Stupid video tics

I call these "tics" because they are most often used with no apparent artistic purpose, but merely because everyone else is doing them:

1) Spinning the camera around and around the scene. (This one actually makes me physically ill.)

2) Jump cuts when obviously there was no actual jump in what the person was saying.

3) Juxtaposing the beginning of the sound from the coming scene with the visuals of the ending scene. (Curiousity: I have never seen this done the other way around!)

Each of these techniques could be used for an artistic purpose. For instance, number one could signify that a situation is spinning out of control, number two might be used to convey a character's sense of discontinuity in his life, and number three could express the idea that somehow the dialogue being spoken led directly into or foreshadowed the new scene.

But nine times out of ten, or probably more, they are instead employed simply because that is what everyone else putting out films and videos is doing.

Comments

  1. Whatever you do, don't watch the show "Extreme Homes." Horrible cuts, pans, zooms. The content is sometimes interesting, but the presentation makes it nearly unwatchable.

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  2. Paul Greenglass. Actually as you say this sort of thing is common. But he's the worst. He is the anti-Kurosawa.

    It's bad cinematics. The cut is the principle tool of filmmaking; cuts should serve a purpose. But about 30 years ago they did tests of tv watchers' brains. And they found people got a little kick out of rapid cuts and movement. And that has infiltrated into movie and tv techniques. Stuff aimed at mass , especially young, audiences.

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