The following is the second installment of a two-part series. The first can be found here. In describing this kind of cinema Craig writes, “when choosing
*The following is the second installment of a two-part series. The first can be found here.*In describing this kind of cinema Craig writes, “when choosing subjectsfor a title, the direct cinema producer seeks out situations that require intense involvement from the focal characters, thus rendering the camera an innocuous presence” (8). The film follows a group of young people in a specific project trying to uncover a story that leads to intense emotion. The only difference between direct cinema and The Blair Witch Projectis that the latter is fiction. But of course, it was marketed as documentary, allowing for the first-person perspective of the found footage to draw in the horror genre spectator.
Although the
camera is passed between three characters, all of which are seen at different
times on screen, this method creates the camera as the eyes of the “everyman,”
which is the spectator. This method had not been seen in horror films before. Jenkins writes, “The only time we are truly brain-dead in
our response to popular culture is when it becomes so formulaic that it no
longer provokes an emotional reaction” (3).The Blair Witch Projectcombined a documentary film formula with original marketing techniques to
create a new fictional cinema that would appeal to spectators/gamers: a film
where the spectator becomes a character through the handheld camera.
As Black pointed out, the twentieth century is the most recorded in history, precisely because of the invention of film (3). To see a film recorded with a home movie style camera is to see it with a spectator’s eyes.
The film
initially cost $60,000 to make, was purchased by Artisan Entertainment after it
screened at the Sundance Film Festival for over $1 million, marketed at a cost
of $25 million, and went on to gross nearly $250 million worldwide in theatre
tickets sales alone8. So, this film cannot be said to be exactly an
underground film. However, by allowing the spectator to participate in the
narrative as well as the marketing, a new subgenre of horror film was created,
that borrowed from video game aesthetics and added to them.
Over the next
decade, several films also used the first-person perspective as a stylistic
device to engage the horror viewer, such as *[REC]*and its sequel [REC]2(Jaume Balagueró & Paco Plaza, 2009), Diary of the Deadand Cloverfield.
These films have (like most films with enough budget and time) created
websites; none of the websites attempt to make the spectator believe that the
film is a documentary– perhaps because spectators, having seen The Blair Witch Project, would be less
likely to believe it. Each, however, looks at the direct cinema style from a
different perspective, using this new horror subgenre to explore contemporary
society.
As with The
Blair Witch Project, *[REC]is played as a professional documentary;
in this case a news program. A reporter and her cinematographer follow firefighters
to a building, where it turns out a virus is loose, and they are all locked
inside. At no point, however, does the spectator see the face of the cameraman,
though his name is known and his voice is heard.[REC]*explores the audience’s need to know, that
the news reporter should have unfettered access to information and situations
regardless of privacy or perhaps appropriateness. The cameraman, by being
visually invisible, places the spectator in the role of a journalist. As for
the horror, the camera is only ever one person’s perspective, and until the end is only held by one person (in the end the camera is left on
the floor as the only “survivor”).
In the sequel
[REC]2, the first-person perspective comes from several cameras: those
belonging to the SWAT team moving into the quarantined building, and an amateur
camera operated by a group of teenagers who sneak into the building. The switch
between the various cameras gives the spectator multiple viewpoints from
multiple characters, or character types.
In a sense,
while the first *[REC]*played out like a first-person game perspective,
the sequel plays out almost as a second person perspective game. With multiple
characters, the spectator can have multiple allegiances. Each character can
either represent a different aspect of the spectator, or the spectator can
align themselves with one of the characters.Cloverfield, like The Blair Witch**Project,
is presented as found footage. It is in essence a YouTube video that was
confiscated bythe government. A monster attacks Manhattan, and a group
of friends (one of whom carries the camera) race through the city to find
another friend. In this case, the face of the cinematographer is known. As Cherry writes of the film, “the sole focus is on
bystanders, a small group of people that would in any other film be background
non-speaking roles” (193).
In this film,
it is not so much the camera that is important, but the tape. While the
spectator is watching the footage of the monster attack, at times the footage
stops and there are several seconds of the footage underneath: a day in the
life of two of the film’s characters. In this case, the spectator is not so
much one of the characters, but a historian trying to understand the events
through the eyes of that ordinary bystander.
In all three
films, one of the most significant devices is the use of the night vision of
the camera in order to see the enemy (in *[REC]*the original girl with
the virus, in Cloverfieldthe foot soldiers of the monster). Not only
does the direct cinema camera style provide the first-person perspective, but
also the actual technology of the camera becomes a narrative device. It is not
the screen that mediates, but the camera.
The
spectator, looking through this camera, is privy to information that the other
characters in the film are not. As well, this speaks to a generation who can watch
through a movie camera and find both identification and mediation.
By their nature, games are
interactive and participatory. Video games using the first-person perspective
(and arguably the third person perspective as well) are a more recent
phenomenon. As oppose to games such as The Simsor the CivilizationSeries, where the gamer occupies the role of a kind of deity, the first-person
perspective allows the gamer to take on a specific persona. The gamer is much
more interactive, and the avatar becomes active with the gamer in a symbiosis
of mimesis.
The game Half-Lifewas
launched in 1998, using the first-person perspective. The narrative is fairly
straight forward: the gamer is a scientist at a research facility that, due to
a botched experiment, opens a rift between Earth and another dimension; aliens
subsequently invade, and the gamer must fight them. MacTavish writes, “A key component of delight in video games
is user-driven exploration and discovery within a space” (40). For the first
time, a game universe was created where the gamer had much more autonomy; there
was still an end-goal, and certain puzzles had to be solved, but the gamer in
essence becomes the character; or probably more accurately, the character
becomes the gamer.
Kumar told me, “The hero [is] …
just a vessel in which destiny exists. The dominant plot of the first person
video game is of an utterly generic superman who is instrumental to the
survival of the human race.” The physical qualities are that of the character,
but the mental abilities are that of the gamer. A good gamer will find a way
through each chapter quickly and efficiently, gaining the best score possible
and learning from mistakes.
MacTavish writes, “Agency in computer games involves the
gamer’s participation within a virtuoso performance of technological expertise”
(34). Gamers need to think they can, according to Jenkins, “run faster, shoot more accurately, jump
further and think smarter than in their everyday life” (31). The first-person shooter game allows the gamer to
participate as him/herself in a fantasy world where they are the hero.*Half-Life *was not the first game to explore the first-person
perspective. It can be said tohave begun in its current, recognizable
form in 1992 with Wolfenstein 3D, and the following year with the still
popular Doom.Doomwas considered a success in part because of
the “sense of unease and anxiety created as the game character traveled through
deserted corridors,” Bryce writes,
much like in a horror film (68).
In the mid-1990s, games that used
what is called the third-person perspective also began to emerge, two of the
most popular titles being Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, and the Resident
Evilseries. This third-person perspective allows the gamer to see the
entire (or most) of the body of the character they are controlling. But even
this can feel like a first-person perspective, as the third-person perspective
allows for periphery vision. The characters played generally have more life and
personality, as there are often cut-away scenes (points at which there is a
dialogue between characters in order to further the narrative of the story).
Steven Poole writes, “The important aspect of Tomb Raider’s
representational style, in fact, is that the modus operandi has been borrowed …
from the cinema: the gamer’s point of view is explicitly defined, as we saw, as
that of a ‘camera’” (Poole 146). The image of the character body gives the
gamer something with which to comprehend the space more holistically. The gamer
both occupies the body of the character, and acts as a kind of shadow.
In games, however, narrative is not as important as good pace and playability. The first/third-person perspective is chosen and exists for the purpose of game play. Ken Perlin writes, “I cannot sustain the fiction that an actual Lara Croft continues to exist offstage, because I have not actually experienced her agency. All I have experienced is my agency” (15). A first-person game such as Half-Lifeor Doomchoose first person in order to put the gamer directly into the game; Tomb Raiderchooses the third person perspective as it is this avatar that is necessary to explore this world and play this game. (Of course, it is also arguable that for Tomb Raider in particular, the specific attributes of the avatar of Lara Croft helped to sell games to a certain demographic.)
The Resident Evilseries
employs different character or characters for the gamer to engage with
depending on the game. Characters cross over, so the gamer feels a part of the
entire story, and this is part of the appeal. Janet Murray finds the true pleasure of the video game is in the
movement, the exploration, which “allows us to experience pleasures specific to
intentional navigation … [matching] our experiences and admiring the
juxtapositions and changes in perspective that derive from moving through an
intricate environment” (129). In video games, the first/third-person
perspective allows the gamer to engage their own personality, their own
intelligence and skill to the completion of the mission.
All films and
video games have representations and signifiers that are specific to them,
particularly by genre. In using the first-person perspective, many of these
representations cross over from one medium to the other. First-person
perspective films can use video game signifiers, and video games incorporate
cinematic representations. In a film, it is better to show than to tell; in a
video game it is better to do than to watch. Since the first-person perspective
form requires a kind of interaction, both become a kind of simulation whose
signs the spectator/gamer reads and incorporates from signs it recognizes from
the different media.
A first-person
perspective film will tend to use film quality that is more “amateur.” In The
Blair Witch Project, the characters were amateur documentary filmmakers.
The spectator recognizes and associates a certain style with this kind of
direct cinema: shaky handheld camera, usually more of the home movie than
professional variety, and a certain improvisational quality to the information
being presented.
Indeed, the
process of the filming of the movie was almost like a video game. The directors
gave their actors basic outlines to the story, gave them the cameras, and each
day of filming would leave them notes as to their
character’s perspective and clues as to what should happen next. The actors
then worked from this information like the puzzle of a video game – see Cherry
(186).*[REC]also uses a single camera, operated though by
a single character, so the spectator is meant to recognize themselves in the
character, to move with him as he films, as though the spectator were also the
filmmaker, trying (like a video game) to make it through the film alive. And
thought the cinematographer does not, the spectator does – or perhaps is the
last victim, as the camera is still running when the supposedly last person
alive is dragged into the darkness.[REC]2 *expands on this by the
addition of multiple cameras, as though the spectator wereplaying
so-called ‘expansion packs’ – a kind of add-on to an existing game with extra
features and mini-games – adding different rooms, scenarios and characters for
the gamer to explore, as it moves the narrative along while remaining in the
same location.
In Diary**of the Dead, several characters use three different cameras. At the
beginning of the film, a voice-over claims that the footage about to be watched
has been cut together from three cameras; two used for the film being shot
within the film, and a cell phone camera. Voice-overs in films generally
signify that what is happening is in the past, is irrevocable and in horror
films, denote at least one survivor. The spectator in this case is the audience
watching the footage on some sort of future YouTube.
The entire
experience is mediated through cameras focusing not only on the other
characters but also on computer screens showing other amateur (and sometimes
news) footage. The spectator is meant to understand him/herself as a
participant, either through viewing of the footage or a person who might
possibly also add their own footage to the document.*Cloverfield *identifies itself as amateur footage seized by
the government, making the spectatorinto a kind of spy or government
official, possibly investigating the disaster and using the film as a piece of
the puzzle. While aware of the character holding the camera, the spectator
might be more likely to interpret the signifier of the film as a government
document to see themselves in two roles: as the bystander
filming the disaster, and the official piecing together the clues of what was
seen through the camera. Video game signifiers are mixed in with more
traditional movie ones to create a mediation of the first-person perspective.
Like films,
video games must seem to be plausible to the gamer, with a logical structure
that will allow the gamer to, according to Tong and Tan, “develop a sense of involvement in the
spatial construction of the game world” (108). In film, much of what makes the
horror genre work is the control over what the spectator sees and when, which
is less easy to control in a game atmosphere. If a gamer loses in one sequence,
their character can come back to life and try again, this time knowing what is
about to happen.
Many of the
earliest computer and video games were constructed like sports or card games.
There is no narrative behind Pongor Pac Mac; they were based on
the arcade game theory, something that could be played easily and quickly. In
the past twenty years, though, several video games of the first-person
perspective have utilized film techniques to augment the games.
While
narrative is not as important as game play, it has allowed games to have
“sequels;” for example, there are five Resident Evilgames in the
regular series and at least three spin-off games. The narrative is provided in
part by the game, but also by the gamer. The first-person perspective allows
the gamer to write part of the story: not so much how the game is played, but
how the gamer uses the tools to play the game. “The ability to alter
characters, environment and events within texts suggest that gamers can become
producers in addition to being consumers,” according to Bryce (76).
Today, video
game companies combine a variety of artistic and technical workers, much like
films – see DeMaria
(3). More frequent in games today is the use of the “cut-away” scene, a moment
when the game play stops and the gamer watches a mini-film which more often
than not features the character he/she is playing and furthers the narrative. Newman argues, “while players demand participation and seem
to tire quickly of non-participative elements, they want all of this presented
in a manner that does not feel contrived” (17).
It can be
hard for a break in game play not to feel contrived, but these scenesare
also reminders of the characterization and often reveal pertinent game-play
information (for example, in Resident Evil 4, the character main Leon
discovers the reasons behind the kidnapping that is the purpose of the game).
In a film, this might be the moment when the camera is put on the ground for
the spectator to see the person whose eyes they have been borrowing.
While first-person
perspective combined with playing binds the gamer directly into the gamescape,
these pauses act as a kind of visual reward for having survived to this point
in the game. Zach Waggoner feels that “immediacy in video games … is heavily
dependant on hypermediacy: a style where the goal is to remind the viewer of
the medium” (32). The film-style of the first-person perspective adds to the
video game an impression of narrative and sense of involvement in creation of
the game for the gamer.
In The
Blair Witch Project, the character Mike claims he is less afraid when he is
looking through the camera, as though he were then in the position the
spectator occupies, both as a character by proxy in the film, and as an
audience member. In his essay exploring the work of art historian Michael
Fried, Richard Rushton applies Fried’s theory of absorption and theatricality
to the cinema. A film that absorbs the spectator is one that seeks to make the
cinematic apparatus invisible (a technique commonly found in classical
Hollywood film); one that is theatrical advertises its artificiality to the
spectator (a technique used often by Jean-Luc Godard).
Since most
horror films contain either highly unusual or very improbable events, they
arguably lean more towards theatricality. The addition of the first-person
perspective, however, makes a film/game occupy a space between absorption and
theatricality.
In Cloverfield,
the spectator is identified as a historian or government agent investigating
the disaster; the perspective forces the spectator to be aware of both the
physical space they occupy in the theatre and the pseudo-space they occupy
within the film landscape. The spectator is at once absorbed in the role given
to them by the first-person
perspective, and yet aware of the theatricality of this position.
A gamer is
absorbed in game play, and at the same time the game’s theatricality is
emphasized by the use of a controller. Jo Bryce writes, “The ability to alter characters, environments
and events [which suggests] that gamers can become producers in addition to
being consumers” (76). Game play itself encourages absorption into the
immediacy of the gamescape, which as Zach Waggoner writes, “is heavily dependant on hypermediacy: a
style where the goal is to remind the viewer of the medium” (32). The
absorption of horror meets with the theatricality of the first-person
perspective.
In an era of converging
technologies, consumers have the opportunity not only to consume an infinite
variety of entertainment forms in a huge variety of formats, but the ability to
participate directly in them, which has led to a desire for said participation.
Like drivers slowing down to look at car accidents, the macabre has always held
a great fascination. Spectators want to see themselves in the film; gamers want
to have more control in the game.
The first-person perspective creates the aesthetic of participation. Horror films and games, with their emotionally intense rhetoric have a unique ability to connect with the spectator and gamer. If the medium is truly the message, the media are creating a space for the public to participate in an experience of control over their virtual environment.
Shelagh Rowan-Legg is a writer, filmmaker, and academic. She is a programmer for FrightFest, and a critic for Sight & Sound Magazine. She is the author of The Spanish Fantastic: Contemporary Filmmaking in Horror, Fantasy, and Sci-Fi (I.B. Tauris, 2016).