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  "path": "/bodycam-cinematography-interview",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-13T17:00:05.000Z",
  "site": "https://nofilmschool.com",
  "tags": [
    "Found footage",
    "Shudder",
    "Cinematography",
    "Bodycam",
    "Found footage films",
    "_Clayton Moore_",
    "_Shudder_",
    "www.youtube.com"
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  "textContent": "\n\n\n\nFound footage films may seem simpler to shoot than traditional productions, but the format often requires an even more deliberate visual strategy.\n\nWhat looks like spontaneous, chaotic footage is usually the product of careful planning and design. With _**_Bodycam_**_ , cinematographer _Clayton Moore_ faced the challenge of building a horror film around the perspective of police body cameras—an approach that removes many of the traditional tools cinematographers rely on, from coverage and inserts to controlled lighting setups.\n\nInstead, Moore leaned into the limitations of the format, using them to create a sense of immediacy and realism that places viewers directly alongside the officers._****_\n\nWhen discussing the creative process for the film, Moore says, “The genre of found footage lives or dies in the ability to convey that the footage is authentic. My advice would be to establish a set of rules for how you are going to handle the look of your found footage and stick to them as tightly as possible. Maintaining a disciplined approach to your image capture throughout production will pay off in the edit.” He discusses this and much more in the conversation below.\n\n__Bodycam__ is now available to stream on _Shudder_.\n\n- YouTubewww.youtube.com\n\n* * *\n\n**No Film School:**_**_Bodycam_**_**has a very specific visual constraint baked into the concept. When you first read the script, what were the immediate cinematography challenges you identified?**\n\n**Clayton Moore:** Going into the film, we knew the camera would have to constantly be moving with the actors, that the cameras would capture everything surrounding the actors, and that we wouldn’t be able to shoot traditional coverage of scenes. In a sense, each scene had to play as a one-shot. Losing the ability to use cutaways or inserts was both intimidating and liberating at the same time. Those certainly were all challenges that came to mind, but I was excited for the chance to figure out how to overcome them and lean into using the constraints creatively to help elevate the storytelling.\n\n**NFS: How early were you involved in shaping the visual rules of the film, and what were some rules you had to strictly follow—or intentionally break?**\n\n**CM:** I was involved from day one. The main rule we wanted to establish was that things had to feel very realistic; we wanted the audience to feel like they were right there with the police officers. Over the past few years, people have become more and more familiar with how body camera footage looks and feels, so we wanted to constantly be trying to achieve that sense of verisimilitude through our footage.\n\n**NFS:**_**_Bodycam_**_**is a found footage film. Would you say found footage is harder than traditional film?**\n\n**CM:** I wouldn’t say it's harder per se, rather it's just a different approach. It has to be. You’re typically lighting for a 360-degree field of view, so you need to take more care in rigging equipment and hiding crew members from view. The hardest part for some people might actually be scaling down from what they are used to having on a typical narrative feature film production. That was a big change for me, coming off of my last film where I had a full G&E crew, dollies, jibs, 5-ton grip trucks... Simplicity is the name of the game, in my opinion. ****\n\n**NFS: What tips would you recommend to other cinematographers shooting their first found footage film?**\n\n**CM:** The genre of found footage lives or dies in the ability to convey that the footage is authentic. My advice would be to establish a set of rules for how you are going to handle the look of your found footage and stick to them as tightly as possible. Maintaining a disciplined approach to your image capture throughout production will pay off in the edit. That being said, you have to be willing to let go of some of the aspects of control; it shouldn’t feel too polished.\n\n'Body Cam' Credit: Shudder\n\n**NFS: Can you walk us through the camera and lens choices and why they were right for this kind of immersive, bodycam-style storytelling?**\n\n**CM:** We shot 99% of the film on a GoPro Hero 11 Black. The only modification we used was the GoPro media mod case so that we could use a larger external battery and get HDMI out for wireless monitoring. We shot in 5.3K 8:7 ratio, which is essentially open gate, giving us more of a square image that would allow us to reframe things in post if the cameras weren’t exactly framed up where we needed them to be during a take.\n\nUsing the smaller cameras certainly made things more comfortable for the actors and allowed us to get more takes with them in the limited time we had available to us. At the end of the day, a big part of my job is giving the director the most amount of time possible to shoot. In that regard, the cameras performed very well for us. We hardly experienced any downtime with them over the course of the shoot, and that was largely in part due to the camera rig being super simple.\n\n**NFS: Were there any unconventional rigging or mounting solutions you had to invent or adapt for this shoot?**\n\n**CM:** Since there are two police officers, we originally wanted to roll 2 cameras simultaneously on every scene. We had mocked up some 3d printed housings for the GoPros so that they would look more like a traditional body camera. The problem was that, in order to fit the GoPros inside, the housings had to be huge, and the cameras were very prone to overheating inside them. They ended up being too big and bulky, and we had trouble keeping them attached to the actors. They just weren’t right, so the night before principal photography started, we decided to scrap the problematic custom housings and shoot single camera. This actually ended up being a blessing in disguise for the crew and the actors alike.\n\n'Bodycam'Credit: Shudder\n\n**NFS: How closely did you collaborate with the director during rehearsals and blocking, especially given how performance-driven the camera work is?**\n\n**CM:** We worked closely to define the general path that the actors would take through each scene, but when it came down to it, the actors caught on to the camera operating needs real quickly. It was rare that we might have to step in and give them extra direction to hit a specific mark or to feature something on camera that might serve as our form of a “cutaway.” Overall, the actors were really willing and up to the challenge. The fact that we used such a wide field of view on the cameras, along with shooting in an open gate type format, gave us the flexibility to reframe the shots in post if needed as well.\n\n**NFS: The lighting in** _**_Bodycam_**_**feels natural but still cinematic. How did you approach lighting scenes where traditional setups weren’t possible?**\n\n**CM:** Natural was certainly the name of the game. The overall approach to the lighting was to try to remain as authentic to the situations as possible. Police are always using their flashlights, and so it just felt natural to lean into that, and we pretty much lit the entire film using only the officer’s flashlights. We were lucky in that regard, since they always have their flashlights available to them on their belt if they need them. There are several scenes where I had to add some supplemental lighting, but it was always a challenge because it had to be super subtle, and due to the nature of the sets, the lighting had to be very well hidden or appear as a practical source in the shot, so I was always looking at trying to recreate natural sources in the environments.\n\nClayton Moore\n\n**NFS: What advice would you give indie filmmakers trying to light horror scenes quickly and realistically without large crews or heavy gear?**\n\n**CM:** Don’t overthink it. Simplify when at all possible. More often than not, a single source in the right spot will look better and more realistic than a whole truck full of lights and running your small crew into the ground. Not only are we visual storytellers, but we also have to be professional problem solvers. Every day on set will present new and unique challenges to you that you can never truly plan for. It's invaluable to be able to learn to think quickly and to react quickly to changes as they come.",
  "title": "Tips for Shooting a Found Footage Film Without Breaking the Illusion"
}