Moving with Subjective You
An Analysis of Netflix Original Series Kiss Me First
Authors Alexander Galloway and Daniel Morgan agree that camera movement and the subjective shot affect montage, and the audience’s perception of the film’s or media’s diegesis, characters, space, and time. In “Where are we?: Camera movements and the problem of point of view,” Morgan shares the theory of epistemological fantasy, “being at a place we cannot be, a place we are barred from inhabiting” (Morgan 241-242). By contributing its use to the fantasy, camera movement is able to convincingly create a feeling, a fantasy that the audience is within the world. In “Origins of the First-Person Shooter,” Galloway proposes the theory of gamic vision, in which digital aesthetics penetrate and influence aesthetic of film. Netflix’s Kiss Me First combines Galloway and Morgan’s theories to emphasize and authenticate the story world/diegesis.
The camera lens functions as perspective and its place in the frame should provide a point-of-view for the viewer to identify with. The focus perspective in Morgan and Galloway’s articles is the rare first-person perspective, shown from a subjective shot. It is the least used perspective in film due to the effect of displacement as the sequence moves through shots. The viewer’s perspective is set by the camera, but when it is moved to a different setting or point-of-view, the audience is removed from any spatial or character alignment. Morgan supports the act of displacement, quoting George Wilson, “it does not follow that if a person imagines seeing a scene from a certain perspective, then he thereby also imagines being at a place which offers him that view” (Morgan 227). Wilson also makes a claim about applying camera movement to any still frame: “the problem… is that it turns out to be much more difficult to dislodge the intuitive sense of an affinity between eye and camera once the camera is put into motion” (Morgan 227). It supports the act of displacement, the disruption of montage, only one problem Morgan finds with the subjective viewpoint.
The second problem: the limits of epistemology. When the viewer tags along with the main character through perspective, the camera, viewer, and character become merged into one role. The gap or limit, the lack of knowledge is removed. For this reason, Vivian Sobchack uses the subjective shot. She believes that the viewpoint “matters precisely because it ensures that everything depends on the place of the camera in the world. By eliminating additional perspectives within the frame – there is no separation from the character with whom we identify” (Morgan 232). Sobchack ignores, however, that sight is not the only way to connect to a specific perspective, it must also include knowing the character, their views, beliefs, and dreams. The subjective shot cannot do that, as it will only show the viewer their eyesight. The shot lacks any facial expressions from the character and excludes any actions outside of the frame.
Although Morgan frames the subjective shot negatively through the article, he still offers an alternate approach as a solution or a way to give purpose to the subjective shot. By applying digital, complex, and virtuosic camera movements to the film, the viewer is taken through the fictional world in a different way. On page 235, he says: “Freed from the constraints of the physical camera, these films use new technologies to emphasize the visceral experiences of moving through a three-dimensional space… the intersection of new technologies, narratively motivated instances of extreme movement, and an interest in the direct solicitation of the viewer’s participation seem to promise a new form of immersive experience.”
Kiss Me First is the visual culmination of Morgan’s shot solution and the theory of epistemological fantasies. The Netflix show’s plot follows Leila, right after her mother’s death, when the audience joins her immersive experience into the world of Azana planet. The subjective shots occur when any of the characters sit down to play. Azana is a role-playing game world played on a desktop but heightened by VR glasses, a joystick, and a VR glove. The sequence begins in episode one, outside of the game, repeating a shot/reverse shot between Leila sitting in a chair and her sight of the computer screen, until she is logged into the game, inside mentally and physically. The subjective shot then fills the frame with a lightly digitized outline where the VR glasses lens sit, depicting Leila’s frame of sight in Azana. It piles together the viewer, the camera, and both Leila’s in-person identity and the online identity Shadowfax. The entire gaming sequence does not stay in the first-person. It switches to a third-person perspective once Shadowfax establishes her footing and mental state in the game world.
Morgan says that the key to success is relying on the audience’s desire to identify with the camera, “to be with it as it moves through the world – whether or not the camera is also identified with the point-of-view of a character” (Morgan 241). After the subjective shot is switched, the viewer is already immersed in the epistemological fantasy. The viewer becomes connected to Leila’s perspective. That is not lost when the perspective becomes third to fulfill the desire of knowledge, the desire to be with the camera once is drops identification. The subjective establishes which character she is in the world, which avatar the viewer should identify Leila’s views, beliefs, dreams, and desires.
The sequence is episode one was narratively motivated by a physical fight once Shadowfax touches the ground. In the real world, Leila is sitting at a computer, not exhibiting much action, so the shots frequently cut between the disorienting, rotating subjective frame and a more stable, but shaky omniscient view. When her real-world body reacts to the game with a laugh or with shock, the camera follows and shows her sitting at the computer. The sequence exits the CGI experience with a return of a shot/reverse shot of being locked out of the game.
Galloway also believes that technology has the power to influence and change filmmaking. Morgan says that montage is the problem, Galloway says that montage through gamic vision is unnecessary. He makes the lead claim that is “requires fully rendered, actionable space” prior to filming, which is then wholly explorable without the need for the montage technique to compile scenes. Instead, a technique to achieve fluidity would be to transition through perspectives with a camera swooping or flying movement from a high angle into the character’s head and into the subjective shot.
The subjective perspective carries multiple meanings for Galloway. He believes that it is generally used to signify a negative vision, something or someone evil, inhuman, and/or detached. Detachment is one of the subjective shot purposes Galloway emphasizes. Distancing is also a theme in Kiss Me First. Leila is detached from almost everything emotionally after losing her mother, only finding comfort in the game and in being Shadowfax. The other players in the secret, intoxicating, but evil realm of Red Pill all share the disembodied comfort of being someone else. Mania wants to escape from her bipolar manic state that can only be contained with lithium or hidden with other drug use. Denier wants to escape from the sexual abuse in his group home. Calumny has a physically abusive father and carries the blame. However, “being in the first-person perspective is the same as being a puppet: the viewer is impotent and helpless, subject to the physical and psychological whims of the puppeteer” (Galloway 48). Leila discovers that the game, through leader of Red Pill Adrian, was controlling the aspects of her real life, and that Shadowfax was only a puppet in the painful hands of Adrian’s mental struggles. In later episodes, the subjective perspective became Adrian’s with Leila in full view of the shot, disorienting the viewer with a new, evil, perspective to identify as what Carol Clover calls predatory, “a sadistic way of seeing” (Galloway 50).
Galloway makes another observation emphasizing sight, specifically the lens of gamic vision: “time and space are mutable within the diegesis in ways unavailable before… games pause, speed up, slow down restart… they can also transpire in moments of suspended time… where the player plays solely during the interstices between other actions” (Galloway 65). Because the game is played at a desktop, and for effectiveness or realness, uses VR technology advancements, it is required that the player take a break from the real world. Time feels as if it does not exist in Azana, but it does have to be paid for.
In terms of narrative, Leila escapes to the fluid, timeless world of Azana as a way to suspend time in her much more unstable life, than that of war avatar Shadowfax. The subjective shot switches ownership, to the villain Adrian, and Leila cannot seem to escape from Azana. Adrian forced the digital and physical worlds to blend and pushed Leila and Shadowfax’s personalities together. The roles are so unfamiliar to the viewer that each following subjective shot has alienated the viewer, but the viewers are still compelled to watch.
Alexander Galloway and Daniel Morgan have opposing ideas on the purposes of using the subjective shot to affect the perception of film, but when used properly, it can apply a significant effectiveness and believability to storytelling and narration. The subjective shot is a rare perspective but has an advantage when combined with advanced computer technologies, or epistemological fantasies, or gamic vision. The VR immersive experience, merged with the camera, merged with Leila’s duo-identity proves the subjective shot influence that adheres the viewer to the world diegesis.
Works Cited
Alexander Gallaway, “Origins of the First-Person Shooter,” in Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture, 39-69
Daniel Morgan, “Where Are We?: Camera Movements and the Problem of Point of View,” New Review of Film and Television Studies 14:2 (2016): 222-248
