Hand-held or sticks? What's your preference?

[Stephen Pruitt]

That's my real question, Kim. . .

. . . how easy is it really to intercut all of these different types of "motion" (or non-motion) shots? We pretty much shot all of "Works in Progress" on sticks, dolly, or steadycam. Only a few scenes were done handheld, and we did all of them handheld.

Anyway, I sincerely appreciate the input!

Stephen

[Adam Clark]

LOL! Poor girl! I wish she were a regular at studio screenings, maybe something could be done about the shaky camera syndrome.

she was pregnant with our child and we were at a screening in hollywood. out of nowhere, the flick cut to a shaky dog POV cam and she barfed and passed out. we were removed from the mailing list.

[Leo Ticheli]

Just a thought about any sort of trendy camera work; it doesn't seem to hold up any better than '70's fashions. I find movies with male actors wearing bell-bottom suits unwatchable. The too loud and inappropriate jazz music tracks don't help much either.

Not saying there's not a place for almost any sort of shot, but the "look at me" stuff doesn't stand the test of even a short time.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo

[Ryan S]

I've had a bias against handheld ever since I saw The Bourne Supremacy, which made me really frustrated. I can't stand watching anything that shaky for that long. It doesn't make me nauseous, which I observed in a lot of other people in the theatre, but i just find it unnecessarily distracting. Steadier handheld I have a lot more patience for. The limited amounts of footage I've seen with a Red One on an Easyrig I've found very pleasing. Not as steady as a Steadicam, but much better than the majority of straight handheld I've seen.

Ultimately, I think it depends on the scene and the overall feel you're trying to achieve for the film. I don't think the mansion sequences in Eyes Wide Shut would have looked good if done handheld, and I don't think the majority of District 9 would have looked right if done primarily with a tripod/dolly/steadicam.

[Aric Mannion]

Wait... handheld doesn't just refer to trendy uber dramatic mtv crap right?
It can also mean "handheld" can't it? Like Herzog, Wong Kar Wai, Emir Kustirica, Spike Jonze and even parts of Stanley Kubrick films -cause if so, I love handheld. Most of the movies that are shot entirely locked down look even more amateur than ones that aren't afraid to utilize handheld. Unless you are living in the 50's.
It's dangerous to limit yourself so much just because you think something is a trend.

[Stephen Strangways]

Handheld can be done well, and it can be done poorly. Yesterday I stumbled across "Parks and Recreation" which has a shooting style of:

1) Whip pan from something meaningless to a character in the scene.
2) Zoom in on them.
3) Wobble and shake a little.
4) Zoom in tighter on them when they say their next line.
5) Wobble and shake some more.
6) Whip pan or cut to another character, and repeat.

And that's what I really can't stand... a scene which is just some people standing or sitting around talking, and the camera whips around, shakes, and constantly does twitchy zooms as if constantly shouting "Ooooh! Look at THIS! Now THIS! I've got so much style because ADHD is trendy right now!"

The most recent well-executed and justified use of handheld I've seen would have to be Children of Men.

[Jaime Vallés]

I'm all for the simplicity and power of a locked-down, well composed static shot.

[hans de vries]

hand held doesn't have to stand for shakiness at all. I don't like shaky images, but I have found that if you film moving people--and I don't mean running but moving around--you're never troubled with hand held unless you do a really bad job. It's when you're filming interiors, buildings or people sitting still for a long time that you really need sticks; that's when a little shakiness starts to stand out.

[Joe G.]

Same here. Hate handheld, unless you're in the middle of a battle. If the audience notices "Hey, the camera's handheld," you've failed.

That said, I would consider shooting an entire feature on a Steadicam. And I would also consider stabilizing footage in post (big resolution is a big plus for that). But jerky worlds look sort of incompetent after a while.

[Kim Frank]

That's my real question, Kim. . .

. . . how easy is it really to intercut all of these different types of "motion" (or non-motion) shots? We pretty much shot all of "Works in Progress" on sticks, dolly, or steadycam. Only a few scenes were done handheld, and we did all of them handheld.

Anyway, I sincerely appreciate the input!

Stephen

I am sorry Stephen ...
Maybe my english isn't good enough to u derstand your question.
Did you or did you not shoot everything handheld aswell?
Although I am trying to get a filmmaker my own I had the honnor to play the main part in a movie shot by Frank Griebe (you may know him cause of "the perfume" or "the international". I had the chance to watch his work over two and a half months in front of his lenses and learnd a lot. I think I can say he mostly likes "steady/fluid" shots, but he does what the scene needs. And from time to time that's handheld or a mixture. Being educated by the classical thinking I once asked him the same question as you did: can you really intercut those different camera styles in one scene and he simply said: deffinetly. And after that I discovered the same thing.
One last thing... All the guys who complain about handheld should get a good operator IMHO