Post 14: Audience Positioning

Audience Positioning - audiences enjoy films when they are most involved with them
- when you analyse a film for media studies you have to look at the techniques the director uses in order to ‘draw’ the audience to it
- When you are REALLY and TRULY hooked in to the films story, it is as if you have your own position inside it 

Techniques #1
-P.O.V shots
-Camera adopts the position of a character within the film
-This can ‘over-the-shoulder’, looking at whatever the character is looking at, or a shot from the POV of a character.   

Why is this useful?Because it puts the viewer in to the position of the character, we feel their emotions and feel we are experiencing the journey with them.

Techniques #2-reaction shots
-camera moves to a close-up/extreme close-up of a characters face to show their reaction to something

Techniques #3
-insert shots: this gives the viewer extra information that one/more characters may not know

-For example: a split screen (two characters, two different places)

Techniques #4
-shot reverse shot
-the camera alternates between two characters to show their building relationship (good/bad)
-we normally see this when the characters are talking face to face
-it is as if the camera acts as a third character