Found Footage

Found Footage

Found footage is a genre of film making, especially horror, in which all or a substantial part of a film is presented as discovered film or video recordings, often left behind by missing or dead protagonists. The events on screen are seen through the camera of one or more of the characters involved, who often speaks off screen. Filming may be done by the actors themselves as they recite their lines, and shaky camera work and naturalistic acting are often employed. While the genre dates back at least as far as 1980's Cannibal Holocaust, it was popularised after the release of such films as The Blair Witch Project (1999), Paranormal Activity (2007), REC (2007), Quarantine (2008), Cloverfield (2008) and Chronicle (2012)

In filmmaking, found footage is the use of footage as a found object, appropriated for use in collage films, documentary films, mockumentary films and other works.

Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

Cannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian cannibal film directed by Ruggero Deodato from a screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici, starring Carl Gabriel Yorke, Robert Kerman, Francesca Ciardi and Luca Barbareschi. Influenced by the works of Mondo director Gualtiero Jacopetti, the film was inspired by Italian media coverage of Red Brigade terrorism. The coverage included news reports Deodato believed to be staged, an idea which became an integral aspect of the film's story. Cannibal Holocaust was filmed primarily in the Amazon Rainforest with real indigenous tribes interacting with American and Italian actors.

The film tells the story of a missing documentary film crew who had gone to the Amazon to film cannibal tribes. A rescue mission, led by the New York University anthropologist Harold Monroe, recovers the film crew's lost cans of film, which an American television station wishes to broadcast. Upon viewing the reels, Monroe is appalled by the team's actions, and after learning their fate, he objects to the station's intent to air the documentary. The...