Computer screen film
Computer screen film or desktop film is a film subgenre where the action takes place entirely on a screen of a computer or a smartphone. It became popular in the 2010s with the growing impact of the internet on everyday lives. The technique is mostly associated with horror and thriller films and is considered to be born from the found footage genre.[1][2]
According to Timur Bekmambetov, a computer screen film should take place on one specific screen, never move outside of the screen, the camerawork should resemble the behavior of the device's camera, all the action should take place in real time, without any visible transitions and all the sounds should originate from the computer.[3]
After producing one the first mainstream computer screen films, Unfriended in 2014, Bekmambetov started working on a whole series of films in this genre that he calls Screen Life.[4]
Examples
- The Collingswood Story, a 2002 American horror film
- 0s & 1s, a 2011 American comedy film
- The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger, a 2012 horror film
- The Den, a 2013 American horror film
- Noah, a 2013 short film
- Unfriended, a 2014 American horror
- Open Windows, a 2014 English-language Spanish thriller
- Connection Lost, a 2015 episode from the sixth season of the American sitcom Modern Family
- Face 2 Face, a 2016 American teen drama
- Hack the Bloggers, a 2016 Russian comedy
- Sickhouse, a 2016 American thriller
- Unfriended: Dark Web, a 2018 sequel to Unfriended
- Searching, a 2018 American thriller
- Profile, a 2018 American thriller
- Dnyukha!, a 2018 Russian comedy
- Self-isolation, a 2020 British thriller (short film)
References
- Chris Evangelista (17 August 2018). "Timur Bekmambetov Developing 14 Computer Screen Movies". Slash Film.
- Liam Maguren (13 September 2018). "Will the 'computer screen' movie be this decade's 'found footage'?". Flicks.co.nz.
- Timur Bekmambetov (22 April 2015). "Rules of the Screenmovie: The Unfriended Manifesto for the Digital Age". MovieMaker.
- Bryan Bishop (30 April 2015). "Beyond Unfriended: Timur Bekmambetov's wild plan to make desktop movies mainstream". The Verge.