Matching shots

C

ColorBalance

Active member
I have a short where a girl sitting at the kitchen counter is talking to a lady making a sandwich (standing). The girl's shots are medium whereas the woman's are wide.

So, basically, we are cutting between a medium shot and a wide shot. Is this an acceptable practice or the shot types have to mach (in general)?
 
Hi ColorBalance,

Sounds fine as long as you're aware where your line of action is (the 180 degree rule). You can cut to whatever you want as long as you stay within this (of course, you can do whatever you want as long as you know what the purpose of the shot is!). So cutting from a wide to medium is pretty normal practice.

Usually your wide shot will have both characters blocked in it, then you might move in to medium shots, and then later in the scene close ups if your dialogue calls for it. Just make sure your shots are motivated.

The best way to learn about staging scenes like this is to watch a lot of films and then write out the blocking patterns, so draw a little diagram with the characters in the scene, where they stand and move to during the scene, and how this is shown with the camera. Draw out the camera markings to show you.

Hope this helps.
 
You really should get plenty of coverage of both characters.

The less coverage you have, the less freedom you have in editing.
 
It's not terrible, but it may look a little noticeable and strange if all the shots are like that - some variety of shots would be preferable.
 
There is just about 30 seconds of this cutting back and forth between a mid and a wide shot while the two women are talking. The rest everything is fine. I just wanted to know if something like this is acceptable or you have to match wide with wide and mid with mid for a long duration of 30 seconds!
 
Well, that is the biggest problem. Everything works when you are ignorant. You can cross the line, do non-stop zoom in and zoom out, or even worse, and not even know about it.

So, for normal beginning mortals like us, there is a set of guidelines we should follow, at least, until we become Spielbergs. So, the question was asked with that perspective in mind.
 
Pick up a copy of "Shot by Shot".....invaluable source of information for the cinematographer

To answer your question....would really have to see your scene to better judge. It can certainly work, as long as the interplay between wide and medium is not distracting for the viewer, and does not take the viewer out of the story
 
"Shot by shot" - will try it. Happens to be Columbine's 10th anniversary.

I believe I got the answer now. It's OK (legal) to do it unlike, say, breaking the 180 rule. It, of course, has to make sense artistically.

Thanks guys.
 
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