Found footage is a favourite choice for film-makers with miniscule budgets because the medium lends itself well to thrifty movie-making. You can get away with not showing the monster clearly; not worrying too much about mise en scène; not having flashy special effects. This is largely what makes found footage work: it's raw, unfiltered and, above all, it feels genuine.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a growing number of found footage films where the creators have opted for the genre to save money, without actually considering what makes an FF film work.
Mind Body Spirit is one if these films. Ostensibly a collection of recordings from a wannabe YouTube star making wellness videos, the film falls at the first hurdle by completely undermining the idea that this is anything but a low-budget film.
It breaks a cardinal sin of Found Footage by having a soundtrack. There is ambient music and non-diagetic sound throughout, which immediately makes the film seem completely disingenuous. The filmmakers seem to have added it because, y'know, that's what happens in scary movies, forgetting that this is meant to be a series of candid, unedited recordings from an amateur filmmaker.
Then there are scenes which seem to be showing what's going on in the protagonists head, despite the fact that it makes no sense that the camera would capture them.
There was the scene with the "string", which featured such laughably unrealistic and entirely unnecessary special effects, it brought the while scene to a grinding halt.
And there are all the scenes where the camera moves in it's own, with no explanation, in just the right way to capture things in a cinematic way.
If you're going to make a found footage film, every single attempt you make to be more cinematic weakens the authenticity, and ultimately just reminds the viewer that they're watching a zero-budget indy movie.
