A bird’s eye view can have a powerful effect on the audience of a film, painting, photograph, or other visual medium. This perspective, looking straight down from above, gives the viewer a unique vantage point that is rarely experienced in real life. Using a bird’s eye view offers many advantages for visual storytelling and can greatly impact how the audience perceives the subject.
Provides a Sense of Height and Scale
One major effect of a bird’s eye view is that it exaggerates the sense of height and scale. When we view subjects from above, especially subjects that are normally seen from eye level, it makes them seem smaller and emphasizes their surroundings. For example, a city landscape photographed from a bird’s eye perspective will showcase the size and scope of the city, making buildings and streets appear tiny. This technique draws attention to the bigger picture and puts items into spatial context.
A bird’s eye view can make subjects look more vulnerable or powerless by highlighting their insignificance relative to the larger environment. Or it can convey grandeur and majesty by revealing the full size of something that is usually obscured when viewed from the ground level. Either way, this perspective gives the audience a new understanding of size and scale.
Offers a New Point of View
By providing an aerial vantage point, a bird’s eye view lets the audience see something familiar in a new way. This unfamiliar angle defamiliarizes the subject and reveals details, patterns, or compositions that are impossible to discern otherwise. A bird’s eye view can turn a commons scene into something strange and remarkable.
For example, a residential neighborhood photographed from above would showcase the intricate network of streets and houses in an abstract manner. Or an overhead interior shot emphasizes the symmetry and visual harmony of the room’s design. A bird’s eye perspective presents a distinctive viewpoint that intrigues audiences by transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary.
Creates a Sense of Objectivity
A bird’s eye view conveys a sense of objectivity and emotional distance, observing the subject from a detached, impersonal perspective. Unlike a ground-level shot that connects the viewer spatially and psychologically to the scene, an aerial view is more analytical and observational. The audience becomes like a scientist peering down at a specimen through a microscope.
This scientific viewpoint can make the scene seem more real and authentic, revealing facts and details without artistic interpretation. But it can also make the subject seem remote and disconnected when emotional involvement is desired. The bird’s eye perspective adopts a transcendental vantage point that both enlightens and estranges the audience.
Allows Audiences to Survey and Scrutinize
One of the key effects of using a bird’s eye view is that it enables audiences to survey and scrutinize the entire scene. When looking straight down, the viewer can see all parts of the subject at once in a way that isn’t possible from a horizontal or oblique angle. This complete visual access gives audiences information and promotes understanding.
Filmmakers might use an overhead shot to establish a location, clearly laying out the spatial relationships between people and objects in the scene. A bird’s eye landscape photograph allows viewers to study every feature and nuance of the terrain. This broad viewpoint promotes investigation and gives audiences visual knowledge.
Emphasizes Isolation
A bird’s eye perspective can emotionally distance the audience from the subject, but it can also make a subject seem isolated and vulnerable. When seen from above, a person appears alone and exposed with nowhere to hide. Similarly, a sole object positioned against an empty background is emphasized in its solitude when viewed from overhead.
The separation between the subject and the viewer visually underscores their isolation. This technique powerfully communicates notions like loneliness, weakness, and anxiety that benefit from a detached perspective. Directors may use bird’s eye shots to convey the isolation of a character who is emotionally or physically separated from others.
Provides a Map-Like Overview
A bird’s eye view mimics the appearance of a map by showing subjects from above with flattened depth. This cartographic viewpoint helps audiences orient themselves spatially and understand how different components of the scene relate to each other geographically. It serves as a visual guide.
In films, an overhead establishing shot can offer a map-like overview of the area. Aerial landscape photos likewise provide a survey-style glimpse of the terrain’s topographical features. Mimicking maps and diagrams, this perspective acts as visual reference material for the audience.
Type of Shot | Effects on the Audience |
---|---|
High angle shot looking directly down | – Exaggerates sense of height and scale – Views subject from new, unfamiliar angle – Creates sense of objectivity and emotional distance |
Extremely high angle shot | – Emphasizes subject’s isolation and vulnerability |
High angle shot of landscape | – Provides map-like spatial overview |
This table summarizes some of the key bird’s eye view techniques and their effects on audiences.
Manipulates Perspective for Artistic Purposes
One of the most important impacts of a bird’s eye view is that it allows visual artists to manipulate perspective for artistic purposes. Unlike horizontal views that mirror normal human sight lines, a bird’s eye perspective provides an altered viewpoint that uniquely emphasizes certain qualities while deemphasizing others.
For example, an overhead interior shot may exaggerate the color composition in a room, while a landscape seen from above hides flaws and becomes abstracted into pleasing shapes and contours. The bird’s eye view grants artists creative liberties with perspective that generate specific reactions and perceptions in audiences.
Conclusion
A bird’s eye view can have a range of powerful impacts on audiences. It exaggerates scale, provides new vantage points, conveys objectivity, emphasizes isolation, offers map-like overviews, and enables artistic manipulation of perspective. This overhead viewpoint gives audiences visual and spatial information that cannot be attained from any other angle. A bird’s eye view transforms the familiar into the strange, makes the small seem enormous, and turns reality into art. This unique perspective allows filmmakers and visual artists to influence audience perceptions through creative uses of height and angle.
Next time you view an overhead shot in a movie or see an aerial landscape photo, consider how the high vantage point shapes your impressions and emotions. The bird’s eye view is an impactful storytelling tool that controls audience perspective for aesthetic, informative, and emotional ends.