Unity of Audience View

Wayfinding: Taxonomy > Cinematic Theatre > The Dramaturgy of the Cinematic View > Unity of Audience View

One of film’s affordances that seems contradictory to watching theatre is the ability to direct the : ‘an equally valid conclusion might be that a particular affordance of filmed theatre is the assertive hand it wields as it formally determines the object of audience attention, where staged theatre might urge, coax, or vehemently suggest. The digital translation exists not only as a record of the production, but of how it ought to be watched’. Telling your audience where to look might seem as though it limits the whole stage picture, but this process can also capture the parts of the performance that you, as the theatre maker, do not want your audience to miss, or believe are integral to the interpretation of the work. A common method of directing audience gaze is to integrate the camera is an audience member, as , representing the audience’s gaze:

In contrast with the camera’s eye focus that dominates classic realist cinema, theatre is sometimes seen as allowing spectators a freer rein, as they are able to take in the whole stage picture or any elements of it. In practice, of course, most theatrical productions steer the spectators where the director wishes them to go: blocking, delivery, lighting, and so on, are manipulated to draw attention a certain way.

Giesekam was analysing intermedial (first wave) theatre and fully filmed performances but his point about directing the audience’s gaze is an important one. Dramaturgically, directors use stage directions, lighting, or other tools to draw audience attention although audiences can look wherever they want onstage, while film allows that director’s vision to eliminate any other scenic distractions. In Cinematic Theatre, filmic editing techniques can highlight places the audience might not otherwise look on the stage, offering a sense of the larger unified whole through individual close-up shots. Grant Dodwell offered an example regarding Australian Theatre Live’s filming of Platée: they shot close-ups of the introductory scene, when all the god-characters wake up after a big night, and edited together several actors’ interactions which the director had not actually noticed before in all the group work, and the director was astonished by his performers’ exciting and unique individual choices when he had, for the stage, focused on the overall tableau.