Cliched Cinematic Techniques Throughout History

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This post is about film techniques that were extremely popular and overused to the point of cliche, and then just disappeared.

* 60's "psychedelic" sequences: trippy music, negative film, superimpositions, quick jump cuts. Highly inspired by American Underground Cinema (Stan Brakhage, Kenneth Anger)

EXAMPLES: "Midnight Cowboy" party scene, "Easy Rider" in the graveyard, "Chappaqua", "Performance".

― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Friday, 24 September 2004 12:36 (twenty-one years ago)

were freeze frames ever really popular?

― ryan (ryan), Friday, 24 September 2004 14:50 (twenty-one years ago)

wipe pans!

― ryan (ryan), Friday, 24 September 2004 14:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Those are definitely examples of cliches, but I'm thinking of cliches that defined a cinematic movement or era, in the way the synthesizer music defined 80's U.S. teen comedies. The freeze frame final shot could fall into this category as well.

This thread was inspired by another regarding the cliche of non-linear/parallel storytelling in indie/foreign flicks post "Pulp Fiction".

I'm sure there are horror fans out there who can tell us in great depth the aesthetic differences between 70's horror and 80's horror.

Black-and-White photography pretty much became a cliche of early 90's indie filmmaking, as did excessive cigarette smoking, actors wearing hats, minimal non-diagetic sound & doors closing to end a scene.

Not so much a technical cliche, but late 90's "disaster" films (a cliche in and of themselves) always had a scene where thousands of people die, but the crowd roars with applause when the dog survives...

HOW COULD I FORGET! Bullet Time!

― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Friday, 24 September 2004 18:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Look out! Spinning newspaper!

― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 24 September 2004 20:03 (twenty-one years ago)

good call!

― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Friday, 24 September 2004 23:36 (twenty-one years ago)

whip pans metioned upthread, and I guess that really intense Z-axis snap-zooms were practically epidemic for a few years once popularized in the '70s.

― {Sand in the [vaseline} on the lens] (x Jeremy), Saturday, 25 September 2004 01:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Camera zooming up and up towards the universe during the ending or some other highly important scene.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Saturday, 25 September 2004 08:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I haven't seen the "sullen shot of birds flying out of trees" to represent someone being murdered in a while.

― Ernest P. (ernestp), Saturday, 25 September 2004 14:08 (twenty-one years ago)

This may be less a cinematic technique than a story-telling device, but what about scenes wherein a character hides out in a movie theatre during a chase (as seen in The Third Man, Breathless, Bonnie & Clyde, Mean Streets etc.)

― Doobie Keebler (Charles McCain), Saturday, 25 September 2004 15:23 (twenty-one years ago)

character a :
"there is no *way* i'm doing (activity x).
NO FCKING WAY"

(cut very quickly to :
character A doing activity x)

― piscesboy, Saturday, 25 September 2004 22:02 (twenty-one years ago)

the slooow zoom in on someone sayign something important/grippign/whatever.

― :| (....), Monday, 27 September 2004 20:05 (twenty-one years ago)

o wait that one hasnt disappeared yet has it.

― :| (....), Monday, 27 September 2004 20:09 (twenty-one years ago)

o wait that one hasnt disappeared yet has it?

― :| (....), Monday, 27 September 2004 20:10 (twenty-one years ago)

slo mo + pop song

― ryan (ryan), Tuesday, 28 September 2004 01:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Cut to wide panoramic scenic shot to imply God's greater plan or majesty or something.

― Hurting (Hurting), Tuesday, 28 September 2004 01:53 (twenty-one years ago)

>were freeze frames ever really popular?

Reagan-era blockbusters frequently ended with a f.f. of the star smiling. cf Beverly Hills Cop.

I'm always happy to see wipes.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 28 September 2004 15:00 (twenty-one years ago)

In movies about an upward career or business, the quick montage of working/screwing something up/getting better at something/collapsing from exhaustion/etc. done to show that business is picking up or that the protagonist is moving up in the job.

― Hurting (Hurting), Wednesday, 29 September 2004 02:11 (twenty-one years ago)

"Nosferatu" features the first ever use of a scene where a man goes into a rollicking rustic inn where everyone is very chirpy and then says "Innkeeper! fetch me some food! for I must quickly eat so that I can be up early to make my way to CASTLE DRACULA!", whereupon the inn goes silent in an "I wouldn't go there if I were you, zur" kind of way.

The very first ever film features the trope of having someone stand on a hose so that the hose guy thinks its blocked and looks into the spout, whereupon the prankster steps off the hose and the hose guy has loads of water sprayed in his face.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, 30 September 2004 15:48 (twenty-one years ago)

ending on freeze frames was popular in the 70's too but in a dystopic way.

― PVC (peeveecee), Thursday, 30 September 2004 20:53 (twenty-one years ago)

The star sings the song - Whitney Houston, Will Smith, Bette Midler, Julie Andrews.

Although that's more of a cliche marketing technique.

― Mr Spade, Thursday, 7 October 2004 05:41 (twenty-one years ago)

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