The horror of this video is self-evident and though it’s impossible to ignore, it’s not what I wanted to share.
What’s interesting to me is that this montage of drone footage offers a view of an environment that’s reminiscent of video games. Not just because many video games will offer views of devastation and war unlike most of us ever seen in real life. But also because of the camera positions and mobility a drone affords.
In recent years, I sometimes got annoyed at the artificial feel of cinematic sequences in games, because they allowed the camera freedoms that were simply not achievable in reality, not without CGI. They break the suspense of disbelief and certainly don’t work for anything that’s intended to evoke a sense of realism. However, now that sentiment is flipping – some of those cinematic sequences appear simply ‘ahead of their time’, foreshadowing the cinematic acrobatics of drone-borne cameras.
Watching the (very interesting) movie “The Double” (2013) by Richard Ayoade, I got a similar sensation – many camera standpoints and the visual storytelling seem to break away from traditional cinematographic conventions and instead speak the language of the cinematic cut scene in computer games.
Have a watch and let me know what you think, anywhere.
