Crossing the line

[Alan Certeza]

Greetings,

So I'm storyboarding a final project for my Directing Digital Film class and I had a simple question for those experience Directors.

Title: International District

Synopsis:

Three melodramatic friends find themselves in a jam for cash and make a rash decision to rob their local corner store. What seems like another easy and stress free robbery, James, the most histrionic of the three crosses the line with the Chinese Mafia and a Cowboy.

The Short film takes place in Seattle, Washington over the time of 10mins before their Personality Disorders Support Group meeting.


The short would be best describe: Guy Richie meets Quentin Tarantino.

A short film by Alan Certeza




My sticky situation...

When shooting a car conversation and Establishing the vehicle entering screen from the left parking around the corner and now facing to the right of the fame. The next shot is at the driver's cellphone (macro mystery) and then jumping to a MCU of the driver,( here I now have the car facing left of the frame instead of right) then a two shot, then OTS of the passenger looking at the driver (now the car facing to the right of the frame)

How do you shoot a conversation in a car with one shot or the car always heading the same direction?

Thanks guys.
Hope you all like my idea for this action pack short.

 

[David G. Smith]

If you are shooting a conversation in a car, it is quit acceptable to shoot from both sides of the car to cover both sides of the conversation even if the car (or actually the background) may be moving in different directions. Modern audiences are visually literate enough to pick up the fact that, "Oh, now we are on the passenger side looking at the driver" and vice versa. The focus of the scene is really the conversation, and the spatial relationship of the driver and passenger(s) should actually dictate "The Line", not the actual direction of the car. So when framing a two shot in the side windows you want to have the charactors maintian the same screen space when you cut to the other side of the car. So shooting in the drivers side the driver is in the forground frame right and the passenger is in the mid ground frame left and when you shot through the passenger side maintain the driver in the mid ground, screen right and the passenger in the forground screen left. The fact that the background will appear to move from different screen directions won't matter.

I hope that helps.

Also remember when considering "The Line", if you set up a shot that is on the line you can cross the line almost at will if you use the on the line shot between the different shots across the line. This can be tricky and won't cover drastic changes in screen orientation, but for subtle moves to each side of the line it works fine.

Also consider that in western societies, "Normal" screen movement, from left to right, has come to mean "Going to" and screen movement from right to left has come to mean "Going back". This doesn't apply to all screen movement, but where the screen movement is integral to the shot or sequence, like in a chase, this seems to be the pattern. This is probably become hard wired into westerners because our visual language is read from top to bottom, left to right. Of course, relative geography can change this also. In the United States it is accepted that in showing transportation going from right to left is going east to west, and from west to east for left to right. So wagon trains heading to California will be shown going from right to left and so on.

So, screen direction can be another tool in a filmmaker's belt to visually tell a story.

 

[clang]

Yeah, a car interior is a special case - once you clearly let the audience know they're looking at a couple of people talking in a moving car, the audience is unlikely to get confused no matter what angle you shoot the actors from. Nevertheless, keep an eye on sound continuity - if the shots within a scene are continuous, then the audience will expect any traffic noise etc to be continuous too - a sudden change in sound ambience could (rightly or wrongly) signal a break in time.

 

[CB_Radio]

While the screen direction of the car may change, the screen direction of your actors is more important anyway. The line during a conversation will usually be between your two actors. And, as others have noted, car conversations aren't usually confusing for the audience. That said, I'd suggest that your ECU of the cellphone matches the screen direction of previous shot. CU shots like that jump the axis can be really confusing.

By the way, this sentence doesn't make grammatical sense. Does James really seem like another easy and stress free robbery?:

What seems like another easy and stress free robbery, James, the most histrionic of the three crosses the line with the Chinese Mafia and a Cowboy.

 

[Alan Certeza]

Thanks guy! I really appreciate it. I think I just got my head wrapped around the idea with the direction of the car that I over missed the fact the creating a conversation is creating a new line.

I just have to make sure the car leaves the same direction is was parked! hahaha