FilmmakerIQ.com

• John P. Hess said 3 months, 3 weeks ago:

  I’m planning a shoot of a round table type of discussions. I originally thought I would model it after the way Film Fellas works:
  

  Then in figuring out my camera placement I quickly realized I would have to break the 180 rule constantly.

  So I rewatched the FilmFellas clip and this time focused trying to mentally place each of the speakers – because that’s what the 180 degree rule is for, to create spatial geography.

  But I couldn’t do it. The tracking shots help establish the seating positions but I couldn’t keep straight who was sitting where. Any attempt to even try to place the cameras spatially in the scene or figure out the way the cuts work is, frankly, giving me a headache.

  But this wasn’t an issue until I started to think about it…

  So the question now is… in this type of situation… does it really matter?

  The effect of the clip is a sense of urgency and grandness to what they are discussing. Is that a result of the rapid cutting or is that a result of the confusion by constantly breaking the 180 rule (makes you think the conversation is happening all around you)?

  All my Best,
  John Hess
  Creative Industries Media Group | GospelJohn.net
  #
• Simon Hosick said 3 months, 3 weeks ago:

  I think we’ve had this conversation before… But it might have been so long ago it might have been on that dead site.

  And I think that the answer was the same, there are ways in which you can distract from it.

  For example, can you tell me where the camera crosses the line in this scene?
  
  #
• 8thSamurai said 3 months, 3 weeks ago:

  For the round table, as long as it’s established who is next to who, it’s not so important. One wide shot to establish position is key.

  The rule exists simply to avoid confusion and awkward shots. I find it more important when there are two characters on opposite sides of a room/bed/large object, where flipping the person would become disorienting. (Unless you’re doing it on purpose.)

  When there’s a lot of physical camera movement, the line also keeps moving. Deconstructing Apocalypse Now would give you some great examples of handling the line by physically moving the camera during shots, so the viewer is aware that the pawns of the scene are in different places in the room.

  http://digitalisdreaming.blogspot.com/

  http://twitter.com/#!/DigitalisVitae
  #
• John P. Hess said 3 months, 3 weeks ago:

  In that Monty Python clip, I really can’t make a “rule violation” out – there may be some discrepancies in the first battle before Arthur gets involved but it’s ignored because in the sequence they’re treated as POV shots.

  Beyond that – I dunno… where did you pick up?
  #
• John P. Hess said 3 months, 3 weeks ago:

  @8thSamurai said:
  For the round table, as long as it’s established who is next to who, it’s not so important. One wide shot to establish position is key.

  The rule exists simply to avoid confusion and awkward shots. I find it more important when there are two characters on opposite sides of a room/bed/large object, where flipping the person would become disorienting. (Unless you’re doing it on purpose.)

  When there’s a lot of physical camera movement, the line also keeps moving. Deconstructing Apocalypse Now would give you some great examples of handling the line by physically moving the camera during shots, so the viewer is aware that the pawns of the scene are in different places in the room.

  The action lines can also move with blocking.

  I’m kind of thinking the answer in this situation is it doesn’t matter. Knowing where everybody is at all times may not be important.

  And I guess there’s already a term for it: Shooting in the Round
  #
• Simon Hosick said 3 months, 3 weeks ago:

  @Gospel_John said:
  In that Monty Python clip, I really can’t make a “rule violation” out – there may be some discrepancies in the first battle before Arthur gets involved but it’s ignored because in the sequence they’re treated as POV shots.

  Beyond that – I dunno… where did you pick up?

  Yeah it’s in the fight, Terry Jones picks it out in the commentary.
  #
• Scott Jarvie said 3 months, 3 weeks ago:

  Actually, the clip you posted is interesting, it’s not the cutting around the table that bothers me (there are a lot of really good cuts in that).

  What bothers me is when we’ve established the camera is on the left side of someone, then cut to a CU reaction shot on the right side of the person.

  Same thing when you cut across the table (I only skimmed it but I saw they did this right with the OTS shots, but not the CU shots), you can go full 180 cut around the table (looking for reaction shots, or perspective shots) so long as the landing angle matches. Camera is on the right side of the person across the table, cut to OTS on the right side of that person.

  Of course there is also the, when in doubt, go wide. That allows you to establish a new axis line.

  Dudley Do-Right says:
  “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right!”
  “Remember to always look before crossing the road.”
  #
• numballover said 3 months, 3 weeks ago:

  Well…this is actually a topic I wanted to make into a tutorial video a long time ago. The 180 line is sort of just a short hand cheat. What you are really doing is avoiding having screen direction swap sporadically on a single subject.

  If there is subject A facing left, and subject B facing right, In editing the round table thing there are certain angles you can’t cut between because the screen direction changes (i.e. a direct 180 jump). But you can hinge across the line, to a shot that puts the subject A neutral to camera either facing directly into or away from camera. Then you have subject A facing right and subject C facing left in the very next shot and it not seem weird.

  The truth is you can cross the 180 line like crazy so long as you hinge across using an intermediate shot that neutralizes the screen direction.

  But most importantly, if you were shooting this type of event, you would do it multicamera…so you wouldn’t even get to the issue until in editing and you could easily find cheats and cover-ups to make nearly any edit work.

  Movie Reviews from Killerfilm.com
  #
• John P. Hess said 3 months, 3 weeks ago:

  I facebook messaged the creator of the show Steve Weiss, here’s his reply:

  Hi John,
  there were 6 cameras (everyone had a cu cam, a dolly cam & a crane cam) and technically we never broke the 180 rule (not that I believe in rules) because when you cut to a dolly shot that is moving around the table wherever is stops you have just redrawn the 180 line from that point and that becomes your new reference.

  I also recalled seeing a discussion about table shooting when I was reviewing Filmmaker-In-A-Box. So I messaged DP Jay Holben and sent me this blog article he wrote while shooting “2 Million Stupid Women”
  http://www.dv.com/article/15760

  Now this rule becomes complicated when you have more than two characters in the scene. If we sit four actors down at this table, we now have six individual 180-degree lines. Each time an actor looks at another actor, we have a new 180-degree line (also called “line of action”) as illustrated below (each line represents an eyeline).
  

  He did first warn me that “it is an incredibly difficult situation.” so my confusion and concern doesn’t feel in vain.

  I think the fact that my subject stays the same spatially, I’ll be “safe” – it’s not the standard semi circle arrangement that you see in all television… but it may be “okay”…

  But I do want to throw out an example of “shooting in the round” which I thought was disastrous. I saw a Cirqu du Solei production on Bravo many years ago and the experience was so bad that it has stuck with me all this time.

  This isn’t the worst case and luckily when the action gets going they stop jumping the line:
  
  #
• John P. Hess said 3 months, 3 weeks ago:

  Watching it again and the editing is starting to get to me…

  That Cirque clip gave me a headache, I think I’m going to start fetishizing the long slow take…
  #
• John P. Hess said 3 months, 3 weeks ago:

  Jay Holben suggested to look at Poker productions as study material:
  

  Everything is essentially tight closeup with no spatial cues.

  Just for the heck of it I looked up Casino Royale’s Poker Scene
  

  Two nice crosses of the 180 line (or at least close to crossing it)
  #
• Benjamin C. Dover said 3 months, 3 weeks ago:

  I think it works fine, just as the occasional shot that goes all round the scene can work.
  #

Remember Me