#never gonna shut uppp about this showww

[yepthatsacowalright]

For no logical reason whatsoever today I am mentally on fire about the camerawork in Midnight Mass. In the artbook they talk about how scenes are mostly filmed handheld initially and then gradually shift to stationary shots as the story gets more supernatural and just...my god is it effective. When Crockett is filmed handheld like a docudrama in the beginning it feels so freakin’ human. You sense that person standing behind the camera, showing you what they see, at person-level height, moving in a person-like way. The Soolaimon sequence also feels filmed with so much love, like a local islander showing off what makes up this little community they call home. Then in contrast, even in the first episode, there are stationary shots, drained of all signs of life behind the camera, and positioned in places no human could feasibly go. Father Paul drags the trunk into the rectory and we move up onto the freakin’ ceiling to watch him tap on it and get a response from inside. What I find interesting about this too is how the instinct of a horror filmmaker typically is to do the opposite of this. Keep the camera steady at first, make the world feel safe and stable, then switch to shaky handheld when the scares happen to induce anxiety and panic. But handheld-to-stationary makes so much more sense here. Highlighting the imperfect, intimate feel of Crockett Island life vs. the surreal way the mind heightens an experience of fear and trauma. The freeze response of fight/flight/freeze. It isn’t a horror story, it’s a love story hijacked by a horror story, and even the camera is a victim to the horror’s influence.