“Cloverfield,” which took a lot of movie critics by surprise last weekend with a record-breaking opening (for the month of January) of $46 million, is a horror film about the methodical destruction of Manhattan and comes with quite a nifty little gimmick: The entire film is viewed through a seemingly amateur HD camcorder from a main character’s point-of-view.
The actual camera used to film the project was a Sony F23, which the film’s producers said picked up in video imagery what the human eye could not have. (Well, except to later see what it did pick up). Without employing typical scene setup shots and other traditional filming methods, or a musical score, the movie supposedly takes place over an eight-hour period that is edited down to about 90 minutes for the movie itself.
“Cloverfield” is entirely “shot” by a character named Hud (no relation to the classic Paul Newman film) while New York City is torn asunder by a rarely seen monster. The movie’s producers said in a statement to promote the film that in order to achieve the look and feel of a typical Handycam camcorder (and to achieve full visual effects amid rigorous physical demands), the F23 camera’s deck was placed inside a backpack to make the shots seem more candid and mobile-like.
The end-result comes close to being documentary-style coverage of a fictitious disaster movie. The movie trailer is available here.
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