Week 5: Camera paths, angles & sequences

Camera shots are essentially what do you see in in the frames or what the director wants the audience to see, having the control over what is going to be shown in the frames and the motivation behind those choices. Camera position is important for deciding which perspective the camera is going to show

We can consider what is framed in the camera as the perspective of someone: A point of view shot (also known as POV shot, first-person shot or a subjective camera) is a short film scene that shows what a character (the subject) is looking at (represented through the camera).

Each shot in a film expresses a point of view, which often changes—sometimes with each new shot. The point of view, or narrative stance, mostly goes unnoticed by the audience. However, altering the point of view can profoundly affect how the audience interprets any scene and character.

  • First-person point of view restricts what the audience sees to the viewpoint of a single character. Extensive use of this subjective viewpoint can be problematic because we can never see our point-of-view character’s reactions. Films that use first-person POV usually focus on the characters that we can see rather than the character who sees them. However, it’s tough to connect with a character without seeing their face.
  • The third-person limited point of view presents the action from the perspective of an ideal observer. It’s the style of narrative most common in TV and film. The term “limited” refers to the idea that we only know a few characters’ feelings and thought processes, rather than the entire ensemble. When we start to understand more about supporting characters because of a narrator, the film moves into omniscient point of view.
  • An omniscient narrator or POV will tell the story without attaching it to a single character or group of characters.

I thought about all of the possible points of view in a scene and how they can affect a story. (Determining the point of view is one of the director‘s most significant contributions to a film). I created the scene and after animated variations on camera path following an animation I previously animated showcasing an angry walk.

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