Has any effort been made to compare this phenomenon to the concept in German silent film - most notably in Murnau and his cinematographer Karl Freund, of the 'entfesselte Kamera' ('unchained camera technique' according to Wikipedia, whereas I would have called it the 'camera out of bounds') ?
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> Wow! I am really enjoying this....
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> On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 3:00 AM, Hrvoje Turkovic <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Michael, Mike
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> I think that the concept of "free floating viewpoint" has nothing to do with the 'split' between a geocentrism/heliocentrism (or 'cosmocentrism' as posited in space-opera SF, and satellite views of Earth), and that the distinction between perception and conception has its specific twist in cinema.
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> First, I repeat, it is necessary to make distinction among the "perceptual point of view" which is - in cinematic, photographic and Renaissance image-making - determined/derived by the perspectival rendition of a scene (I suggest the Gibsonian term "vantage point" for it) vs. the "personalized point of view" - i.e. ascription of this perceptual vantage point to some personality or body assumed to be in the represented scene, and viewing it from the same (or close enough) vantage point . Though the second case is still perceptual, it involves additional, signaled, "socialization", sharing of viewer's perceptual vantage point (offered by perspectival rendering) with the vantage point of some indicated cinematic character, or with the indicated vantage point of the film crew (in reportage e.g.), or with the viewpoint of mechanism of camera within the scene (e.g. surveillance camera), or with the someone's vantage point from space shuttle...
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> Now, the perceptual vantage point offered by the perspectival image of a scene is by itself 'a-personal' - initially it does not belong to anybody personally (or: it 'belongs' to every and any viewer that is viewing the image, no matter from which position in the cinema she is viewing the film, and how many of them are viewing the same image). It may be conceived as 'a-corporal', 'body free'. And it may be assumed to be such by default (sub-personally). This is one reason why we can - in film - accept an instantaneous change of vantage point position over a cut (which is bodily impossible in life), and why we can generally accept the bodily impossible "free floating viewpoint" , and either cosmic, or microscopic vantage point.
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> My next point is that even while the perspectively offered vantage point is 'body-free', there is something constraining it (beside its 'ascription' to some other personality - and sharing with it). It is not 'geocentrism' that is constraining the vantage point choices, but Protagoras' "man is the measure of all things". For a long time the positioning of the vantage point of film image has been guided by the standards of common perceptual experiences of environment navigating humans. It is noticeable in the traditional standardization of of the "eye level" observation point as a default one ('normal one''), by the choices of observation points of possible side-observers of human (character's) behavior within the scene (possibly only slightly enhanced side-observer's position - e.g. in over-shoulder shot-over-shoulder reaction shot, or in the informative high angle shot of the whole scenic situation), by the requirement that the image (view) has to be in sharp focus, with the steady glance (steady movement of the vantage point - steady 'camera movement') etc. These common-experience based viewing standards were, of course, very soon occasionally 'disobeyed' - because they could be disobeyed in cinema by choice (though hardly in our physical life) - giving special imaginative range to our film viewing. But they were introduced as 'special cases', as stylistically marked choices, as rhetorical devices.
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> Hrvoje
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