Are there such things as cursed films?

This month the Shakedown team look at the dreadful safety record of movies. Vic Morrow's death on the movie The Twilight Zone changed safety regulations forever but what were they doing shooting helicopter scenes with small children at 2.30 in the morning? Listen up for more details in this new episode.

Shaky-cam or queasy-cam as some people call it has its haters and with the use of social media they are letting the programme makers feel their wrath and even abandoning dramas that use it or overuse it! We think judicious use of this handheld camera technique is fine used in context but we also think there are examples of major overuse. Shakedown looks at the technique's origins, why some people see it as lazy and unimaginative but why in general it's now part of the fabric of movie and TV drama whether we like it or not. 

1994's The Crow was famous for being cursed. From pre-production to the accidental killing of its star, Brandon Lee, near the end of the shoot, The Crow was a disastrous production with its only redeeming feature being changing US gun laws on-set. Larissa Mori and Julian Mitchell revisit the story and try to put a modern spin on explaining the curse which has followed the movie for 25 years.

For our first episode of Shakedown we track how digital cinematography was born. From the first official digital movie, Attack of the Clones, to the introduction of RED cameras.