A Short Found Footage Lesson

Found footage horror films are now the mainstream. Yet before Hollywood, as they strive to appear more indy and artsy, co-opted the gimmick of point of view, “found,” and shaky home camera footage, the style was predominately used out of necessity. From the first of it's kind (Cannibal Holocaust (1980)) to the film that made the genre a big screen success (The Blair Witch Project (1999)) the only goal of the filmmaker was to tell a story with an over abundance of will and as little else as possible. It was that tenacity of will that made it possible for films like [Rec] (2007) and Paranormal Activity (2009) to become both cult and box office successes. Comparable to the poverty row films of the 1930's (i.e. Bride of Frankenstein (1935), White Zombie (1932)) they were always intended to operate on the fringe of the Hollywood system and actually exist despite it. Today found footage films have become mostly spectacles of themselves. Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) is a prime example of how overwhelming budgets that allow for over the top special effects (i.e. Cloverfield (2008)) and creative multi-camera usage (i.e Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)) which ultimately proves that, given enough money, even clever low budget artists like Oren Peli (writer/director Paranormal Activity) will eventually be swallowed up by the Hollywood machine (i.e. Chronicle (2012)). That is not to say that recent Hollywood blockbusters that utilize similar techniques are without value. The [Rec] sequels ([Rec]2, [Rec]3 Genesis) and Trollhunter (2010) have manged to prove that creativity and artistry still exist even with the use of in-camera special effects. Sadly, everyone must of realized that a television show like The River (2011) only exhausts such creativity thereby rendering it mundane! We don't see a lot of found footage anymore unless it is independent.