ABC's The River

I think I'm going to check this out. I skipped on Alcatraz, so maybe the River is my calling?

I am going to watch but I hope they avoid the shortcomings of Lost and actually have a plan for their story rather than the method of throwing shit against the wall and see what sticks.

I've actually been kinda excited about this, despite my general malaise for all things found footage.  Looks kinda creepy.  And kinda Lost-y.  And Bruce Greenwood.  I've been dying to find a new genre show to get into, so hopefully The River picks up the ball that Alcatraz dropped.

I'm still a sucker for found footage, so I'm going to check it out. And despite my curiosity my expectations are low to non-existent, which will hopefully work in the show's favor.

Ugh.  This show was kind of interesting for the first three minutes or so - and then the show started to fall apart after the cheesy Greenwood intro.  IMO the dialogue has been pretty poor, and the acting has been fairly abysmal.  For the most part I can get behind most found footage movies, but the snippets of this show where they attempt to mimic the found footage concept just don't work.  Maybe it's the fact that they're trying to grain up the "security footage" by essentially placing horizontal lines over the same hd camera footage they're using for the rest of the show.

 

I tried to give it a shot but I think I'll have to pass.

 

On another note, between "The River", "Smash", and "Terra Nova" - what is the deal with Spielberg throwing out his name as an executive producer for all these questionable new shows?  I'm guessing he's just trying to collect a little more of a paycheck as he's getting older, but the pilots for all three shows have had some major issues that any (legendary) filmmaker with a mild interest should be able to detect and fix.

Spielberg got his start in television.  Maybe he's trying to provide outlets for other people to get their starts as well.

 

Besides, I'm sure his involvement as executive producer beging and ends with nodding and handing over a check.

Yeah, this was pretty silly.  So far, the rigid faux-documentary adds nothing.  Just shoot the damn thing like The Office, and sprinkle in the Bruce Greenwood footage when appropriate.  Really rough around the edges.   

 

Still, production values are top notch, the central mystery is intriguing enough, the creepiness factor is there, and the pacing is worlds better than most found footage films.  And apparently that was 1/4 of the first season, so seeing this through to the end shouldn't be that big a commitment.  

But THE OFFICE is rigidly faux-documentary too. It just doesn't feature omnipresent security cameras covering every possible angle even in locations and situations where it's distractingly implausible they'd be set up. 

 

So yes, this show does beg the question of why it needs to be entirely found footage. And is definitely pretty silly. And kinda boring. And doesn't seem like it can sustain more than its short first season, if that. Don't think it's grabbed me enough to keep watching. 

I have to say after the disappointing pilot I was pleasantly surprised by the second episode. If the show continues to improve with each episode I'll stick with it.

I also question its need to be all found footage as I think this show could have easily only used some of "found footage" and been more satisfying and freaky. Instead of showing the footage shot by the cameraman getting killed as he is dying. The show should have had the characters notice the guy was missing and then have them find his camera. By doing that they could have delivered more suspense as they build up to the tape's viewing.

Oh, this'll do just fine for now. TV's been quite good lately at creating some bullshit for me to watch. Short season (or series) run? I'm in. I need to compliment Justified and Luck with something totally retarded, and this will fill that American Horror Story gap quite nicely. Then when it wraps up, it's Mad Men and Game of Thrones and we're off to the races.

 

But Walking Dead is about to come back! Will it be strong enough to finally banish Walking Dead from the weekly routine? Nah, I'll probably watch both, goddamn it.

 

I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would. Supernatural goings on in a mysterious part of the Amazon that isn't on any maps? Good times.

 

As long as "The Source" isn't a shiny golden urine cave then I think we'll be just fine.

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Right, I guess my beef is having to constantly acknowledge the cameraman and who/where the footage is coming from.  Despite the occasional wink and nod every so often, The Office pretty much dropped this concept, which is the distinction I was trying to make.  I found myself groaning when, after one of those big sweeping aerial shots, they made sure to show one of the camera guys messing with the stupid heli-cam thing.  And eventually, which is the problem with the genre as a whole, we're going to have to cross the 'we are in serious peril, why are we still filming this' bridge, and the producer guy is gonna have to be set up as the asshole who insists they keep documenting.

 

Its frustrating because the format is great for mining scares.  Greenwood left a stack of creepy tapes.  They've got all those security cams and such.  That's fine.  Use them.  But it still makes no sense to me why they feel the need to adhere to this formula for every single second of the show.  

 

 

 

So it's like Cannibal Holocaust, only reversed?

They should just give everyone a helmet cam like in Aliens.  Or maybe they're just really really into livecasting.

I liked it and it has potential for a longer run series...got a huge Lost vibe with the tattoo on the back of the child. It was really fast paced too. The creepiest part for me so far was the found footage with the guy finding his messianic powers. Good Kurtz vibe going on.  

I watched it on the low-def tv in my bedroom, and I enjoyed it fust fine. It's silly, but has some genuine scares and good production values.

 

And I could've sworn there was some non-documentary footage in there. The roommate wants to see it, so maybe I'll check it out again this weekend.

I'm a sucker for cheesy adventure tales and, considering there's only seven episodes, I'll likely catch the whole series at some point.  They lean a bit too heavily on the documentary/security camera angle, though.  Honestly, they should have done something more like the underrated Virtuality pilot.  Use the found footage as a flourish, but don't be afraid to go the traditional route when warranted.

It's amusing, I'm enjoying the silliness of it, but it definitely would have been better without the footage conceit.  So far it's been like watching a series of D&D style scenarios playing out, except with Amazon creepy.

The found footage thing is so unnecessary, unless it plays into the plot a little deeper than it has so far. This is such a great concept, but it will get tiresome quickly.

I don't mind found footage at all, and think its an okay way to define the visual palette of the show. It also allows them to not waste money on fx shots and play with suggestion, which totally works for a horror show. Shot traditionally, this would probably look like an Anaconda sequel, while this way they at least have a chance to define themselves visually.

Mid way through the second episode.  This is just too fucking silly and melodramatic for me to sustain a season, so I'll probably quit here.

Saw it tonight with the wife and for all the low expectations I had going in, I'll say that it's not that bad. As long as you ignore the horrible "found footage" / faux-documentary shit they are trying (and failing) to do. I kept asking aloud who the hell is filming certain scenes until my wife finally told me to shut up about it and who cares? The scare scenes are ok, but I kept hoping for something with a little more umph! I did like the Black cameraman saying aloud what every melanin-infused viewer was thinking, "The girl who sees dead people tells us not to go any further and what are we doing? We're going." They need to really start filling out the characters a bit more and tightening up the script a bit.

In (admittedly slight) defense of the show a lot of the footage is meant to be from mounted security cameras. Probably even the majority of it. The amount and location of the stationary cameras still strained believability for me at times though, especially in the second episode at the camp with the dolls - by that point I was losing interest and thus paying less attention so maybe I missed something but it seemed silly that they'd have taken the time to set up like a dozen cameras there, and that they'd position them so that creepy dolls are dramatically framed in the foreground of all the shots

Another point that came to mind just now on this show that really irked me, they all see documented proof of real magic and they simply brush it aside as if they see it everyday. The fucking father walked on water, was controlling insects and nature itself and no one makes any mention of this? I would have thought that the producer who keeps going on and on about getting the best show would have stopped everything right there once he saw that video and then headed back to civilization. Like I said earlier, they need to tighten up the writing.

If the producer is obsessed with getting the most amazing show, why would that drive him away? It would motivate him to stay. I think he has ulterior motives anyway. In fact in general I think everyone was appropriately shocked by that footage, they're all just so committed to this trip for their various reasons that it won't deter them. 

 

I found the premiere weak but some of this is just nitpicking. 

Drive them away?  They found proof of actual magic, world changing stuff!  Go back to civilization with the tapes, make a bundle from the network, and come back with a fleet of scientists and a military battalion.  But no, pushing forward with a skeleton crew that's already lost a member makes more sense...

Exactly why I'm quitting.

I can't believe I'm now defending a show I don't really like, but yeah, that's pretty nitpicky. It's one of those "if the characters didn't do x there wouldn't be a movie/show/book etc so just suspend disbelief" things. There are better reasons not to keep watching. 

I just dont see how they can keep up the faux documentary thing without it being forced, among the increasingly bizarre elements.  At some point any reasonable human being is gonna say "fuck this" and drop the camera.

Agreed.  That's one of the main problems with the "footage" conceit.  They can climb up trees and wire cameras up in all sorts of unlikely places, and presumably climb up and get them down after unless they have an unlimited supply, but other rational thoughts don't apply.  It's a dumb format, it would be better done straight up with them stuck in a hell run they can't really control.

I can see what they're going for with the found footage concept, but it requires such a stretch of logic that it's almost not even worth pursuing unless you're pulling a Blair Witch.  That movie was a single contained event where someone decided to keep filming.  Not a reality TV crew risking their lives over many episodes for a fucking Emmy nomination.

Hmm, are the stationary cameras on the boat visible in the footage from the other cameras?  I'm trying to remember if I saw any of them, but I can't recall.

I see that being a major problem for an ongoing series, but I don't think the format is inherently dumb. Done right, it's not hard to suspend disbelief. This just doesn't do it particularly right. 

 

Like I keep saying, there's no reason not to have your cake and eat it too by combining the found footage with a conventional approach, and I don't understand why more filmmakers aren't trying it. 

I agree with the combination approach, the flashbacks in this show and coming across the dad's footage would be a great use, but forcing everything into it is just wonky.

 

And shaky cam used outside of special scenes is just annoyingly hard on the eyes.

I agree, although I think that's been a problem in other found footage projects more than it is here, what with the excessive security cams. But still, agree. 

 

And that mix of styles would work much better. They could even sprinkle in security cam or cameraman footage for scares, but still keep most of it in omniscient non-diagetic camera mode. 

That's the whole key to found footage stuff, especially in long form shows like TV as opposed to 90 minutes movies that have more leeway: use it sparingly to great effect.  When it's all the time, the shock of it loses effect.

District 9 struck a nice balance. We could've had something like that here....scenes from The Undiscovered Country spliced in as flashbacks, the found tapes on the boat, footage from the current documentary crew, and conventional omnipresent cameras.

That's the direction I want to see the subgenre head as a whole. I think the part of found footage that's most worn out now is that it's "found." Here are the uncut tapes that were discovered next to the bodies of blah blah blah... that setup has lost its punch, and when the whole movie is rooted in that you run into the problems everyone has come to have with the format - why would they keep taping, bad story structure, etc. etc. But watching something where the basic conceit is that it's supposed to be real still has potency, especially in horror, but maybe untapped potential in other genres, because of what it does for the viewer's immersion and identification with what's happening. So I want to see more filmmakers take a faux-documentary approach where the conceit is footage that somebody has assembled from multiple sources in order to tell a story, or go for the aforementioned mixing. That diminishes or eliminates those issues you run into with the standard BLAIR WITCH/CLOVERFIELD approach.

 

The other silly/frustrating thing about THE RIVER not taking that hybrid approach is that aesthetically there's basically no difference between the "found" footage as presented and what it would look like if it was shot like a normal show. They wouldn't need to change the cinematography, lighting, camera quality, or anything like that. The only difference is the person filming it is a character on the show and other characters can address the camera directly. If it was shot more or less exactly how it is now but wasn't meant to be found footage nobody would bat an eye.

Edited by Dan Benenson - 2/9/12 at 9:57pm

Yeah, saying that the footage was "found" and giving the set-up before and after the film does nothing for me. There is just something about the aesthetic that affects me on an unconscious level as far as the immersion factor goes. Just go crazy with it and never acknowledge that you're even confined by a lone cameraman and have some impossible shots in there. THE RIVER seems to go down this road by not addressing that the footage has been edited for maximum suspense and a musical score has been added.

 

Oren Pelli has some good ideas and I hope he continues with genre filmmaking for a while, but also gets out of the found footage approach.

There's a score? I didn't really notice one way or the other.

 

Wait maybe I remember a creepy music sting when the one doll turned and looked at the camera.

I'm actually really ok with this being found footage yet looking implausibly good - the documentary conceit is clever and gives people a particular reason to continue shooting when things get dangerous. Some cameramen are just bugfuck crazy. My problem is that apart from the look, everything else is straight-up network drama. The setup, the stock characters, the sappy heart-to-hearts. It's no use trying to make something feel authentic when the only "real" thing about it is the shooting style.

Bingo.

The format felt a lot more organic this time around - the bit with the camera man bitching at everyone about all the extra work he has to do was a nice tongue-in-cheek moment that almost seemed like a direct response to certain complaints - and they managed to flesh out some of the characters.  The editing still pisses me off - the way the stationary feeds will cut the split second before an upcoming reveal was extremely irritating - but I dunno.  This one just clicked for me in ways the first two episodes did not.

Didn't get to see it tonight. Is it on HULU or anything? ABC doesn't re-air like the cable networks do.

I saw the first two episodes on Hulu.  Should probably have the rest after it airs.

I have to say that the main guy is actually suprisingly not that annoying.  He's also pretty competent and not a complete fuckup.  In the pilot, when the boat gets stuck and the ghost is released, he's the one that takes charge to get the boat fixed, figures out from the girl how to stop the ghost and actually traps the thing and throws it overboard.  Not to mention patching people up.

 

It was actually kinda surprising.