One of the (relatively) recent innovations in the horror/thriller genres has been found footage[1]. The appeal of the horror genre is, if it’s effective, it takes you inside a terrifying scenario but leaves you completely safe. The result is not terror but exhilaration. Found footage removes another barrier to the suspension of disbelief. The genre’s weakness is, of course, when it goes beyond the stage any believable character simply drop the camera and run.
But what is that stage?
The vital element in reports of the Woolwich murder has been citizen-gathered footage. Harvested mobile camera footage has brought the audience closer to the event than any professional news crew ever could take them.
The first commercially produced digital cameras came out in the late 1980s, there's been time enough to develop a set of cultural norms based around said cameras. The ability to record and share all aspects of our lives has created the expectation[2].
When confronted with a brutal murder people filmed it. The killers interacted with the camera. They posed, creating a compellingly grotesque tableau – the lifeless, prone body, the meat cleaver, the butcher’s knife, the out of season clothes, the bloodied hands etc. It’s almost as if the killers had been directed. They also spoke to the camera in a similarly precise manner.
The witnesses may have considered themselves as gathering evidence, but evidence was abundant and the perpetrators made it clear they did not want to hide anything. Besides, could that have possibly been going through the witnesses minds at the time (as opposed to an awful torrent of thoughts)? Why didn’t the onlookers flee the scene? Is it the case that the first instinct in these kinds of situations is to press record?
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_footage_(genre): “Found footage is a genre of film making, especially horror, in which all or a substantial part of a film is presented as discovered film or video recordings, often left behind by missing or dead protagonists”.
[2] Note: if ever there were any illusions as to how much of the internet is a commons, most if not all significant social media platforms now claim rights over photographs and videos posted on them. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/social-media/9752288/Facebooks-Instagram-claims-perpetual-rights-to-users-photos.html