Maybe that’s why Paramount is hiring Catfish documentarians Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman to direct Paranormal Activity 3. This will be the first narrative feature for the duo, so it’s a little odd that they’re giving them the keys to a highly anticipated franchise film. Eh, I guess documentaries and scripted movies are pretty much the same, especially if you fake a lot of stuff.

Oh, not only is this Joost and Schulman’s first narrative movie, but it has to be ready for theaters by October, and they don’t even have a finished script yet. Have fun, guys. (/Film)

Now, Catfish is becoming”Catfish,” a series on MTV. It’s retaining the documentary format and the creative team of the movie, and will presumably be about the intrigue that occurs when online couples meet for the first time. Can we get Chris Hansen involved in this please? It seems like his wheelhouse. Also, is the band Hanson busy? They should probably get in on this too. (via Variety)

Catfish bodes really well for upstart documentaries. These guys just stumbled onto a story, but they happened to be shooting it so well they could present a coherent film about it.

It sets up the characters, their relationships, the geography and the routines of Facebook really well. Yaniv Schulman has been mailed paintings an eight-year-old girl Abby made of his photography. Yaniv begins an online and telephone relationship with the family, including her mother Angela, and an older daughter that becomes possibly romantic.

More after the jump..

It gets uncomfortable very fast. I mean, Yaniv is trying to do a good thing to support a girl and her family, and it escalates. He’s lying around all topless looking dreamy and this is some girl in another state.

It becomes a mystery, but still why is he so involved? Just live your own life in New York. I mean, it’s very curious to watch, but not to do. Yaniv even gets it. About a half hour in he feels he’s crossing the line, but that’s when it becomes a fascinating film.

All the things you think about doing but shouldn’t, they do. It’s All the President’s Men of the Facebook age, only there’s no national consequence. Actually, there is a social relevance, and it is on the personal level.

As they uncover the truth about Abby’s family, it becomes tragic. It’s a poignant demonstration of how Facebook can be an outlet for people in dire situations. Nothing can change the reality whether she stops Facebooking or not. The subject still has a lifelong responsibility, so what’s it to her if she manipulates people online. And most people would not be making a film about it so wouldn’t have reason to follow up on the mystery.

Video is holding up better in theaters now. Either they’ve lit this really well or the new cameras can compensate for low light. Their videography is very steady, even when they’re walking or hiding the camera. That proves that shaking cameras are fake Hollywood crap. Real filmmakers, even beginning ones, can keep a handheld camera still. It might jolt a little but even when they’re in motion the movement is slight.

When “Catfish” is finally explained at the end, it’s an apt metaphor for a lot of things. I think they should just tell people what it means because it’s so profound it would connect with people, but marketing knows everything. I feel bad for the catfish, but I guess I need them to be catfish or there’d be no me to feel bad for them. You’ll understand at the end.

The new film Catfish wants to get people talking, but maybe not in the way it has. Since its premiere at Sundance, the film has made an impact on viewers. It begins with NY photographer Yaniv Schulman starting a Facebook relationship with a Midwestern family, then goes to a dark place. Some people are calling bullsh*t on filmmakers Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost. They’re sticking to their story though.

“This question of whether the film is real or not never occurred to us while we were editing because why would you ever suspect that people would be suspicious of something that actually happened to you,” Joost said at a roundtable in Los Angeles today. “But when we started showing it at Sundance, that’s when we started getting questions from the audience. When we were making the film, there were many times when we thought wow, this is too good to be true in a lot of ways, or I can’t believe that just happened the way that it did or that we captured that in the way that we did, but it really happened. That’s the truth.”

More after the jump…

Other viewers are angry that they’re being a sold a thriller. The title is mysterious, the tag line is “Don’t let anybody tell you what it is.” If you don’t get a massive shocker, that might be a cheap marketing ploy. The filmmakers stand behind Rogue’s campaign too.

“That is part of the movie,” Joost continued. “That’s I think the crux of the second act. What I like about it being marketed that way is just that it kind of has you looking in a different direction and expecting something and the film ends up being a lot more than that.”

So the film doesn’t end with the filmmakers disappearing under a bundle of sticks, but it’s got something to think about. If you take their word for it that all this Facebook mystery really happened, you can learn from their experience.

“I think it says that the internet and social networking is sort of a perfect distraction and fantasy for people to fill any empty space in their lives, whether it’s just to fill time and distract them from a real life situation that’s uncomfortable,” Ariel Schulman said. “A bad date or a boring dinner, just hop on your phone and you’re on the internet and you’re surrounded by 1000s of people. Or it can fill a much simpler void which is my life isn’t what I want it to be I am not who I want to be. Let me create a better self, at avatar. Bam, five minutes later you’re up and going.”

Suspicion comes with the territory. Certainly in a world where even Hollywood films use a documentary style, the filmmakers understand skepticism. “I think that there has been a trend for a while of the mockumentary and also the fake documentary which is kind of a different thing,” Joost said. “The Cloverfield and Blair Witch Project type thing and then even more recently, those commercials that are trying to look like YouTube viral videos where something totally crazy happens and a visual effects company manipulates it. So I think people are trained now to be suspicious about what they see and wonder what the motives are behind it.”

Catfish opens September 17.
 

Directors: Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman

Synopsis: In late 2007, filmmakers Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost sensed a story unfolding as they began to film the life of Ariel’s brother, Nev. They had no idea that their project would lead to the most exhilarating and unsettling months of their lives.

Release Date: September 17, 2010