The Found Footage Vs. The Footage Script

                    The Found Footage Vs. The Footage Script


    The found footage film is here to stay as long as it grows and adapts. Adaptation is the key to this. The western, the gangster film and the horror film changed over time. The horror film of the silent era grew up to become the four star films produced by Universal films in the 1930's. The genre nearly died off and then came back with a vengeance in the 50's. Led by Hammer horror films and aided with a massive wave of the newly introduced scifi horror film.

    We all know the formula by now. A group of people, one armed with a recording device, find themselves in a life and death situation. This situation is usually supernatural or thriller related. Despite the best efforts of the mostly brain dead or functioning brain damaged lead characters they end up getting themselves killed while the camera is still recording. That death is symbolic for the death of the genre.

    Found footage, must become footage films. This is done at the screenplay level and that is the reason for this post.

    What I have found is that most found footage films are not written they are outlined. They are usually structured in the form of a treatment. The basic scenes are written in normal screenplay style. The interiors or exteriors are noted and then there is a description of what the characters are suppose to do and talk about in the scene without actually stage direction or dialogue being written. As a writer you are leaving to much to chance in the found footage genre.

    The footage film screenplay is the wave of the future.

    What is a Footage screenplay and have I ever seen an example.

    The footage screenplay is a screenplay that incorporates footage shot by someone or a series of people and or security cameras on screen and mixes it with footage from a third person shooter (the cameraman).  The best example of this kind of film making is the movie End of Watch. Where the editing is done so well that you have to really focus on each scene to notice when and where the switches are made.



 
    Below is a great example of how footage and found footage can be combined to produce a quality low budget film.  Screen was shot on a budget of about four thousand dollars and combines footage from iphones and the Canon 5d mark II.

    This style of screen writing gives control back to the writer to deliver a quality story. If you are going to put your name on a found footage screenplay even if you only wrote a twenty page outline you are going to be blamed if it stinks. For the sake of your writing career the Footage screenplay gives you more control over the content that will comprise the finished product.

    You will have to pick your devices and where and when to embed the on screen devices. Writing one of these films will require you to think at times as a director within the film itself.

When inserting them into the script put these scenes down as point of view (POV).

Character’s name and then POV.

POV of security cam or webcam.

    You will find the best way of doing this. Just think in terms of footage rather than found footage and this will be a gift both to characters and audience. The audience that views the finished product will thank you. The characters that survive rather than finding themselves laying dead in a pool of their own blood beside a sputtering camcorder will love you.

    Now go write some great scenes so that you or your director can go out and shoot some great footage.
That will be it for today. Please take a moment to add me to your Google plus and to share this post on your facebook.

More About Found Footage

            More on Found Footage

    I have just spend a week trying to analyze what is right and what is wrong with the found footage craze.
    I believe that the craze began with Paranormal Activity. After the Blair Witch there were a few attempts at making found footage films, but that movie was basically a one and done. Even the sequel is not found footage (that was a major mistake on the producers part).

   We could go back further to the first great found footage movie. All the way back to the 70's there was a notorious movie titled Cannibal holocaust. It is so dark and bloody that most fans over look this minor master piece. It is about a band of so called journalist who travel to the Amazon to document a lost tribe only to first create the story they are there for and then later become victims of their own curiosity.

    I believe that curiosity is the key to the quality found footage films. In Cannibal Holocaust these jerks ( I am being kind) keep filming from a safe distance while someone is raped, later while the same thing is happening to one of them and then they keep film while one of their own is being killed. It is a film that shows that the person or persons with the camera does not have to be a hero or likable. You can give that camera to a murderer or a thief or a total coward.

    I say that you can do this because you are doing this. You are picking who holds the camera and reveals the action. We are trying to follow rules here and there are no rules. Anything goes in this new genre.

    I would argue that the biggest problem with this genre is the sticking to the rules of normal films. Look at most of them, they are still stuck in a 180 degree world. They are shot as if there is still a crew of fifty people behind the camera.

    To prepare for this post I looked at a few movies that I had not seen yet. The first one was Paranormal Activity, Tokyo Nights. A sort of remake of the American version. You can see the whole thing on youtube if you wish. I like the pacing of this version. There is a rule about Japanese horror film making. It is said that American’s try to startle their viewers while the Japanese try to disturb them. Their style of filmmaking is to get under your skin and scratch away.



    The other film was one that I had high hopes for, Area 407. This could have been a great film instead of just an okay film. The people who boarded the plane that crashes in this film are much smarter than the ones who crawled out of the wreckage. I would have rather watched a movie about the flight and the crash without the monster portion. All the stuff that happens on the ground reminded me of the playstation 2 games I did not like enough to finish.

    Challenge yourself and your characters to be smarter than the audience. Characters who go out of their way to get killed are characters that no one will remember.

    Okay that is it for now. If you have any suggestions leave them as a comment. If someone disagrees with me so much that they wish to respond in post form I would be happy to post it here if it is well written.
Lastly remember to stumble us on Stumbleupon and if any of you are interested in learning to turn your no budget screenplay into your own no budget movie please visit my new site where I offer advice and tutorials on different types of filmmaking. You can visit it by   clicking here.

No Budget Screenplays, Found Footage

            No Budget Screenplay, Found Footage

    An ultra low budget film in number one at the box office.  Another found footage horror movie has taken the top spot at the box office.  These movies look like documentaries and act like documentaries, but they are really well thought out and written films. 
    They all come with a script of some kind.  Someone had to write it before it got filmed and the better the writing, the better the film.  I am not going to talk about The Devil Inside, I am going to allow the smoke to clear on this movie.  Like the Blair Witch Project many years ago, some people love it some people really hate it.  Let’s begin where this trend really started.  Not with the Blair Witch, but all the way back in the 1970's with a movie titled Cannibal Holocaust.  A repulsive movie at times, one that got band in a few countries during its first release.  This is a movie were the film crew travels to south America to film native tribes and instead of just recording the events they encounter they caused them and then later fall victim to them.  This simple plot device has been part of almost every found footage film since then.  Observe and become a victim.  Observe and linger too long for safety. 
    Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity, CloverField, Grave Encounters, Apollo 18, Rec and the fantastic Rec 2. All of these films could be summed up as curiosity killed the cat.  The camera feels like a shield to the one holding it and only too late are they reminded that they are part of events.  Not safe at home watching on a tv screen, but in the middle of a life and death struggle.
    What I suggest is that you keep this in mind, but you also add a twist.  Try this found footage concept with comedy or straight drama.  Remember the scene in the Sixth Sense where the boy delivers to a grieving father found footage of a step mother poisoning the daughter.  We are missing the boat, but only doing horror.  Use security camera or webcam footage or even iphone footage.  Take a chance.  Do something different with this type of story telling.