Donald Wong

There exists a 35mm, VistaVision, 3D camera system. It's the GEMINI 3D camera and there's info on it at the websites below:

http://gemini3dcamera.com/Home.html

http://thirdmagazine.com/2009/11/14/for-rent-gemini-3d-film-camera/

http://machinedesign.com/article/3d-camera-exploits-motion-control-technologies-0807

http://blog.bigmoviezone.com/?p=3551

The shaky-cam/run & gun style is troubling to me too. I saw THE HURT LOCKER recently and even though I sat near the back of the theater, I had to close my eyes for several minutes a number of times to avoid motion sickness. At least I made it through the entire movie. I had to walk out on CLOVERFIELD and THE GREEN ZONE because I was strongly feeling the onset of nausea.

Why are directors choosing this style of shooting so much in recent years? Doesn't it make more sense to create images that get a "you can't take your eyes off the screen" reaction instead of "I had to look away/close my eyes or I would've vomited" reaction.

As far as creating a sense of being there or a sense of reality, ask yourself what are among the most real feeling movies you've ever seen and if hand-held camerawork was truly a factor in creating that sense of reality.

And isn't it also possible that audiences are or will be expressing their displeasure with movies that employ the heavy use of shaky-cam by essentially boycotting these movies?

- Dino

John Wayne was also in the B&W "In Harm's Way" released in 1965. A 70mm blowup of this movie was shown at a 70mm film festival last year.

As an example of what I consider to be very good hand-held camera work, watch the scenes on the boat in JAWS. They contributed positively to the tension and excitement that those scenes needed and were clearly justified, not gratuitous, and not so shaky as to induce vertigo. I also think the technique was used judiciously in that it was not overused and was used in a relatively small portion of the film.

Potential downsides to the technique especially when it becomes what a lot of viewers would call "shaky-cam": a) it turns off potential viewers who are sensitive to vertigo induced by a shaky image (which could lead to a loss in box office revenue), b) it will lead some viewers to think that the technique was used simply because it was faster, cheaper, or easier to do it that way (not necessarily bad reasons, but it may leave a bad impression on some viewers).

My $0.02 is that if the hand-held technique is not clearly well-motivated and appropriate to the scene, it shouldn't be used. Think of the possible alternatives that will still satisfy your storytelling objective or solve your filming problem before you use it.

Ones that I thought looked good: the last two Star Wars movies, Speed Racer, Zodiac, Benjamin Button, Knowing.

I was disappointed in the motion blur or image lag in several scenes in 2012, otherwise it looked pretty good.