ABSTRACT
In this chapter, heightened engagement in found footage horror films is explored. This heightened engagement creates empathy between the viewer and the camera operator, most notably when considering how the camera is used as a tool for communication with an imagined future audience. I focus predominantly on three examples: Exhibit A, Cloverfield, and Paranormal Activity. These films feature significant interactions between camera operators and the viewer, and camera operators and profilmic subjects.
First, following Murray Smith’s notions of recognition, alignment, and allegiance, I consider how the camera operator is constructed as a character. I show how sound and off-screen space encourage the viewer to imagine the camera operator. I then analyse how information is accumulated by the viewer and camera-operating character and the effects of this epistemological alignment on empathy. I will also consider alignment between responses of the spectator and camera operator, both in the cinematography and in the cognitive and bodily response of both viewer and character at crucial moments of decision-making (for the characters) in the films. I then analyse how interactions affect allegiance, demonstrating how the viewer becomes an imagined (by the character) part of the diegesis.
