History Main / CameraAbuse

** It can be done in 2. The corridor with the first Licker contains such a camera positioning.

* In ''Left4Dead'', the camera reflects certain statuses. If you've been vomited on by a zombie, the view turns green, and distorts and blurs chronically. Seeing as the character puked on literally can't see anything more than indistinct blurs in front of them, shooting is a very bad idea. Camera turns red when you've been hit hard. Being on fire ignites the bottom of your screen. Being incapacitated will drop the camera to ground level (complete with tilt and bob) and the more you bleed, the darker your view gets until you bleed to death. If you've been incapped and revived so many times, your view turns monochrome (and with a steadily accelerating heartbeat) to show that you ''really'' need medical attention. Conversely, having your character realise they're about to be mobbed by a Crecendo or Panic Horde will make everything turn slightly sharper and brighter (resembling an adrenaline spike), and chugging a tub of aspirin makes everything '''super'''bright for a second (resembling getting slightly high).

* An unintentional example; [[TheLateLateShow Craig Ferguson]] usually ends his opening monologue by playfully smacking the side of the camera. One time he slapped it a bit too playfully and actually broke the camera.

Of course, Camera Abuse can be [[JustifiedTrope justified]] when it's explicitly presented as the view from an in-story camera, such as an InsecurityCamera, the protagonist's handheld camera, or just the naked eyes of a character.

As a use of the medium as something more than the medium, this is a subtrope of PaintingTheFourthWall. Compare JitterCam, FalseCameraEffects, LensFlare, FirstPersonCamera, and SnowyScreenOfDeath. Not to be confused with CameraScrew.

* Happens unintentionally in ''{{Children of Men}}'' during a {{oner}} of a gunbattle, when a drop of blood from a squib happens to spatter onto the lens. Because the continuous shot is actually a number of shots stitched together with CGI, the blood discreetly disappears when the camera goes through fog.

* BigBrother UK, Series Five: the housemates protest some decision by Big Brother by staying silent for a whole day. BB counter-protests by constantly piping the sounds of crying babies into the house. The housemates counter-counter protest by ''stealing the camera from the diary room and attempting to set it alight''.

* On any given StarTrek, if they were being attacked by the MonsterOfTheWeek, you can bet the camera was shaking.

[[quoteright:350:[[HaruhiChan http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/haruhi_camera_abuse.png]]

[[quoteright:400:HaruhiChan http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/haruhi_camera_abuse.png]]
[[caption-width-right:400:Ouch, now [[ThatsGottaHurt that's gotta hurt]].]]

[[HaruhiChan http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/haruhi_camera_abuse.png]]
[[caption-width:400:Ouch, now that's gotta hurt.]]

* Inversely, ''28 Weeks Later'' has a zombie use the a rifle with a nightsight attached to it to beat a character to death, seen from the scope's POV.

** [[YourMileageMayVary Most of the time,]] [[WhatBeautifulEyes it's not so bad.]] [[BodyHorror Except in the]] [[NightmareFuel third game...]]
*** The most dramatic example is the bots in the fortress in Metroid Prime 2. If you don't kill them quickly, they will remotely 'hack' Samus's visor, forcing her to reboot her entire suit for one whopper of an InterfaceScrew.

* In the ''MetroidPrime'' series, the game is played from behind Samus' visor. Thus, long falls or other heavy hits shake the screen, raindrops hit the "camera", condensed steam obscures the view, ice attacks freeze the screen, electric attacks cause [[InterfaceScrew Interface Screw]]s and so on. Bright lights even allow you to see the [[NightmareFuel protagonist's face reflected from the visor.]]
** [[YourMileageMayVary Most of the time,]] [[WhatBeautifulEyes it's not so bad.]] When Samus' body gets infected with Phazon in ''Corruption'', [[BodyHorror however...]]

* Bloodsplatter on the camera has become a staple of war movies after ''Saving Private Ryan'' had a lot of it.
** Having said that, ''Braveheart'' which preceded it by three years made use of it at the Battle of Stirling scene.
** ''PlanetTerror'' used loads of fake blood in the HelicopterBlender scene, although most of it was removed for the tv ads.
* ''{{Children of Men}}'' arrestingly combined blood on the lens with a stitched-together-via-CG {{oner}} of a gunbattle/massacre seen first person from the wrong end. Perhaps its shock value comes from it not being intentional: it was [[ThrowItIn Thrown In]] after a blood squib hit the lens.

* In ''RobinHoodMenInTights'', While Maid Marian is singing in the bathtub, the camera smashes through the window, interrupting the song. It then cuts to a shot of the camera, which moves back outside.
** The same joke is done ''twice'' in Mel Brooks' earlier film ''High Anxiety''.
*** But those were supposed to be parodies of Hitchocock's style as a director. I guess Mel just really liked the way those came out, and kept using them.
** Later on in ''Men In Tights'', we see the Abbot called to marry Maid Marian to the Sheriff walking down the aisle towards the camera until he ends up loudly hitting the lens with his staff.
** ''{{Spaceballs}}'' has a similar joke, where the camera zooms in too close and hits Dark Helmet in the helmet.
*** Does camera ''man'' abuse belong here? There was also the scene of Dark Helmet's and Lone Star's schwartz duel, when Helmet accidentally kills a camera operator on the set.

* Inversely, ''28 Weeks Later'' has a zombie use the camera to beat a character to death.
** It's actually a rifle with a nightsight attached to it and the audience are seeing it from the infected's point of view. Which means, logically, that he's using the muzzle rather than the butt to do the work. That somehow makes it worse.

* Played horrifyingly, nightmarishly straight in ''TheLifeAquaticWithSteveZissou''.

Normally, when a camera shakes during filming, it's considered a mistake, and it's edited out or the scene is reshot. After all, the shake ruins WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief by drawing attention to the camera, and why the hell is there a camera there? All the same, some filmmakers and showrunners will use camera shaking or other abuse intentionally. The phenomenon has proliferated to the point where it's being used in computer-generated SpecialEffects shots, animation, and video games -- Camera Abuse ''[[{{Dissimile}} without the camera]]''.

As a use of the medium as something more than the medium, subtrope of PaintingTheFourthWall. Compare JitterCam, FalseCameraEffects, LensFlare, FirstPersonCamera, and SnowyScreenOfDeath. Not to be confused with CameraScrew.

* During the warthog chase in ''RedVsBlue: Reconstruction'', some mud splashes onto the camera. Also during explosion effects, since that what ''{{Halo}}'' does, and ''RedVsBlue'' is made using the ''Halo'' engine., SoYeah. Also used if to show something heavy falling, even when the engine wouldn't force them to do so. Such as when Casboose's BerserkButton is pushed in the original series.