Cinematic style mimicking discovered or documentary material — shaky camera, visible flaws, low-fi aesthetics. Blair Witch Project defined the genre.
If you take a camera, deliberately shake it, and then add a few optical artifacts — that's not yet found footage aesthetics. The trick is that you create a complete illusion of authenticity. You're not just faking technical flaws, but telling the story as if it were compiled from real material. That means: unplanned cuts, overexposed passages, audio dropouts, shaky transitions — everything should appear as if no one "professionally" edited it.
On set, this means specifically: your cinematographer has to learn to actively be bad. That's significantly harder than it sounds. A shaky zoom must feel like an attempt, not intentional. The lighting should be inconsistent between takes. If a scene takes place indoors, the next one is overexposed because supposedly no one adjusted the white balance. These details determine whether the viewer perceives the material as "found" or not.
Found footage aesthetics also work so powerfully because they eliminate psychological distancing. When I know I'm watching a professional film — perfect lighting, thoughtful cuts, stable image — then I am a viewer. But when the camera shakes because "the person who filmed this" is scared, I suddenly feel like a witness. This works particularly well in horror, but also in found footage documentaries or thriller formats.
Practically, I recommend: Decide on specific visual "errors" before you shoot. For example, opt for a slight focus drift, occasional exposure spikes, or a specific type of image stabilization artifacts. Stick to it — consistency makes the material believable. And don't forget the editing aesthetics: jump cuts, black frames, abrupt audio transitions. Found footage is truly born in the edit. That's where you turn deliberately raw material into the illusion of genuine documentation.