Found footage

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Found Footage (German: Found footage) is a film-scientific term that one important extension has experienced. In the meantime, depending on the context, film examples of two actually fundamentally different genres are referred to as found footage films .

Definitions and genre descriptions

1. Found footage as material appropriation

Originally, the term found footage film was only used for works that consist entirely or partially of material that was not created or designed by the filmmakers themselves. This sub-genre occurs most frequently in the field of experimental and avant-garde films. The "found" material comes from all sorts of sources: film scraps and film scraps, archive recordings , amateur films , educational films , corporate films , as well as documentaries or feature films . There are different ways of dealing with the material, its composition, and the way it is appropriated and reinterpreted.

Found footage films are closely related to compilation films and collage films and, like these, are primarily shaped by their editing . In contrast to the classic compilation film, found footage films focus more on the formal-aesthetic state of the found material and less on its content. Most of the time, they completely remove the material from its original context and reinterpret it through assembly.

This definition of found footage films continues to be the norm in film scholarship circles.

2. Found footage as a narrative method

Since the 1990s, the term is found footage also used in the popular movie jargon, an especially in horror films used narrative to describe design method. The plot of these films is often about footage that is assigned to deceased or missing people and is only found afterwards. The material is not found footage in the sense of the original definition, but is specially staged for the film in such a way that it can develop a pseudo-documentary effect or look like authentic amateur film material. The recordings are often made by the actors themselves, who comment on what is going on behind the camera and sometimes improvise their texts. But there are also other forms. Typically, these films use at least one of four design methods in material treatment:

  • First-person perspective (English: First person perspective , or point of view) - shot from the Perspective of the main characters, mostly amateurish
  • Pseudo-documentary style (English: pseudo-documentary style) - with interviews and other similarities to the mockumentary
  • Reportage style (English: news footage style) - shot by a professional film team embedded in the plot
  • Surveillance style (English: surveillance footage style) - shot by static surveillance cameras

This sub-genre, alternatively also called POV film (point-of-view film) , became popular with the horror film Blair Witch Project (1999) and has since experienced significant spread. The 2007 horror film Paranormal Activity and its subsequent film series gave the genre a further boost.

Delimitation and linking of definitions

Film scholars like David Bordwell criticize the use of the term found footage for the fictional narrative method because it undermines the original definition, although it is widespread and established in the specialist literature. Instead, Bordwell speaks of " discovered footage " in films such as Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield . This subtle semantic distinction has not yet been able to establish itself, as the numerous lists and special pages circulating on the Internet show. In the English Wikipedia, there has been a separation of found footage according to material appropriation and narrative method (film technique) .

In an essay at the University of Calgary , Felicia Glatz suggests the term imitation found footage film to describe the fictional narrative method in the horror film subgenre. In the attempt to “imitate” the documentary authenticity of found material, she sees a coherent further development of the post - modern method of appropriation , which in turn developed from compilation and collage. Glatz thus adds a fourth level to the three-stage chronology of the use of foreign material (compilation, collage, appropriation), as described by William C. Wees in his book Recycled Images : imitation, shaped by the contemporary aesthetic inclination towards virtual reality .

Film samples

→ List of found footage films (material appropriation)
→ List of found footage films (narrative method)

See also

literature

Books

  • Cecilia Hausheer, Christoph Settel (Ed.): Found Footage Film . VIPER / Zyklop, Luzern 1992, ISBN 978-3-909310-08-1 (English, German). - Bilingual collection of essays.
  • William Charles Wees: Recycled images: The art and politics of found footage films . Anthology Film Archives, New York 1993, ISBN 978-0-911689-19-8 (English).
  • Stefano Basilico (Ed.): Cut: Film As Found Object In Contemporary Video . Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee 2004, ISBN 978-0-944110-65-2 (English). - Collection of articles.
  • Christa Blümlinger: Second-hand cinema . On the aesthetics of material appropriation in film and media art. Vorwerk 8, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-940384-09-6 .
  • Marente Bloemheuvel, Giovanna Fossati, Jaap Guldemond (eds.): Found footage: cinema exposed . Amsterdam University Press / EYE Film Instituut Nederland, Amsterdam 2012, ISBN 978-90-8964-417-6 (English). - Exhibition catalog
  • Seraina Winzeler: Films between trace and event: memory, history and how they are made visible in found footage film . ibidem Verlag, Stuttgart 2017, ISBN 978-90-8964-417-6 .

Books on the horror film subgenre

  • Alexandra Heller-Nicholas: Found Footage Horror Films: Fear and the Appearance of Reality . McFarland & Company, Jefferson, North Carolina 2014, ISBN 978-0-7864-7077-8 (English).
  • Andreas Janke: Authenticity in the horror film genre Imitation Found Footage. From "The Blair Witch Project" to the present day . GRIN Verlag , Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-668-93119-0 .

Magazines

  • Found Footage Magazine. (English). - Semi-annual film studies journal from Spain, which is dedicated to the analysis offound footagein all its forms.

Essays

  • Michael Zryd: Found footage film as a discursive meta-story. (PDF) Craig Baldwins Tribulation 99. montage AV, January 11, 2002, pp. 113-134 (German, translated). ;- In addition to its focus on Tribulation 99, it is also dedicated to more general found footage topics.
  • Josef Bacher: Found footage film. (PDF) International Center for Culture and Management, Vienna, 2002, pp. 1–47 . ;- History and theory of found footage , plus analysis of Martin Arnold's film passage à l'acte .
  • Felicia Glatz: The Invention of Context. (PDF) Found Footage Filmmaking History and the Imitative Form. University of Calgary , April 2014, pp. 1-68 . ;- Finds the connection between the two different definitions of found footage film.

DVD

  • Recycling Film History: Found Footage Films . In: Der Standard (Hrsg.): Edition: Der Austrian Film . No. 11 . Hoanzl, Vienna 2006, ISBN 978-3-900625-80-1 . - Selection of Austrian found footage films from 1992–2006.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Zryd: Found footage film as a discursive meta-story. (PDF) montage AV, January 11, 2002, p. 113 , accessed on June 29, 2018 (German, translated).
  2. ^ Ansgar Schlichter, Philipp Brunner: Found Footage Film. Lexicon of Film Terms, University of Kiel , October 13, 2012, accessed on June 4, 2019 .
  3. ↑ see selection of literature
  4. ↑ a b Found Footage Films - What is it and which one should you know? found-footage.de, accessed on June 29, 2018 .
  5. ↑ a b What are Found Footage Films? Michael Steinberg, foundfootagecritic.com, accessed June 29, 2018 .
  6. ^ Point-of-View (POV) and Found Footage Horror Movies. Mark H. Harris, thoughtco.com, April 17, 2018, accessed June 29, 2018 .
  7. ↑ Return to Paranormalcy. David Bordwell , November 13, 2012, accessed on June 28, 2018 (English): "... the approach is sometimes called the" found-footage "treatment, or in Varietyese the" faux found-footage film. " I'm not delighted by this term because for a long time “found-footage” has referred to films like Bruce Conner's A Movie or Christian Marclay's The Clock, assembled out of existing footage scavenged from different sources. So I'll call fictional movies like Blair Witch and Cloverfield "discovered footage" films. "
  8. ↑ 10 Terrifying Found Footage Films (and 5 That Should've Stayed Lost). Variety, May 22, 2018, accessed June 30, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Caught on Tape: The Best Found-Footage Horror Movies. Mark H. Harris, thoughtco.com, May 22, 2018, accessed June 30, 2018 .
  10. ^ Found footage (appropriation) , English Wikipedia
  11. ^ Found footage (film technique) , English Wikipedia
  12. ^ A b Felicia Glatz: The Invention of Context. (PDF) Found Footage Filmmaking History and the Imitative Form. University of Calgary , April 2014, p. 36 , accessed on July 1, 2018 (English): "I argue that the imitation found footage film is what follows Wees's post-modern appropriation as the dominant contemporary form of recycled cinema."
  13. ↑ Felicia Glatz mentions that there are also film examples for this narrative method beyond the horror film, but that the stylistic features of the found footage fit perfectly with the narrative of the horror film: “The use of discontinuity editing, framing, and duration seem to be articulated and function optimally within horror narratives. "- The Invention of Context , p. 45
  14. ^ William Charles Wees: Recycled images: The art and politics of found footage films . Anthology Film Archives, New York 1993, ISBN 978-0-911689-19-8 , pp. 33 ff . (English).
  15. ^ Felicia Glatz: The Invention of Context. (PDF) Found Footage Filmmaking History and the Imitative Form. University of Calgary , April 2014, p. 61 , accessed July 1, 2018 .
  16. ^ Found Footage Magazine - Contact. Retrieved July 1, 2018 .