MovieChat Forums > The Last Kingdom (2015) Discussion > The camerawork is making me ill.

The camerawork is making me ill.

posted 9 years ago by cableaddict
4 replies | jump to latest

This isn't just another "shakey-cam must die" thread, although along those same lines.

I've just watched the first two episodes of this series. I'm enjoying it well enough (despite Dreymon's poor acting) but the camerawork is just awful.

It's not the shakey-cam battles scenes. "Vikings" has that, but doesn't bother me. It's the "mostly still" scenes. What the heck is with the camera? It sorts of jerks around. Not constantly moving, and not still, either. It literally makes me want to vomit. At least shakey-cam constantly moves, and (arguably) can make a battle scene more interesting, but this "jumpy still-cam" doesn't let your brain get used to it. It's like having someone constantly tap you on the shoulder while you're trying to watch.

Does this bother no one else?

[–] Scifi71 9 years ago

I have not noticed it really

Humankind cannot bear very much reality. ~T.S. Eliot

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] LaGrise 9 years ago

I know! It's not making me sick, but I always think someone is spying on them! Turns out it's just the camerawork!

[–] michaelohman 9 years ago

The camera-work in the first two eps are at times annoying on the level of amateurish.

Lead characters when running or moving about were closely followed by someone jogging with the camera and at the same time trying to film the head/face in what's called extreme close-up.

This doesn't work. Whenever you do something like this in film it should be very briefly exploited, and only when filming people who are supposed to be dizzy or drunk. Because the audience will slip into the same feeling after only a few seconds.
In the first two episodes this camera-work was done like this for minutes extensively, at least forcing me to watch besides the screen to regain control of my brain.

However this horrendous behavior stopped after episode 2. Did they switch to a new director? I don't know, but whatever happened this filming-error was corrected later on.

But when on this course --- their was another huge camera-related mistake on several occasions in the last episode. Several times the scenes were just cut to darkness in the middle of it without any fine tuning.
Who the heck suddenly thought that was a good idea? It ruined the flow and motion between action scenes terribly.