# Shaky "drunk" camera on TV shows



## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Not sure how else to put this. But this "method" of filming is ruining it for me. 
I wanted to watch this show "Friday Night Lights". I have never watched it before and I have heard so much about it. Plus its on prime. 

I am trying to watch the 3rd episode and I am getting a headache. This constant wobbly mess of filming is just horrible. I guess they try to show "realistic". But when I look at someone in a hospital bed for example, I don't wobble up and down and sideways like this, not even when I am drunk. Its pretty much unwatchable for me. I am really disappointed.  

None of the scenes are ever not shaky or wobbly. Am I the only one that has issues with this? Its making me sick. Sometimes its not only wobbly, but they zoom in on the oddest things and then they are blurry, on purpose I guess. Then they zoom in and out and in and out. Yikes.
Just too many large heads on the screen and not the whole picture. Its like they zoom in too much all the time. Especially when people talk. 

Right now they showing someone flipping burgers, all zoomed in and wobbling in a circle. WTH.  

Well there goes this show.


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## Carrie Rubin (Nov 19, 2012)

I don't care for the 'shaky cam' technique, either. Although I haven't watched Friday Night Lights, I've seen the movies Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project, both of which used that style. Definitely not my cup of tea.


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## leslieray (Mar 16, 2010)

I can't watch that type of filming either. It's truly enough to induce a migraine for me. I do not understand the concept behind anyone thinking we want to watch movies that way.


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## mom133d (aka Liz) (Nov 25, 2008)

I find it ok when the filmmaker is using the camera as a first person point of view. Like the Begging Strips commercial from the dogs viewpoint. Otherwise, it is an overused technique. I could not stand it either for an entire episode or movie. I seem to recall Glee had an episode from Becky's POV once, and it started getting to me.


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

Add me to the list of those who despise the over-use of this technique. It's very distracting.

Mike


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Glad to know I am not the only one. There are a lot of shows out there that use this to varying degrees. But I have never seen one that did it as bad as Friday Night Lights. And its not just the shaking camera, they change scenes like every 3 seconds and zoom in and out. Its shake, zoom, blur, cut, zoom, shake shake cut, etc. I can't even tell still what some other characters look like. The camera doesn't even stay on them long enough for me to get an idea. Or the scenery. I have no clue what the main couples house looks like. None of the rooms. They keep zooming in and shaking so much that everything else is not visible. Don't know why they bothered with sets even. 

I managed to finish the 3rd episode, but mostly by listening. Every time I looked at the screen, I got dizzy and literally sick in my stomach. 

I have read online that one should keep on plugging through, since the acting is so great. Well, I can't really see the acting. So whats the point. 

If more and more shows  use this "technique", I won't be able to watch much TV anymore. 

I know their explanations is that you are suppose to be in a scene like you are there. But when I look around a room, I don't shake my head like a spaz. I may go left and right, but not at that speed and not up and down and sideways and in and out. I think our heads are pretty steady cameras. So that reasoning is pretty much BS. 

Oh well, I'll have to find something else to watch them. And I really got interested in it. Well in between the sickening vertigo that is.


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## Meemo (Oct 27, 2008)

That's a shame. FNL is one of my all time favorite shows. The filming style never bothered us and I think it did calm down a bit over time. I still miss that show...need to revisit it one of these days.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

I can't stand the shaky cam style either. Tripods and steady cam were invented for a reason, people. I tolerate it for short sequences, e.g. when footage from a mobile phone is used as evidence in a cop show. But a whole film or whole show shot like that would bother me. And I didn't like either _Blair Witch Project_ or _Cloverfield_, both of which at least had some in-story justification for the shaky cam. Never watched _Friday Night Lights_, since it doesn't air over here and I'm not interested in American football anyway.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

Atunah said:


> Not sure how else to put this. But this "method" of filming is ruining it for me.
> I wanted to watch this show "Friday Night Lights". I have never watched it before and I have heard so much about it. Plus its on prime.
> 
> I am trying to watch the 3rd episode and I am getting a headache. This constant wobbly mess of filming is just horrible. I guess they try to show "realistic". But when I look at someone in a hospital bed for example, I don't wobble up and down and sideways like this, not even when I am drunk. Its pretty much unwatchable for me. I am really disappointed.
> ...


The shaky cam in the Friday Night Lights settles down a LOT by about the fifth or sixth episode of the first season. I think as soon as it aired and they got feedback from watchers. Of course, by that time, they had already filmed 4-5 episodes. Stick with it, or skip those two episodes (although they are both excellent) and start watching from episode 6. It'll be worth it.


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## JezStrider (Jun 19, 2012)

I tried watching the first episode and stopped for the same reason. I may have to give it another go if it clears up.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

MaryMcDonald said:


> The shaky cam in the Friday Night Lights settles down a LOT by about the fifth or sixth episode of the first season. I think as soon as it aired and they got feedback from watchers. Of course, by that time, they had already filmed 4-5 episodes. Stick with it, or skip those two episodes (although they are both excellent) and start watching from episode 6. It'll be worth it.


Ok, I'll go ahead and watch the first 10 and see how it goes. I did the first 3.

Now I don't like football at all, yet I still can see some great stories here. Football is such a foreign thing to me. I live in Texas and this is set there, but there really isn't anything in there I can relate to much. Never kept me from enjoying stuff though. . Cause lets face it, they don't make shows about stuff I can relate to. 

Cheerleaders still baffle me. And why do they only play on Friday? 
I grew up in Germany, so this is all weird to me. But I think certain stuff can be applied to different things.

Some have tried in the past to explain football to me. It was even funnier when they tried to explain baseball to me. I don't know which one of the two is weirder to me. . After my asking for the 50th time, why, why are they doing this, this makes no sense, they gave up.


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## Meemo (Oct 27, 2008)

Atunah said:


> Ok, I'll go ahead and watch the first 10 and see how it goes. I did the first 3.
> 
> Now I don't like football at all, yet I still can see some great stories here. Football is such a foreign thing to me. I live in Texas and this is set there, but there really isn't anything in there I can relate to much. Never kept me from enjoying stuff though. . Cause lets face it, they don't make shows about stuff I can relate to.
> 
> ...


As you've already seen, it's about sooo much more than football. Football is just the backdrop for a show about family and friends and commitments and relationships and...life. There were episodes where there's no football at all. Aside for one kind of lame storyline in the second or third season, it had great stories about characters that seemed very real, including one of the most "real" marriages I've ever seen on TV. Yep, I definitely need to watch it again.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

Atunah said:


> Ok, I'll go ahead and watch the first 10 and see how it goes. I did the first 3.
> 
> Now I don't like football at all, yet I still can see some great stories here. Football is such a foreign thing to me. I live in Texas and this is set there, but there really isn't anything in there I can relate to much. Never kept me from enjoying stuff though. . Cause lets face it, they don't make shows about stuff I can relate to.
> 
> ...


It's okay. You don't have to understand football to love the show. It's more about the obsession with football and how it affects the characters in different ways that really drives the plots. In fact, I always thought it kind of odd that people thought they had to love football to watch the show. I mean, how many people love hospitals? And yet there have been many successful hospital shows.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Yep, that is so true. I figured out after the first episode that it doesn't matter if I like football or not. Heck, one could not like any sport at all and enjoy it. Well minus the shake cam.  

I only like Tennis anyway and other than a couple of movies, there isn't much out there with it. So I don't rule things out just because they have sports in them. I even read books with sports in it, contempo romance for example.


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## 1131 (Dec 18, 2008)

> Some have tried in the past to explain football to me. It was even funnier when they tried to explain baseball to me. I don't know which one of the two is weirder to me. Grin. After my asking for the 50th time, why, why are they doing this, this makes no sense, they gave up.


So you don't believe in the Church of Baseball? Annie Savoy will be sad. And may I just say

GO CUBS!!!

Anyway, back on topic, I dislike the drunk camera. It's annoying most of the time but it is intolerable in action scenes. Hey director, there's already action, hold the camera still so we can see it. Thank you


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

I hate the shaky camera style too. They're dizzying and distracting and, like you said, my real head isn't that shaky. My neck must have good springs. They should invent some of those for cameras.


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