Rules of Third/Priniciple of Thirds.

Still works for moving pictures. Not necessarily every frame, but for key points in moves definitely. Maybe need to move off the upper third a little for tighter face shots in 16:9, because of need to adjust for headroom or rather how much to cut off the top of the head!
 
Rule of thirds is what they tell beginners to get good shots by accident...not entirely true, but sometimes I think people get over obsessed with it and you can sometimes tell when they're "drawing" a tic tac toe board on their LCD.

Keep it in mind for interviews, CU head shots. Other than that, there is really no use for it if you're not shooting heads.

The screen has the most "gravity" at the edges, and because of this, reading from corner to corner, on a diagonal, is where the eye's attention is naturally drawn. I like to imagine an x on the screen and align important info along those marks. This pretty much is a variant on the rule of thirds, but I think it 's much more intuitive.
 
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I used to use it, but now use the "Golden Rectangle". It's very close to the rule of thirds, but goes further (splitting the "thirds" into "thirds" again), and is used a lot in classical painting and architecture -- particularly Rennaisance art.

I'm writing a paper comparing the use of thirds versus the use of the "Golden Rectangle" in popular film. My theory is that while thirds are easier to use, people subconsciously use something closer to a "Golden Rectangle".

Unfortunately, the golden rectangle doesn't exactly fit a 2.33 or 16x9 frame (however it fits a 4:3 frame almost perfectly -- which was intentional), so I used a "split rectangle", and treated the horizontal and vertical components separately.

Here's a grab from my upcoming paper:

golden.gif


The blue lines are thirds, and the red lines is the "Golden Rectangle". The yellow line makes it easier to see the pattern. The pattern can be flipped horizontally or vertically to accomodate the subject matter (which is why it's more difficult to use than simple thirds.)

There's a very good article here. Great minds think alike! :)
 
pmark23 said:
Unfortunately, the golden rectangle doesn't exactly fit a 2.33 or 16x9 frame (however it fits a 4:3 frame almost perfectly -- which was intentional), ...
Click to expand...

Actually, instead of 4:3, isn't the golden rectangle much closer to the "sort-of-widescreen" ratio of 1.66:1? I'm wondering if maybe THAT ratio was intentionally based on the golden rectangle?
 
KMR said:
Actually, instead of 4:3, isn't the golden rectangle much closer to the "sort-of-widescreen" ratio of 1.66:1? I'm wondering if maybe THAT ratio was intentionally based on the golden rectangle?
Click to expand...

The "golden" ratio is 1.62:1 (actually 1.61803399:1), so yeah, it's pretty close. :dankk2:


(:banned: for excessive nerdiness).
 
flyerland said:
The screen has the most "gravity" at the edges, and because of this, reading from corner to corner, on a diagonal, is where the eye's attention is naturally drawn. I like to imagine an x on the screen and align important info along those marks.
Click to expand...

Good point. Most people read from left to right and top to bottom thus the eye is trained to follow the diagonal from top left to bottom right when skimming through a framed scene wheter it's video or not.
 
Switch said:
Good point. Most people read from left to right and top to bottom thus the eye is trained to follow the diagonal from top left to bottom right when skimming through a framed scene wheter it's video or not.
Click to expand...

Ah Ha! This is for the english, french, italian, etc. languages. This is one of the reasons why I love to watch older japanese movies. Composition is so different for what im used to because. weight is distributed so much differently.
 
to be honest i haven't paid much attention to the difference in composition, if any, in japanese movies but the next time i watch a kurosawa i'll be keeping en eye out for it.
 
I use the rule of thirds all the time, after I frame for the rule of thirds then fit it into the golden rectangle.
 
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