Camera Angles

Camera angles are very important in any film to portray emotion and help the audience understand and emphasise with the characters or storyline. They assist in making a film more interesting instead of using repetitive shots throughout. They are mostly used to promote the idea of power and authority or in contrast, poverty and weakness by changing the height and depth of shot.

The first angle I like is the Bird's Eye View. An example of this is the opening of Forrest Gump. This shot is unnatural, as the audience normally wouldn't see the sky like they are flying through it.  This shot puts the audience in a position of power, making the characters in-shot look insignificant and smaller.
It's also an opportunity to show the entire scene or area of which features in the storyline. Having a bird's eye view allows us to see everything that's going on, and gives us the feel that, for example in the opening of Forest Gump that the scene is busy and the plot is currently fast paced.



The use of a high-angled shot is similar to the bird's eye. It can be used to put a character in a position of weakness. As we look down upon them, they appear small, therefore making the audience feel bigger. Angle of framing can be used to indicate the relation between a character and the camera's point of view. 
Camera angle is often used to suggest either vulnerability or power. In The Color of Paradise the father, who rules absolute over his family, is often portrayed from a low angle, making him seem higher.

   

On the other hand, his blind son Mohammad and his elderly grandmother are often shot from a high angle, emphasizing their dependence and smallness. The relation between camera and subject can be ironic, or it may suggest more the subject of perception than to the state of the object. The father in this film is busy smiling at his fiancee that he falls off his horse, while Mohammed and her granny seen from above may also indicate that God is watching over them, and keeping them under protection.

The Birds
Hitchcock to Truffaut about the high angle shot of Bodega Bay:
"I did that high shot for three reasons. The first was intended to show the beginning of the gulls' descent on the town. The second was to show the exact topography of Bodega Bay, with the town, the sea, the coast, and the gas station on fire, in one single image. The third reason is that I didn't want to waste a lot of footage on showing the elaborate operation of the firemen extinguishing the fire. You can do a lot of things very quickly by getting away from something."

Similarly, a low-angled shot can put a person in the position of power, this is because we are looking up at them, making them appear bigger and more threatening.

 Here is an example from Citizen Kane were the twon characters are clearly shown higher toindicate they areof higher power than the character the POV shot is being shown from.


Death (Short Film) on Vimeo.

POV (point of view) shots help to show scenes through a persons perspective. Because this shot makes us see exactly what the character sees we can perhaps sympathise with them. We see as the character sees, so we feel as the character feels, is the proposed idea.

The video above only uses POV shots from one character, putting the audience in the character's situation. It takes us on this journey, and the crash he encounters. This video is a clear example of the effectiveness of POV shots, in my opinion, I think POV shots are really effective and help to show the characters life very clearly through their eyes and can help show it to the audience easier.
I hope to use lots of POV in my final short film. Films that use many point-of-view shots tend toward dynamic and non-naturalistic style.

In this clip from Peking Opera Blues the female impersonator's fear of the soldier who attempts to procure him for his general is rendered comic by the cut to POV and wide angle.

 CLICK ON THE FILM REEL TO WATCH THE CLIP

POV is one of the means by which audiences are encouraged to identify with characters. However, it is actually a rarely used technique.

The use of a wide-angle lens is a lens of short focal length that affects a scene's perspective by distorting straight lines near the edges of the frame and by exaggerating the distance between foreground and background planes. In doing so it allows for more space to enter the frame (hence the name "wide"), which makes it more convenient for shooting in a closed location, for instance a real room, rather than a three-wall studio room. In addition, a wider lens allows for a bigger depth of field.  

 

Since a wide angle lens distorts the edges of an image, as in this frame from Yi Yi, extreme wide lenses are avoided in naturalistic styles, or they are used in unrestrained or open spaces, with no converging lines around the edges of the frame.

The Oblique or Canted angle shot, is when the camera is slightly off-sett, rotated and not horizontal to the floor, making everything slightly disorientating. It's because of this disorientating sensation that makes this shot not feel right. This angle can be used to imply corruption, instability and even foreshadowing something bad to come.

Many Hong Kong films of the 80s and 90s blend elements of the genres mentioned above, for instance Peking Opera Blues.The film uses unconventional framings to achieve their signature dizzing, freewheeling style. Canted framings are also common the sense of dizziness.