There are a couple of directors out there that like a particular style of Filmography (I'm not sure what to call it so I'm calling it that).  In some films it happens only during certain scenes and is fairly subtle.  In other films, it happens all of the time.

 

I may have blogged about this in the past wrt the later Bourne movies as this style was incredibly pronounced in those movies.  The affect is when the camera doing the filming shakes as if someone untrained is doing the filming.  I can only assume it was an attempt to make you feel like you were in the action (even though the style continued when the characters were chatting over dinner).  I actually don't know how they get this affect and whether it's built into cameras or you turn off the stabilizer and get the cameraman drunk or what...

 

I'm bringing this up now becuase we tried to watch Rachel Getting Married this past weekend and that movie had this very style.  Tammy actually got car sick watching the first 5 minutes and we had to return it.  The person at Blockbuster seemed to think we were pulling a fast one on her as she claimed that the movie either didn't have that affect or it wasn't that bad.  The thing is, we skipped from scene to scene and the affect was still there. While it was never very pronounced, it was there the whole time.

 

Why in a movie like that would we need that affect?  It's not to make you feel like you're in the action as there is none.  It's not to make you feel like you're in the scene itself because ones vision doesn't move like that in real life if you're calm or even if you're in the middle of a soccer game.  Yes, your vision is constantly adjusting but it does it much faster and in much smaller ways.  Combined with this affect, it can make the movie distracting and harder to watch as your eyes try to adjust to the bouncing and just can't do it.

 

Personally, I think any director who chooses that affect should be banned from releasing movies for multiple years to teach them a lesson.  It seems like some of them just use it to use it and have no justifiable reason for it and it's just annoying.  If I wanted to feel like I was watching a home movie, well, I would watch an old home movie...