I haven't yet seen "Cloverfield," the movie that created a huge buzz on the internet, but there was an interesting article in the (London) Evening Standard that revealed the thinking behind the film. (Which opened big in the US but had a huge drop-off after week two of release. Still, since it cost only about $30 million, it will be a financial success.) Here, according to director Matt Reeves, are the main features of the film:
* hand-held camera work that apparently records the experience of one of the characters on his video camera. Reeves points this will resonate with a generation that is used to recording every minute of their lives on their camera phones;
* imagery that evokes the scariest events of recent years: 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the London bombings;
* a length of only 84 minutes, to conform to the attention span of a young audience;
* cryptic elements that will encourage viewers to return to find more clues;
* a conclusion with (as Reeves puts it) "far less closure than you'd usually have in a major studio film."
All this confirms my own feeling that a lot of movies increasingly are more like video games. Whether or not you welcome this (to be honest, I don't--and Reeves admits that Cloverfield's ending is likely to infuriate a lot of people), this trend is not going away, and if you want to write for films, it's good to be aware of it.
(Want more writing tips? Check out my book 'Your Writing Coach,' published by Nicholas Brealey--there's lots of information on it and free tips at www.yourwritingcoach.com.)