Kathy Liu: Telling stories with a POINT OF VIEW (Twitter Transcript)
Turns out I'm not the only story artist who is currently studying story point of view. Dreamworks story artist Kathy Liu wrote on twitter about how she finds that telling stories from a specific point of view is the most important part of a story artist's work. In her Twitter thread Kathy explores different ways this goal can be achieved and she very clearly explains how this concept can be seen in all different kind of movies.
I'v compiled and lightly edited Kathy's thread below:
I think the MOST important job of a storyboard artist is not creating dynamic angles or cool images, but shooting scenes & telling stories with a POINT OF VIEW!
Who are we following? Whose eyes do we see the story through?
Of course it's important first to know: WHOSE STORY IS IT? (you usually find the answer by asking, 'which character experiences the most change'?)
As we break films apart into smaller pieces, that question then becomes: whose SCENE is it? Or whose SHOT is it? Maybe the 'cheapest' way to put the audience in a character's POV is through voice-over, and it's generally pretty effective in how directly it affects your experience of a story––the character is telling you exactly how they see it!
For shot design though, there are several ways to put us in a character's POV. The simplest and most essential are: (A) pointing the camera AT the character; and (B) a POV shot on what the character is SEEING. Most of the time, you create a scene using BOTH shots together:
A common variation on a POV shot, is over-the-shoulder (OTS). The camera is placed in roughly the same spot as our character: we stand in their shoes, see what they see, & still get some of them in frame. This shot is EVERYWHERE! (& often used for dialogue scenes too)
To be honest those 2 shot types are so powerful that they're often all you need to establish strong POV
But here are just a few of the OTHER things that can focus your eye on a character & cue who 'owns' the shot/scene/story:
-Who is in the shot?
-Who is in focus?
-Who is clearly lit?
-Who is favored by, or leading the camera movement?
-Whose POV or OTS are we shooting from?
-Eye-trace, who is placed in the matching screen region from the previous cut?
-Who is in motion (in a still world)? Who is staying still (in a moving world)? Contrast of motion /stillness
-Whose reaction are we focused on?
-Who do we cut to when we break from standard coverage? (ie. Are we shooting on someone when the main event is elsewhere?)
-Who are all the characters facing or looking at?
-Orientation of the characters: does one stand out from the others –– facing a different direction? Taller or shorter? Different scale on screen? Frontal in opposition to angled blocking, or flatly frontal within a deep-space shot?
Some examples:
Whose eye-level do we shoot from?
Think how wildly different this kitchen scene (or the entire idea of the film) would be, if shot at human eye-level instead of a rat's POV!
Who maintains stillness in a shot full of motion?
You can use contrast of motion to focus the audience's eye on a subject (ie. on the character who OWNS the shot). No Country did it this way . . .
I think Drive (2011) does an absolutely stellar job of shaping POV: our main character (Ryan Gosling) hardly speaks & does no voiceover, but the story is all about him - and boy do we FEEL it!
