180 Degree Rule Piece

One of the basic guidelines for film making is the 180 degree rule. The rule regards to the on screen spatial relationship between a character and either another character or an object. This is often used in film making as crossing the line often makes the audience feel uncomfortable and is important for continuity editing. An imaginary line known as the axis connects the characters by keeping the camera on one side of the axis for every shot in one scene, breaking this is could 'crossing the line'. This line is drawn perpendicular to the camera's viewpoint in the establishing shot of the scene.

In the example above, the camera can be placed anywhere within the green zone of the scene, this will make the scene more comfortable visually to the audience as even when only one character is in shot, they are still aware of the location of the other. 

Crossing the line often also affects the use of eye line match in a film as it frequently makes it look like they are not looking at each other whilst talking therefore when shooting a two shot, the characters should always be on the same side of the frame in each shot. There are very few ways to correct for breaking this rule, one way is showing the movement of the camera and carrying the audience with you to the opposite side of the shot and staying on that side for the rest of the scene; this ensures that the audience are not made to feel more uncomfortable and they do not lose focus in the film.

Although breaking the rule often looks unprofessional and does not work, it has been used by many directors including Stanley Kubrick in the bathroom scene of The Shining to make the audience feel unbalanced and disorientated as well as Peter Jackson in The Lord of the Rings with Gollum to show a divide between his two personalities. The only reasoning behind breaking the rule one could have is for the effect that it causes, like Kubrick and Jackson have done, otherwise it will not work with the rest of the scene and will only confuse the audience on where they are watching the scene from.

  

In order to demonstrate my understanding of the 180 degree rule, Zoran, Dan and I have created a thirty second piece highlighting my knowledge of how to use the rule. Although it is only short, I have shown my knowledge of using the angles and positioning of the camera to highlight my understanding of how to keep eye line match apparent and have not broken the 180 degree rule. I have also used ellipses at the beginning of the piece to highlight my understanding of the use ellipses within film and that I can apply my knowledge to successfully shorten the amount of time it takes to present something which would otherwise start to bore the audience.

Here is my short piece: