ELDON BOOTH

Eldon Booths film work has used many different filming techniques to portray reality - or 'an illusion of reality'.

In one film 'Withdrawal', He use 'amateur' techniques he calls them, to portray an effect that seems it is being filmed in real life. Such as abrubd panning, making it feel like the camera man was part of the scene, e.g. home video.
There was the jerkiness of this handheld camera of 'worst quality'(Eldon Booth) being used that created the feel of adreneline, with the focus being often blurred, creating this action that wasnt settling. By doing this it created an effect that the camera man didn't know what was happening next, thus an illusion of reality.

He also uses juxtaposistioning of the two contrasting screens next to each other, this creates conflict between the sons life style and the grandads dying lifestyle, e.g. medical drugs for the grandad vs. by lifestyle drugs for the grandson.
This also creates dysfunction and shows the 'old' being replaced with the new, old houses being removed for new subdivison etc…(also in areas tha we as new zealanders are recognizeable with)
These shots have no definied beginning or end, seeming like a continous link to the shot but alsways having a change of clothes or location etc, going for this to emphaisiase 'grandads' detoriation, instead of chronolgical death…

Another movie that features Justaposistion is Gus Van Sants 'Elephant'. Howevere, this movie uses a very different type of juxtaposistion, He does this by jumping back in forth in time, and going through the same 'scene' but through a different characters point of view... This shows multiple levels of time unfolding, which creates confusion for the viewer but in the end everything interconnects. This way we get to know each 'character'. The director allows us to see from multuiple view point simultenously.

Eldon Booth uses majorly also counter view shots. This pulls us as the viewer into the film like we are following the character, or watching in. In doing so, creating reality or the lillusion it. I really found funny how Eldon Booth in Withdrawal used these 'amateur' video techniques. He explained that he was heavily inspired by reality tv at the time. Since the filming of Withdrawal, technology has had a major make over, now with youtube and video cell phones this kind of filming a lot more 'mainstream', maybe. In the late 1990s we were bombarded with real life reality shows such as worlds worst crimanals, and other similas (police ten seven etc)...

One of the reality t.v. shows that Booth was really influenced was the "E.R Ambush". A live show they did, typified by 'hand held jerkiness'.


I also really enjoyed the second film of Booth's we watched.It was a lot more dialogue based witch I found a lot more interesting as a viewer.