Found-footage films typically employ one or more of six
cinematic techniques—
first-person perspective,
pseudo-documentary,
mockumentary,
news footage,
surveillance footage, or
screenlife—according to an analysis of 500 found-footage films conducted by Found Footage Critic. The film magazine
Variety has used the term "faux found-footage" to describe the technique.
Film scholar David Bordwell criticizes the usage, arguing that it sows confusion, and instead prefers the term "discovered footage" for the narrative
gimmick. According to filmmaker
Adrian Țofei in his found footage manifesto, a found footage film is technically a
pseudo-documentary or fake documentary film, in which all or a substantial part of the picture is presented as being composed of recordings of real life events, seen through cameras that are part of the events. He defines found footage as a "filmmaking concept" with the goal of giving audiences the illusion that they're not watching a movie made by filmmakers and actors, but genuine life events recorded by people like them who were part of the events, which would allow audiences to be fully immersed in the movie experience. Sayad highlights how the found footage genre invites the audience to "to anxiously scan the image for threatening presences", blurring the boundary between what is on screen and what is real. For example, The
Paranormal Activity series' inclusion of the timestamps on each clip of footage "empowers the audience", encouraging watchers to analyze evidence in real time. Typical found footage techniques, like shaky handheld sequences and sudden zooms, create the illusion that the camera frame is unable to contain the evil of any film's antagonist to the screen. The selective choice to not center major action sequences on camera, like during the climax of
Paranormal Activity (2007), also contributes to this effect. Sayad notes that "the sense of lurking danger is enhanced as much by our fear about seeing things as by our anxiety about what we do not see". Importantly, Sayad notes that there is an important distinction between found footage horror films and other "self-aware" horror films, like 1996's
Scream. She writes,
Screams pastiche of classics packages the film as artifice, keeping the relationship between movies and reality safely locked in the realm of fiction. The found-footage movie, in contrast, presents itself as real, whereas its characteristically unstable camera work suggests that the film can neither lock things in nor keep them out. == Examples ==