Destabilisation and Point of View: EVIL
*this post about a sequence from the pilot contains no spoilers
This 60 seconds from Evil’s pilot "Genesis 1" mixes and matches techniques to put us inside Dr. Kristen Bouchard's head, keeping us off-kilter and on-edge along with her.
Transitions and Tilts
The first transition sets up the freneticism — Dr. Bouchard drives; cars honk; she turns her head: whoosh, clang! cut from the car to inside the prison hallway.
We jump into the scene with Dr. Bouchard walking and talking and the camera already tilted and moving — first ‘backward’ looking at her, then ‘forward’ on the opposite tilted angle as a guard approaches her, ending ‘backwards’ again.
The camera moving on two planes — tilting and dollying simultaneously — gives a destabilising effect.
At the scene’s end, the camera settles into a more standard medium 3-shot as Dr. Bouchard asks to see the sign-in sheet, then after a short beat jumps into the next scene with a quick series of sign-in sheet closeups.
Closeups and Lensing
We get a series of shots from Dr. Bouchard’s POV cut with medium shots of her looking at the sheets
The camera moves in and tilts; the POV shots continually flip through similar shot sizes as Dr Bouchard flips through pages; shots looking at Dr. Bouchard are from a wider lens to give a slight bulging effect and from a low angle so the ceiling and her guard-escort looms above her; the guards outside the room are framed in the window over her shoulder, but slightly obscured.
All which get to the heart-pounding and fervour Bouchard is experiencing.
The wider lens doesn’t go full fish-eye; something that extreme might indicate Dr Bouchard is paranoid-as-in-wrong, whereas we’re about to discover her hunch is correct and her panic justified.
Moving and Angles
The next scene jumps to court, the camera continuing to move and keep a low angle.
This emphasises Dr. Bouchard’s freneticism and focus on her goal as the ceiling continues to ‘trap’ her from above.
The camera movements slow and change tactic as Dr. Bouchard enters the courtroom, where Evil introduces her antagonist Dr. Leland Townsend . . .
in two scenes which are juicy enough to call for their own breakdown, coming up Friday!
Takeaways
A pilot sets the general look and feel for the show; this sequence and the following Dr. Townsend character introduction establish quite a bit of how Evil uses lenses and angles, canted shots, and moving cameras.
Evil goes forward using these and more techniques which fit with a character’s activities or state of mind, whether more straightforward panic and intensity such as this, or more stylised sequences including drug trips, hallucinations, and VR experiences.
When your camera drastically changes movements and angles, the audience doesn’t just see it, they feel it!