MovieChat Forums > General Discussion > What makes a movie look "cheap" to you?

What makes a movie look "cheap" to you?


I've found that cheap movies have the following aspects.

1) less cuts. You get shots that just last forever. I'm sure that there is a ratio of cuts per second that we instinctively pick up on.

2) shot in real rooms not sound stages. That means lighting isn't going to be as good. So lighting is off.

3) events take place off screen. Cinema is a visual art form. So when they tell us instead of showing us, they're cutting corners. Another example is showing the aftermath instead of the event. Think a car crash sound effect and then we see the wreck. It looks staged.

reply

Godawful CGI like you get on the made-for-SYFY movies! That's my favorite!

Also, one instrumentalist doing the score. Sometimes in really low-budget 80s movies, there will be one synthesizer doing the entire score.

The exception to this is "Birdman" which had drums only, but that worked and the movie didn't come across as cheap.

reply

Yeah atmospheric music, which is now very common, probably just started as a way to save money.

Just hire some weird guy with a bunch of synthesizers and get him to play long chords instead of write actual frame to frame composition.

reply

[deleted]

Shia LaBeouf

reply

I ENJOY THAT MAN'S WORK...HE WAS AWESOME IN THE TAX COLLECTOR...AND EVERYTHING ELSE...HE IS A LITTLE INSANE IN REAL LIFE,ILL GIVE YOU THAT.

reply

Just. Do. It!!!

reply

Do you ever watch the RedLetterMedia “Best of the Worst” reviews?

reply

THEY REPLACED TELEVISION FOR ME...I HAVENT WATCHED TV IN ALMOST A YEAR./..I HAVE HOWEVER SEEN EVERY REDLETTERMEDIA VIDEO LIKE 5 TIMES...NO EXAGERATION.

reply

The Ben and Arthur one they posted yesterday is a banger!

reply

YEAH...THAT WAS SOMETHING ELSE...PRETTY AMAZING RLM EPISODE.

reply

Just watch Birdemic.

reply

Shaky camera work that looks like it was shot in someone’s backyard. Teal and Orange colour grading. Bad editing with no sense of continuity or geography.

reply

High framerate. Even high budgeted movies look cheap when filmed in 30, 48 or 60fps. They look like soap operas.

Poor editing. Most cheap movies already blown their budget just to make the production barely finished. So they would cut corners in post-production resulting in random cuts because well it's saving time to make it cheaper. They also would never do re-shoots so whatever mistakes they got they'll just skip up, resulting in stuttered flow.

Depth of field. Cheaper cameras and lenses usually provide only deeper/thicker field of focus making less blur on unfocused areas. When everything always in focus everytime it look like a home video. Also pulling manual focus on a thin depth of focus is harder, leading to more mistakes that cheap movies cannot afford.

The same can be said on Dynamic Range. Cheap cameras only provide limited dynamic range resulting in blown highlights and total black shadows with no detail.

Make ups. Movies look cheap when the make ups are too consistent. The actors look exactly the same when they are in bed just woke up from sleep, when they are in the office, when they are showering. Because maybe multiple scenes were shot the same day so they don't bother to redo all the make ups.

reply

I'll add color coding. It's something that is a time-consuming post production ART FORM and cheaper movies don't seem to bother.

reply

1/ Bad script as in the actors are saying things that don't make sense or conversations are really banal.
2/ Lack of purpose. I recently watched "The Nest" (2020) and it goes nowhere.
3/ Not sure if there is a word for this but uninspired acting. Like the actors know they are in crap/know they aren't good actors.
4/ A depressing vibe. Being Australian, our low budget films and films in general tend to be really depressing, especially over the last 20-30 years.
5/ CGI that makes it look like a computer game.

reply

lousy soundtrack. heavy synth sounds.
hammy acting
dumb dialogue
inane plot

reply