Although hit men, organized crime, and murder do not make it into the plot of 13 Reasons Why, the show pushes together its own corrupted community with similar visual techniques. The jocks, cheerleaders, stalkers, rapists, and victims at Liberty High School are deeply interconnected despite being individuals fighting against one another, and a regularly moving camera trades off and complicates their perspectives to demonstrate this.
13 Reasons Why’s seventh episode showcases camera movement similarly to the rest of the season, although this episode in particular uses stand-out techniques. As the premise of this tape is Hannah calling out how Zach cut her off her from the school community, and she verbally makes normative claims about how a person should feel …show more content…
Moving along with Clay, as well as moving along with the other characters that the camera cuts to, creates a sense of interaction that is not only perpetually in motion, but perpetually in motion towards one another. Although this use of tracking is not the same as the “walk and talk” Mittell describes about West Wing, and the “snappy dialogue” is replaced by meaningful eye contact, there remains a sense of “constant discussion” (195) amongst characters as the camera switches which it follows. This similarly shows up later in the episode as the camera seamlessly flows from Hannah having a conversation with Sheri to Clay’s reaction as Hannah walks by him, as well as a transition from focusing on Justin leaving class to Hannah checking her compliment bag, just by moving the camera with them as he passes her. The camera jumping to and from Hannah with the movements of her peers keeps her relation to them unavoidable, and illustrates how this is a tightly connected community by