Need help with 180 Rule / Crossing the line

S

sigamy

Well-known member
I need help with some setups in regards to the 180 degree rule. I seem to really struggle with this.

I have a scene with three people in a bar. The people are arranged in a triangle.

The bar is "L-Shaped". Tony is behind the bar. Mike is in front of the bar. These two are directly facing each other, pointing guns at each other. Nicole is in front of the bar, about 8 feet to the right of Mike. She is cleaning a resturant table.

I need to do over the shoulder's of Mike and Tony. I also need some medium and close up shot's of Nicole as she reacts to the situation.

Where should I place the camera? How can I avoid crossing the line in order to get close ups of Nicole?
 
Diagram it out.

There are instances where you don't "cross" the line, but slowly "rotate" the line as the scene progresses - can't think of examples but you will see it sometimes.

Sometimes the 180 rule just needs to be broken - does the action and geography continue to make sense?

I find for problem scenes, it can be an immense help to do sketches, scan 'em in, and cut the scene in your NLE over an audio read of the script. You don't need every frame - draw your OTS shots wide, and enlarge them to represent closeups, etc. In minutes you'll know if it can work. Halfway through you may find yourself scanning in new sketches based on what you're seeing. If your NLE can handle it, bring in your characters as PNGs with transparent BGs, and move & resize them until it works. Blur out DOF issues (like a close OTS, etc). An hour can save you massive on-set time, and you'll get feel for the timing of the scene, etc.

And it's really kinda fun.
 
Go find a scene in a movie where you like what was done (because there are multiple ways of doing it) and see how they did it.

I'm sure it can't be hard to find a scene in a movie where there are three people at a bar.
 
There's no issue in breaking the 180 rule as long as you show the audience the cross over, this way they will not disorientate. Sounds like the best way to shoot it is the imaginary line goes through the center of them, with the camera facing towards the girl that needs to be seen. Steadycams make crossing fluid and seemless as the audience thinks their on a rollercoaster:)
 
You can always do what I do when I get confused with the 180 degree rule and simply put some tape/string on the ground so that you can clearly see your 'line' then just position the camera anywhere along it.
 
Grug said:
You can always do what I do when I get confused with the 180 degree rule and simply put some tape/string on the ground so that you can clearly see your 'line' then just position the camera anywhere along it.
Click to expand...

The camera doesn't need to be on the line, such on one side of it.
 
Think of the line as the window of your frame through which the audience is viewing the action. Your next shots in sequence should be positioned as if you were shooting through the same side of the window as your establishing shot. But each new shot establishes a new line or window in reference to the previous shot. As you move through the scene sequence you have to walk the audience with you to each new shot window in a way that does not confuse or disorient them relative to your starting point. Your camera movement has to be motivated by some element in the scene that maintains an overall consistent point of view for the audience.
For instance if your master shot is as described above, but you moved to a tight two shot of Tony and Mike from the opposite end of the bar so their positions in frame were reversed that would not make visual sense to the audience. But if Nicole was positioned to the right and farther back in your master shot, you could do an over the shoulder POV shot from her viewpoint and it would work as long as she is in the frame too. You have technically crossed the line but the cross is motivated by showing the audience another character's point of view.
A smoother sequence would shoot OTS POV shots of Mike and Tony from the same side of the line as your original master shot. Tony's POV would naturally include Nicole as he is looking towards her so you would get her reaction shots from there and everything stays on the same side of the original line.
 
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I actually didn't follow all of Razz16mm's description but at least it was specific to the original query.

Not seeing the actual geography of the bar and where Nicole is physically placed makes it a little difficult to say "this is the best way to shoot this", but here's one scenario. The original spec is for OTS shots and coverage on Nicole, but for the sake of argument let's add a master shot that will help define the coverage. Set up along the left side of the bar looking back at the characters so you have Tony frame left, Mike frame right and Nicole in the middle (in the background, cleaning a table). As a result, she looks LEFT to Tony and RIGHT to Mike [to help keep things clear, I will capitalize eyeline directions]. For her closeup coverage, simply walk or punch in directly from this position, keeping her eyelines the same. When moving around to OTS coverage on the guys, shoot over Mike's left shoulder and over Tony's right shoulder. Thus, Tony will look RIGHT to Mike and further RIGHT to Nicole, and Mike will look LEFT to Tony and further LEFT to Nicole. All of the eyelines have remained the same as they did in the master.

The only problem is that the guy's looks to Nicole will be in full profile. You can cheat their eyeline to her around a bit to help this. Another option is to move the camera over to the other shoulder on the guys. So now, Tony looks LEFT to Mike and RIGHT to Nicole, and Mike looks RIGHT to Tony and LEFT to Nicole. We've already shot her coverage but her looks still work; LEFT to Tony and RIGHT to Mike. Everyone is still looking the correct direction at each other, and the advantage is that the eyelines to Nicole are tighter. In this scenario there is no single "line" per se: the camera is effectively in the middle of the triangle. This is why it can be misleading to think solely in terms of the 180 degree rule, but it's always safe to think in terms of correct eyelines.

In this second scenario, the original master shot I described now represents a line cross from the guy's coverage, but it is acceptable because it sets up the relationships of the three characters. We understand the physical relationship of two people pointing guns at each other, so jumping to the far shoulder for the OTS coverage is not going to confuse the audience.

Also, as Razz noted, you can shoot a two-shot of the guys from Nicole's perspective. However, you are now setting up a situation where one of the pieces of coverage you have already shot may not match any more. Remember that in the OTS coverage, the guys are looking different directions to her, and now they will have to look the same direction. Let's say we place her on the right side of frame, thus the guys will both look RIGHT to her. This matches nicely with the shot we already have of Tony looking RIGHT to her. But what do we do about Mike? In his OTS coverage, he is looking LEFT to her. You can commit to the editorial choice that you would only use the shot over her shoulder during parts of the scene where you don't need to cut to Mike's closeup, and you would be OK. But if there are strong moments between both guys and Nicole, you should probably also get tight singles of the guys looking at her, shot roughly from her perspective. This is where it gets a little funky, because again, Tony has to look RIGHT and Mike has to look LEFT. If you are shooting these clean, which I recommend (OTS shots where people are standing 8 feet apart can be a little messy), it may feel strange to have to move her eyeline from one side of the camera to the other depending on whose closeup you are shooting. The key to all of this is that because you split Nicole's looks to either side of camera on her closeup, you need to continue to base your coverage on those eyelines throughout. It's extremely common to screw this up. As mentioned above, make diagrams, sketches, think it all through in terms of the edit.

There are still other ways to shoot this, but I'll leave it at that for now.
 
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