THE LANGUAGE OF PRESENCE
First-person storytelling techniques
Contents and media references
Putting the camera near the eyes gives the audience a position. Storytelling gives that position meaning.
Every frame has a boundary. In first-person work, that boundary can become the source of suspense: a sound arrives from behind, a hand enters the image, or a door conceals the next discovery. Decide what the audience understands now and what they will only understand later.
Three tools for first-person storytelling
The body is part of the composition.
Hands establish scale and intention. A reach can introduce an object; hesitation can communicate doubt. Keep important actions inside the camera’s field of view, and rehearse them with the recorded image rather than relying on what feels visible to the wearer.
Sound builds the world outside the frame.
Footsteps, room tone and off-screen voices give a narrow view a larger environment. Capture a quiet reference of each location and listen for clothing noise or wind. In the edit, preserve enough continuity for the audience to understand where they are.
Presence needs breathing room.
Constant head movement can make a sequence hard to follow. Settle before an important action, let the viewer notice it, then move. A deliberate pause is often more expressive than another rapid turn.
SOURCE MATERIAL / CLOSE READING
Staging attention inside a scene
Use Valve’s account of character performance to think about how dialogue, movement and space can do the work of an external camera.
Watch the performance discussion from 19:32. Consider how characters, animation and staging communicate narrative while the player remains inside the scene. The documentary itself uses conventional edited coverage.
Video: Valve · 2024Select a preview to play the video here.