the realism of the action. IIRC, \*\*HLOTS \*\*had a reason for the handheld camera when it started – one of the characters was making a documentary. That didn’t bother me; but the camera work in **The Blair Witch Project** annoyed the crap out of me. Maybe because the movie was stupid \*and \*had wobbly-cam. ---
**Author:** ![Gothic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Gothic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gothic)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711/33 "2016-01-21T13:16:50Z")
It’s like loving rollercoasters as a kid and not being able to handle them with age, in my experience. I was able to watch Project Almanac on Prime, so maybe the refresh rate lessened the eye strain I usually experience right away my television. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711/34 "2016-01-21T13:25:00Z")
Shakycam is one thing, and that is annoying in itself, but could be blamed on handheld operation. But I particularly dislike when the camera is intentionally swaying slowly, tilting, panning, in a way that is clearly controlled and deliberate. Ugh! It’s kind of like a bass player who is always playing fancy licks instead of doing their primary job of holding the groove and providing a solid foundation for the rest of the band. An occasional lick is fine, and welcome, but not the whole song. The camera’s primary job is to convey the image–then “art” gets in the way and the camera is suddenly taking attention away from the actors. An occasional moment of this is fine, like salt and pepper, but not the whole show. ---
**Author:** ![edwards\_beard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@edwards\_beard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwards_beard)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711/35 "2016-01-21T13:41:47Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > I think it started before there were many phones with video capabilities. BSG was using it in 2003, Firefly a year earlier. Phones that could take video were pretty rare then, and ones that could easily zoom while filming even rarer. > > There are earlier examples, but I think Blair Witch (1999) started the current trend. > > As a practical matter, I imagine a lot of cinematographers and directors get their start with low budget documentaries, so that the idea of mimicking the style in their later work is popular isn’t really surprising. IIRC There was a show in the late 80s called Thirtysomething that used shaky cam a lot. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711/36 "2016-01-21T14:04:17Z")
> [@iljitsch](#): > > About wobbly/shaky cameras: > > I don’t get how people call this a “documentary style”. Ever seen a documentary? They don’t look like that. By “documentary style” I mean more like hand-held news footage or something to evoke a feeling of reality, but it also encompasses shows like _The Office_ which really does try to mimic a documentary feel. (I mean, look up [shaky cam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaky_camera) on Wikipedia and the reasons for employing it: “Shaky cam is often employed to give a film sequence an ad hoc, electronic news-gathering, or documentary film feel. It suggests unprepared, unrehearsed filming of reality, and can provide a sense of dynamics, immersion, instability or nervousness.[4] The technique can be used to give a pseudo-documentary or cinéma vérité appearance to a film”) I just looked up a clip of _Parks and Recreation_ and that’s a lot shakier and zoomier than I remember. [The first clip at the ice arena](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYM-FbO9yk0) actually does bug me. Not so much the shakiness, but the constant zooms. ---
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711/37 "2016-01-21T14:46:40Z")
When I watch a film or TV I usually lose myself in the story. The suddenly -SHAKY CAM- and I’m reminded that there is a camera man and an entire studio full of stage hands involved. Rally fucks up a story fast. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711/38 "2016-01-21T15:26:56Z")
It just occurred to me that shaky-cam being done to create realism (oxymoron!) is the 20th-21st Century equivalent to those early novels (late 18th-early 19th Cent.) that opened with the now-mockable “this is a journal of a real person” or “this is a long-ass letter to a real person” framing device. “[Main Title] Being the Diary of the Late Cap’t R\_\_\_, Recovered by the Expedition of Lt. C\_\_\_ in 181\_ Along With the Mortal Remains of Cap’t R\_\_\_.” 🙂 Authors outgrew the need for such a framing device as routine or ubiquitous, and now use it only once in a while intentionally and for a particular effect. I’m sure movie-makers will do the same. ---
**Author:** ![phreesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@phreesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phreesh)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711/39 "2016-01-21T18:50:54Z")
I like shaky cam. Like anything, there are examples where it is overused, but it provides a sense of realism, of being there _in the moment_, that smooth camerawork cannot convey. I think Paul Greengrass is the master. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2016, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711/40 "2016-01-21T19:16:33Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > It’s hands-down the funniest TV show of all time. Out of curiosity, which show would you say is the funniest? Incorrect. That honor of funniest sitcom belongs, for now and all time, to _Fawlty Towers_, with the first two seasons of _Arrested Development_ and _Taxi_ as running neck and neck for a distant second place. _Parks and Recreation_ is, however, a more authentically American version of _The Office_ than the actual American version of _The Office_. Practically speaking, you can extract 90% of the genuine humor by skimming through [YouTube.com](http://YouTube.com) clips of Chris Pratt and Audrey Plaza, punctuated with occasionally pearls of wisdom from Ron Swanson about the evils of government and his obsessive need for privacy. (His response to Plaza’s character telling him to look on Google Maps for his house was the single best scene in the series.) Also, pass entirely on the pointless seventh season. As for “shaky cam” it is intended to replicate the _cinéma vérité_ of a documentary feature and has been used for decades to good effect to add a sense of immediacy to a scene, such as in Italian neorealistic films like _La battaglia di Algeri_ or to emphasize the stress of warfare as in _The Hurt Locker_. Ironically, the technique has been somewhat deprecated among documentary filmmakers (except in ambush interviews and other shooting that requires handheld cameras) precisely because of its overuse in entertainment films. Since _Parks and Rec_ is supposed to be a kind of slice of life documentary-styled show it is appropriate but it was frequently overused. Although it is often claimed to be “easier” to set up a handheld shot than the standard fixed single camera staging, it actually requires most skill and communication on the part of the cameraman and director to make sure that the camera captures the action as intended versus blocking a static set where the cameraman simply has to operate the fixed camera as the actors simply hit their marks. Stranger [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-actually-like-wobbly-cam/743711.md?page=3)