DIRECTIONS UNIT: ARIEL SCHULMAN

My chosen director for this unit, is Ariel Schulman, an American director and producer. Most widely, he works on all of his productions with friend and fellow director, Henry Joost. He first gained recognition for the documentary Catfish, in which he followed around his brother who was talking to somebody online and when they first met, she was not who she said she was. Together, Ariel and Henry have founded production company Supermarch, through which they have directed many feature films as well as number of short dramas.
List of main film credits
                 - Paranormal Activity 3                                     -Paranormal Activity 4
                 - Nerve                                                               - Catfish
                 -Viral                                                                

Key Works/Trademarks

The most recognisable directorial trait that I identify from Ariels work, is the genre of found footage. All of his films in one way or another, can be linked to the idea of POV filming from a handheld camera or camera phone. This idea dates back to Catfish in 2010, whilst this was a documentary, it still featured the use of these cameras, the way in which this is filmed is much more personal and suits the documentary genre very well. Catfish, because of the way it was filmed and the genre, was accused of being fake. In defence of this, Schulman said "We're basically in an age where cameras are so available and people are filming themselves more than ever. We started doing that on Catfish with just small cameras and we had them out all the time, the cameras weren't popular enough that people believed it was possible, and so they came to the conclusion that it was fake". This way of filming is a really engaging for an audience, because it allows for abstract cinematography and also gives the audience a sense of they are in the middle of the action, they aren't just watching, this way of filming gets them involved. 

Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost helped to bring about the collision of this way of filming from phones and handheld cameras too the horror genre, through their direction of Paranormal Activity 3 & 4. Schulman decided to use a multitude of different cameras within particularly Paranormal Activity 4, the use of a macbook to film (using both the webcam and screen recordings), an Xbox Kinect and an array of smartphones (iPhone). This again adds to Ariels trademark directorial skills, doing something no other directors have done before with the horror genre. Within his work, Ariel recognises that times are changing; "cut to five years later and everybody has a HD cameraphone in their pocket", this modern components are what Ariel uses in his work and one of the main reason i am so interested and engaged to his work.

Within their latest feature length, Nerve staring Emma Roberts, they utilise some of the trademark efforts we have seen in a different genre, thriller. Evident within Nerve from their work, is the use of modern technology (macbook by which main character Vee uses to talk to her friend on Skype). The main story of Nerve revolves around young people playing a game where they either complete dares set by 'the watchers' or they watch and set the dares to the players. This game is played through a mobile phone and thus involves the participants to film themselves as the complete a dare. Vee's friend often teases her about how she lives within her comfort zone and doesn't challenge herself, to disprove her friend she signs up for the game and competes dares, ending up top of the leaderboard. The collection of scenes that i have chosen to recreate demonstrate Vee in her journey about what makes her decide to sign up as a player rather than a watcher. I choose this scene because i believe, through minimal dialogue, it opens up the entire narrative, every story is started/mentioned/referenced within this opening scene, for example introduction to the game nerve as well as the college application.