Computer Animation Arts

"F.W. Murnau's German silent classic The Last Laugh (Der Letze Mann) stars Emil Jannings as the doorman of a posh Berlin hotel. Fiercely proud of his job, Jannings comports himself like a general in his resplendent costume, and is treated like royalty by his friends and neighbors. The hotel's insensitive new manager, noting that Jannings seems winded after carrying several heavy pieces of luggage for a patron, decides that the old man is no longer up to his job. The manager demotes Jannings to men's washroom attendant, and the effect is disastrous on the man's prestige and self-esteem."  http://www.moviefone.com/movie/the-last-laugh/1020137/synopsis Freidrich Wilhelm Murnau's 1924 German film Der Letzte Mann or The Last Laugh ushered in a new era of cinematic techniques which would greatly influence the way audiences engaged with cinema by turning the camera into a character within the film itself. In my last couple of posts about silent...

The 'found footage' subgenre - incepted by The Blair Witch Project (1999) - shows little sign of running out of steam.  The appeal of this approach for genre stories (in particular) resides in their faux-reality, their use of a lo-fi 'I was there-ness' to encourage and accelerate our suspension of disbelief.  Certainly, the whole found footage conceit invigorated  Cloverfield   (2008) - which was otherwise a King Kong knock-off.  With The Bay , Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson is getting in on the act - which appears to do for body-horror what Cloverfield did for city-trashing behemoths... Warning!  This one is going to make you jump...

... as once again, the 'discovered footage' gambit reframes a less than original narrative...