Directors Tell the Story by Bethany Rooney

Author:Bethany Rooney [Rooney, Bethany]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780240818733
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2013-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

FIGURE 11-1 Character A (Alice) looking left-to-right to Character B (Bob) who is looking right-to-left.

The “line” would run through the center of their figures, best seen if you imagine that you are looking at them from overhead. See Figure 11-2.

In its most basic form, the important thing to understand is when you are cutting between the close-ups of Alice and Bob, they need to look at opposite sides of the frame to create the illusion they are talking to each other. So Alice looks right, and Bob looks left, and the audience believes they are facing each other and talking. See Figure 11-3. When you shoot the close-up of Alice, put Bob on the right side of camera (“camera right”) and vice versa. See Figure 11-4. Seems simple enough, until Alice and Bob move around the set, and leave their cozy face-to-face position. Then how do you know where the line is?

What you have to do is cut the scene together in your head while you are shooting it, so you know which shot you will be cutting from and which shot you will be cutting to. If a character looks camera right to the other character, you would set up the reverse shot in the opposite direction. (Character A looks right, Character B looks left.) For example, in our ongoing story of the Soldier and Wife from Chapter 7, we know the line was set up in the master so the Wife looked right to the Soldier, and the Soldier looked left to the Wife. See Figure 11-5.

The camera angles on the diagram show that although the first shot is next to (or over the shoulder [OS]) of the Soldier, the lens is seeing the Wife, who looks camera right, and the camera next to/OS the Wife depicts the Soldier looking camera left. See Figure 11-6. So it would be incorrect to place a camera on the other side of the line, because then the Wife would look left and the Soldier would look right. (Stick withus here; we know it’s confusing, but once you get this, it’s easy.) See Figure 11-7.

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