Earlier this year, I finally watched Cloverfield. I know. I had seen 10 Cloverfield Lane ages ago, but for some reason just never got around to it until recently. When I brought this up to JimmyZ, he was surprised to hear that I enjoyed it. Ultimately, we concluded the major difference was that he watched it at the height of the found footage glut, right when it first released. I had not watched a found footage film in several years.

This documentary was a must after that conversation. And it did not disappoint!

As a documentary, it did the normal documentary things. Clips from various films, interviews with various industry professionals–largely filmmakers. No surprises there. I do think that for a documentary that focused a lot on the innovative value of found footage, it stuck very close to the standard for a documentary. That’s not a problem, but it is worth mentioning.

The organization could have been better. That might be my only real gripe. It seemed to bounce from subtopic to subtopic, and somewhat aimlessly at that. It claims to be “tracking the history” of found footage films, and it does hit on major developments and milestones in the history of found footage. Should it have been chronological? I don’t know. That’s not my decision to make. I just don’t think the organization they used worked.

Now, that said, I did learn so much from this documentary. If your goal is to learn about what found footage really is and where it came from, you’ll get that. It’s worth the time.