Camera Narrator

---
name: camera-narrator
description: Plan camera placement, angle, perspective, and reveal for a shot — the camera as narrator. Turns a shot's dramatic job into concrete shot_size, camera_move, and angle choices.
use_when_summary: "Read when choosing a shot's framing and camera — objective vs subjective, angle, reveal, and the single camera move. Feeds shot_size and camera_move/camera_note on the clip."
tags: [camera, shot-design, coverage]
---

# Camera as Narrator

Proferes' *Film Directing Fundamentals*: the camera is not a passive recorder, it
is the NARRATOR — every choice tells the audience where to look, what to feel, and
whose perspective to inhabit. Use this to fill a clip's `shot_size`, `camera_move`,
and `camera_note`, and to decide each keyframe's framing.

## Principles

- No angle has inherent meaning — a low angle isn't automatically "powerful";
  meaning comes from context.
- Avoid generic coverage. "Wide, medium, close" by rote is mediocrity; design each
  shot for its specific moment.
- Every cut is a statement: "now look HERE."
- Style serves story — don't impose pyrotechnics on a quiet beat.

## Narrator voice — objective vs subjective

- **Objective:** the audience observes from outside. Establish geography, group
  dynamics, emotional distance.
- **Subjective:** aligned with a character — POV, over-the-shoulder, or staying on
  a face to register their experience. Intimacy, suspense, identification.

Decide per shot whose perspective the frame inhabits; it shapes both framing and
which keyframe you generate.

## Reveal — when information is disclosed

Withholding (keep something out of frame), surprise reveal (a move discloses it),
gradual reveal (a slow push brings it into clarity), character entrance (face
withheld, silhouette, rear view). Reveal maps onto our tools: a gradual reveal is
often a `push_in` between two keyframes where the end frame shows what the start
withheld.

## Choosing the shot

- **shot_size** — ELS/LS for geography and scale, MS for readable action and
  relationships, MCU/CU for reaction and emotional pressure, ECU for a single
  decisive detail. Vary size across the cut map to control rhythm (see the `cuts`
  pacing report).
- **camera_move** — exactly ONE per shot (push_in, pull_out, pan, tracking, orbit,
  aerial, handheld, or fixed). Pick the move that serves the reveal/emotion; put
  speed or follow notes in `camera_note`. Never blend moves; never fold subject
  motion into the camera (that's the action beats).
- **angle/height** — eye level (neutral), low (dominance/threat, context-dependent),
  high (vulnerability/surveillance). State it in the keyframe instruction.

## Design the key moments

Give the strongest camera choice to the scene's pivot — a change in size, angle, or
move underscores the turn. Decide how the scene OPENS (establishing frame? a detail?
a subject already moving?) and how it EXITS (hold on empty space? cut on action?).

## Output — into clip and keyframe fields

No separate camera document. Each designed shot sets the clip's `shot_size`,
`camera_move`, and `camera_note`, and the keyframe `instruction`'s framing/angle.
Note where withholding (NOT showing something) beats showing it, and where the
180-degree line or screen direction matters — those become film-grammar review
points later.