The First First Person View

When the camera takes the place of a character’s body, the audience can see everything the character sees. This is called the first-person point-of-view. The camera matches the eye line to enhance the illusion that you are viewing what the character is viewing. There are different types of POV shots as well, such as the “masked POV” shot, where you would view the character’s sights as seen through binoculars or a scope.

Another reason why POV shots are effective in connecting the audience to the film or game is to show you the character’s mental state. If a character is drunk or poisoned, you might see a blurry vision through a POV shot.

In FPS video games, everything is seen through the virtual character’s POV. The players weapon is the primary focus of the view as well. This became incredibly popular because it draws players into the game, just as POV did with cinema. To make this possible in videogames, however, the game space must be fully 3-dimensional and rendered so that the user can move throughout. Although many contribute video games as the reason why first person may be so popular, cinema actually brought it into the picture.