MovieChat Forums > Quarantine (2008) Discussion > Why Quarantine looks more 'staged'?

Why Quarantine looks more 'staged'?


That was my impression. But I can't exactly identify why. I think it was some faint details from effects, make up, clothing, scenery, video quality, hairstyling.
Anyone agree?

reply

No.

reply

"no"
lol man, total coolness achieved :-D
Anybody else?

reply

No.

reply

Actually, yes. Not an opinion, this film is kind of the definition of 'staged' comparably - the original was filmed in a real building with a real reporter as the lead character, several things that happen in the original were kept secret from the relevant cast (like the body falling down the stairwell and each actor wasn't told the fate of their characters until the day they would film their character dying) and the camerawork was allowed to be more organic, not manipulated to look shakycam. Here, instead of letting whole sections be filmed with a natural shakycam where a bunch of stuff you can't see because the camera didn't have time to focus at all, there are scenes in this where the camera shakes all over but everything's in focus but slightly too fast. They filmed those scenes fairly slow so the camera could focus then sped up a few seconds so it would look uncontrolled and panicked. And yeah, more focus on making people look pretty and hiring actors who are too famous and they screwed up the lighting.

reply

I agree with some of that but the acting & lighting was still okay.

"I am the ultimate badass, you do not wanna `*beep*` wit' me!" Hudson in Aliens.

reply

I agree the actors were good, but it's pretty hard to get as sucked in to the mise-en-abime style when you find yourself thinking 'oh, there's that guy who used to be in Ally McBeal, and that chick from Dexter, and doesn't that Russian guy play a Russian in everything?'. Probably doesn't apply to everyone but if a film is going for that found footage style cast mostly lesser known actors so you don't have much character baggage.

reply

I agree all I could keep telling myself was there's that "bygones be bygones" prick from AB, Jen Carpenter who is such a horrid actress (at least in the 3 films I've seen her in- always screaming, complaining, or going nuts) and that jackass from Hostel who is so smug I was actually HAPPY when he died (both times).

This film seemed to rip off Blair Witch Project, Return of the Living Dead, a few others.. and now to come here and find it was all a remake of another film in the first place!? A Screen Gem indeed. Also, was Jen Carpenter improvising at the beginning? Because if she was, she is an astonishingly obnoxious idiot IRL, and I can see how after only two years Dexter/David Fisher divorced her immature ass.

reply

Is found footage miss-en-abîme?

I thought you had to know who was watching the footage for that term to apply

reply

Mise-en-abime should apply to a film within a film. There should be a different term for a fake-found-footage movie. Though you could have such a movie as a film within a film.

reply

Russian guy play a Russian in everything?'






i've got feelings too, ya know - inbetweeners

http://melanoidnation.org/white-man-warns-all-black

reply

Not a real reporter in Rec. Don't know where you got that...but the actress in Rec. has been acting since she was a child.

reply

I agree, but I don't think it was just the shakiness, it was waaaay too cinematic, all the angles looked contrived and preplanned, the way he'd zoom in all the time to eccentuate something before it even happens. The shakiness would be alright if they'd stop trying to shoot it cinematically and just kept it broad and without all the crazy details and zoom ins

reply

Actually Manuela Velasco is a Spanish actress and she played the lead in "REC" and it's sequels (except for 3 whcih did not keep with canon).

The other points are true. There was no actual script for the original so the actors were told what was happening and to improv dialog as their characters. In this remake obviously that is not happening on the same level. Maybe some improv, I don't know.

Also for real shock value no one was told precisely what was coming next except the actors who had to do whatever was unexpected. Example: Other than the effects people no one in the cast knew the fire fighter was going to fall down the stairwell and land in the vestibule. Same I imagine with the remake.

The change at the end of the remake was disappointing; as if they felt American audiences would be turned off by the spiritual connection.

I prefer over all the Spanish original.

Plus, as a guy, I think Manuela Velasco is hotter!! lol

reply

Chuck Testa.

reply

The original Spanish film was shot in actual apartment building in Barcelona. The American remake was shot on a sound stage. Even though the set they built is very detailed and realistic, it just doesn't look as "real" as the real thing.

reply

And most of the actors in Rec had never acted before. Could've fooled me!

Don't eva let nobody tell you you ain't strong enough

reply

They also deliberately made the entire apartment building look dark.
It just felt tacky and predictable.

Why touch such a great film? If it ain't broke then don't fix it!
They already dubbed the original... so it's not like most Americans would've had to read any subtitles anyway.

reply

I've seen both and it really is a shot-for-shot remake, both women are equally annoying in the last few minutes. Although the original is superior, the huge difference in score is not really justified and mostly from haters.

reply

I thought the original felt more organic, and this a little more staged.

Sadly, they chose to go with Jennifer Carpenter, one of the worst actresses in the business these days. She conveys every emotion with an "almost-cry-face". Like it seems she's crying, but no tears, she's just doing the face. It becomes even more annoying in a series, like Dexter, where she during 6 years of emotion looks exactly the same whether it's happiness (almost-cry), sadness (almost-cry), fear (almost-cry), insecurity (almost-cry)... Well you get the picture. That was sadly probably one of the biggest reasons this didn't feel as organic.
Not that I recognized her, but that she sucked acting-wise.

I recognized many of the actors in this, and in Cloverfield, but not one of them took me out of the concept. Because they acted good. Bad acting though immediately takes from the reality of a film, and it makes a much bigger bad influence when it's a cinema veritée flick like this.

http://www.imdb.com/user/ur9529952/ratings

reply

I totally agree that Quarantine looks more staged. I cant explain it but it feels more like look here, shoot this, shake the camera around a lot. The camera shaking was too much and what was with the stroke light in the lift at one point? Plus the whole camera man getting upset after killing the woman and Carpenter freaking out towards the end was a bit much for me and she really bugged me. I get that they were trying to make they more human and make you want them to live but I liked in [Rec] that they were like freak out for a moment and move on. We gotta survive!

[Rec] feels so much more real you really feel the fear, all the 'scary' parts, feel the panic and just how frantic and desperate they were and want Angela, Manu and Pablo to live. But you just knew once Manu died that they were done in for and there was NO hope.

Plus [Rec] kept it relatively simple. No dogs in the buildings or lift.

"Vicki Vale, Vick-uh Vicki Vale Vickity Vale" Chuck Bartowski

reply

The beginning, in the fire station, is much more realistic in Rec. The original reporter flirts less, but seems more genuinely interested and friendly.

The camera-work looks fairly unstaged in the fire station... but after the power-cut in the apartment, it all looks too high-quality.


Even the Spanish reporter's "Don't stop filming" sounds more natural, whereas Carpenter sounds more forced.

reply

Something else OTT about Quarantine is the darkness. The camera seems dimmer, and the scene in the apartment's medical room is completely dark.

Rec, on the other hand, shows plenty of normal electric light too, which makes it seem more realistic at times.

reply

[deleted]

True. This version is inferior to the original for several reasons and the main is that it looks fake. Several time we see the camera point IMMEDIATELY to the most "interesting" thing as much as all the actors, IMMEDIATELY, start acting their scripted parts. There is no real surprise and in a movie like this it is a big problem. Also the main girl is a decent actress but still an actress. The original reporter was 100% in part.

'What has been affirmed without proof can also be denied without proof.' (Euclid)

reply

I agree with this movie looking more staged and not natural. I also felt Jennifer was not good in the role of Angela. For example, in the scene where she is panicking and shouting the government isn't going to come for them and that they were going to be left to die, it looked so forced and not convincing, that she was merely imitating and not actually acting.

reply

OK, being spanish myself, I just watched Quarantine and, even though it does look a little more "staged" than REC, i didn´t dislike it at all. Heck if nobody ever told me that it was an exact remake of REC, I would have loved the film but being the carbon-copy of the spanish flic, it sadly goes down a few notches. I really gotta agree that REC looked, sounded and felt more genuine. As an anecdote of this realism, the day we saw the trailer of REC (it was shown at another film we watched at the cinema) we thought it was a report on spanish news until the first zombies started coming out!!).
On a sidenote, the actress Manuela Velasco who plays the reporter in REC, is NOT a reporter in real life but a catalan actress since the age of 5, I dunno where the poster that said this got that info. But she did play a reporter better than that Jennifer Carpenter IMO.

reply

Kind of obvious that Quarantine was shot on a sound stage. The sets are lit in a way that's too much like other horror movies. [REC] looked more natural. Plus, Quarantine looks like it was shot by an epileptic.

Really telling how talented some of these directors are when they can't even do a proper shot for shot remake...

"Some films are slices of life. Mine are slices of cake." - A. Hitchcock

reply

Old thread but just watched both films again.

Completely agree with the OP here - Quarantine [while doing one of the better American remake-jobs of an excellent foreign film] clearly seemed "more staged" when compared to [rec].

I too felt this exact way when I first saw Quarantine on its initial release [after having already seen [rec]...]

Not any kind of film student or auteur wannabe, but for sure Quarantine just seemed more "fake" to me. I also am taking into account the fact that I knew the plot for Quarantine going in.

Still, [rec] just has this really authentic, gritty, real-to-life feel in its visuals and its overall presentation. Likely benefiting, as others have pointed out, from being shot in a real location rather than a manufactured soundstage.

[rec] remains for me a real standout in the whole "found footage" genre [a genre that is by now obviously overused to death].


--
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

reply

Surely because it features more prominent actors and was not filmed at real locations.

reply