Stomp the Yard: Homecoming
From Zanecorpwiki
Summary
This would have been an entirely predictable but perfectly adequate dance urban college dance movie were it not for the fact that the inexplicable cinematography makes it nearly impossible see the dancing. The only possible explanation is that they're trying to cover up terrible dancing, except I recognize the dancers and you do catch a glimpse now and again so I just have to put it down to really, really bad decisions on the part of everyone involved in shooting the film.
I mean, it's pretty terrible. A dance movie is all about amazing dance moves, but you never see more than a single move--and I mean one move, like an arm wave or a head bob--before the camera jiggles crazily, does a fast zoom and cuts to an entirely different angle. Half the time I'm pretty sure the cuts aren't even in sequence as the dancers appear to instantly blink around the stage.
I've certainly seen worse movies. I've even seen worse dance movies. But I don't think I've ever seen anything quite so inexplicable. A perfectly still, single shot would have been ten times better than what they did. In the hierarchy of "ways to shoot this movie", it goes something like:
- (worst) keep the lenscap on the camera
- (second worse idea) point the camera directly at everyone's feet
- (actual choice) randomly montage cuts at the rate of about 1 cut per second, ignoring time and consistency; make sure that even these short shots are further limited by moving the camera constantly for no apparent purpose
It's not my favorite technique, but you could argue it works for action movies (Quantum of Solace comes to mind), but for a dance movie? It's like scoring an epic costume drama with Klezmer music. It just doesn't make any sense.
