Cinematography technique · used in 8 films
Shooting with the look of surveillance footage: fish-eye lenses, hidden or high angles, static wide frames and cameras placed inside objects. You feel like you are watching remotely, and the image looks strange.
Examples
Francis Ford Coppola · 1974
Coppola opens the film with an overhead telephoto shot that slowly zooms in on Union Square. It sets up a god's-eye view from high above. From up there, both Harry and you in the audience become voyeurs.
Where to see it: The opening zoom. It slowly closes in on the park from high above as Harry's surveillance team circles the couple unseen.
Wes Craven · 1996
Reporter Gale Weathers hides a camera in the party house, and her cameraman watches it from the news van. The feed runs 30 seconds behind. So he sees the danger only after it has already happened.
Where to see it: Kenny in the news van. He sees the killer behind Randy on the delayed feed and steps outside to warn him, and the killer is waiting there.
Peter Weir · 1998
Peter Weir and cinematographer Peter Biziou built the film's look around hidden cameras. Weir, Biziou and production designer Dennis Gassner researched real surveillance techniques for certain shots. The angles tell you somebody is watching. Because of that choice, every shot carries the film's moral question.
Where to see it: The dashboard camera angle. Truman talks to himself in the car, and the lens shows that his most private moments are the most watched ones.
Steven Spielberg · 2002
This future is full of eye scanners, spying spider robots and ads that greet you by name. The camera often shows you what the machines see. You realize quickly that nobody can hide in this city.
Where to see it: The spider robots: Mechanical spiders scan the eyes of everyone in an apartment block while Anderton hides, and he stays still in a bathtub of cold water.
Richard Linklater · 2006
Arctor's house is the center of a police surveillance system, and his bosses order extra watching of it. The film keeps showing him as a suspect on someone else's screen. You see Arctor the way the people spying on him do.
Where to see it: Hank's order to Fred: At the police station, Hank orders Fred to increase surveillance on Arctor and his associates, which means Arctor himself.
Ridley Scott · 2008
Images from unmanned drones show you the story from the point of view of the CIA bosses in Washington. They were shot from helicopters with Wescam and Cineflex systems. The film's final shot is a high, zoomed view of Ferris strolling through a market. You watch from far away, like the people giving the orders.
Where to see it: The final shot: Ferris walks through a marketplace, seen from far above.
Dan Gilroy · 2014
Every so often, Gilroy and Elswit shoot the way Lou's own cameras do, like the view of a crime scene or the long telephoto stakeout shot. You stand where Lou stands. You also share his cold detachment from the suffering he is filming.
Where to see it: Lou's footage of the home invasion victims playing back on his editing system. You watch through the eye of his camera, and you see the footage the way he does when he edits it.
Zach Cregger · 2025
The disappearance is shown through home doorbell cameras. You watch children open their front doors and sprint into the dark with their arms held out at their sides. The flat security-camera image makes it feel like real footage someone found.
Where to see it: Archer studies the footage. He maps the direction each child ran, and the lines meet at one house.
Questions