Clayton George Wickham - final thesis

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the viewer and a mouse walking on a plank in close proximity to the viewer. Even
with the eye/camera positioning included, the narrative irrelevance of these shots
creates a sense of separation between the characters and the viewer, but provides a
visceral spectacle.
This scene is designed to create the expectation of 3-D as an obvious novel
device used solely for spectacle, which is gradually subverted as the film continues.
The eye/camera in the rest of the film alternates between characters, both Jason and
the victims, watching events from a distance, and the position of a victim of an act,
usually violent. This overtly links the camera to the viewer. Miner occasionally
uses this position of victimisation, or more appropriately the object of an action, to
highlight the difference between character and audience perspective. One of these
sequences involves Debbie lying on the ground sunbathing as Andy sits above her,
playing with a yo-yo close to her face. The audience sees the yo-yo coming toward
them through Debbie’s eye/camera from an extreme low angle, looking directly
upwards at Andy. This combines the novelty 3-D effect of an object coming within
close proximity and simultaneously inhabiting the perspective of someone lying
horizontal, in direct opposition to the vertical seating position of the cinema viewer,
creating a disorienting effect. The same disorientation occurs in a shot where Chuck,
making popcorn, removes the lid of the kettle and tries to catch the popcorn in his
mouth as it flies upward. The viewer sees through Chuck’s eye/camera looking
directly downward into the kettle as the popcorn jumps towards the audience. This
effect occurs again after Debbie notices blood dripping on the magazine she is
reading; the viewer experiences her eye/camera as she looks directly up and sees
Andy’s bisected body dripping blood. These are extreme examples of positional
disorientation, but the victim’s eye/camera provides the expected visceral shocks that