Psychological

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whoknows46

Member
I've been racking my brains trying to figure out the psychological difference between an over-the-shoulder shot and a medium 1-shot (during a conversation or anything else).

The only thing I can come up with is that an over-the-shoulder shot involves our consciousness a bit more in what the person in the foreground is thinking of the person in the background. On the other hand, perhaps the 1-shot involves more of what we as an audience think of the person in the background. Any thoughts? I need to start sleeping again at night.
 
whoknows46 said:
I've been racking my brains trying to figure out the psychological difference between an over-the-shoulder shot and a medium 1-shot (during a conversation or anything else).

The only thing I can come up with is that an over-the-shoulder shot involves our consciousness a bit more in what the person in the foreground is thinking of the person in the background. On the other hand, perhaps the 1-shot involves more of what we as an audience think of the person in the background. Any thoughts? I need to start sleeping again at night.
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You aren't French by any chance, are you?

.
 
whoknows46 said:
It's not a POV --- it's an objective frame. The 1-shot reveals one of the people looking off camera.
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Copy that. Just because there isn't a dirty shoulder in the frame doesn't mean it's POV.

From reading old cinematography books from the 1950's, i can tell you that although there are psychological visual subtext between a 'clean' single and an 'over the shoulder' single, the modern birth and adoption of the over the shoulder single was a direct result of the widescreen format.

When films started to be shot upon the many different wide screen formats (in order to compete with television) the 'over the shoulder shot' became a a quick staple within the cinematographers framing vernacular. It was a great way to balance the frame. Can you imagine cinemascope framing of a medium/cu single? Lots of negative space in the frame to deal with... OTS shots are a faster way of dealing with that space... to fill it up and forget about it. Otherwise, the cinematographer must carefully light and compose the area so it does not distract from the subject intended for the viewers attention as well as many other considerations which must be taken, such as frame balance, composition, etc.

You won't see nearly as many OTS shots in 4x3 media. Our more modern 16X9 HD aspect ratio is great because it is a pretty good medium ground for which we can choose to have clean singles or ots singles. I still love the wider 'anamorphic' type aspects, but I do enjoy how 16x9 offers a nice canvas for both singles and ots... something that now allows us to ask the question which the original poster asked.
 
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If shooting movies is just about making them look good, maybe I took a wrong turn somewhere...

I think a lot of it you can just sort of go with on your own. Maybe you want one character not to feel connected with the other. So then maybe you don't use OTS's and only use clean singles and put their leadspace behind them, so they aren't sharing that common space between them. At the same time you could shoot those OTS's with wider lenses, like a 28 or 35. That would increase the percieved space between the characters and maybe towards the end you use the same shots with longer lenses. That will compress the space and if you've done your job right perhaps it'll feel like the two characters are coming together and opening up to one another.

So, honestly, they can mean a lot of different things. It's just sort of what you make of it. I think the most important thing is the fact that you think these things through beforehand and be consistent.
 
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P.O.V was a bad choice of words. I meant to say in a shot reverse shot between 2 people it is more personal to the person being spoken to with composition like P.O.V
 
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