I’m an aspiring cinematographer and have been attending film school for about a year. I’m still confused about what people refer to when mentioning the 180-degree rule. I have searched for what it refers to, but nothing gets me to comprehend it. Sorry for the stupid question, eli5?
In: 6
If you’re filming a scene where two characters are talking, imagine that there’s a line going through their heads. You don’t want to cross that line between edits.
This diagram does a good job showing what this looks like. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/be/180_degree_rule.svg/1200px-180_degree_rule.svg.png
You can cut from any of the angles on the right to any other angle on the right, but you don’t want to cut to one on the left. The reason is that crossing the line can be disorienting. If you’re imagine watching two people have a conversation in real life, you’ll be moving your head back and forth between them. The edit should mimic that. You never teleport to the other side of the table to look at the other person.
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