AccentedCinema

[Weekly Update] August 9th, 2020

Added 2020-08-10 00:34:32 +0000 UTC

In case you haven't seen it, our Patreon bonus video for July is out. Every month, I publish a movie review on a Hollywood movie, edited in the same (though, simpler) style as our main videos. click on the bonus video tab on this Patreon page to get access to all videos, currently at 14 and counting.

ABOUT THE CHANNEL

Editing for our next video is half way done. It should go live this Thursday without problem. This will be the first of our horror series, where I share some of my favourite horror films from around the world.
I'm also planning on some original projects that may be published via Accented Cinema. Original, as in short films and other creative media. I probably will go up on a second channel.
Don't worry, it won't affect the main channel's content. I doubt it'll be all that successful. But I'm a filmmaker by training, I have to find an excuse to make some more movies.

ABOUT MEDIA

First Unfriend, and then Searching and now, Host, it seems like our future is going to filled with big budget zombie fiction, and low budget Video conference movies.
Video conference movie are films that are essentially, screen recordings of a computer screen. More often than not, actors interact through video chat.
It is a new forma. And given that it is both cheap and "realistic", it will most likely start a very tiring trend, just like found footage did (twice!).
But like most new format, it comes with numerous challenges that the genre has to overcome.
One of the main one is... well, "realism". Webcams are terrible cameras that are designed to capture only medium to close ups, it is a big limitation to visual variety.
Host has their characters carry their laptops as a camera and film outside their windows at one point, just to give a bit of variety. Yet, because of the format, I can't help but think about how dumb the character must have looked wrestling with their laptops.
Most films brings variety by opening other programs and websites. Yet it also introduces the other problem: Reading. No one wants to read about a movie.
To make the reading process easier, characters in Unfriended frequently highlights keywords with their mouse, something that I doubt many people actually do while reading.
Searching, on the other hand, takes more aesthetic liberty by straight up zooming into the keywords. Sure, it isn't as true to the "screen recording" format as the other films, but I feel like it conveys the emotion better. When we focus on things, we mentally zooms in. Searching, by doing zoom and pan, looks less real, but it feels more real.
But all of these films, especially Searching, has a problem: Why is the screen being recorded? Why is the story told through this perspective?
While I personally think Unfriended 2 is a stupid movie (With a title that doesn't have anything to do with the plot), it does address this problem the best.
The entire film is about a sadistic game, run by dark web hackers. The audience is, essentially, one of those dark web viewers. It is a clever little solution to justify this format. Even though its justification is still skin deep.
And finally, the problem of... being dated. Unfriended came out not long ago, and using Skype for video calls is already a dated concept.
Searching intentionally dates itself, by showing the history of the family's computer. You see them starting with Windows XP and eventually upgrades to a iMac (iirc). Time and time period is one important aspect of Searching, so it works. But it probably won't work for most stories. So how do you prevent your film from feeling easily dated?
There is a lot of potential in this format, and I'm somewhat excited by the possibility. With screens being more and more important in our day to day life, the format can stay relevant for a long time.
Let's just hope it ends up evolving better than found footage.