Extension Research

Understanding The 180 degree Rule

When getting our introduction to camera talk we learnt about the 180 degree rule. At the time i didn't understand it properly so I decided to do some research on it before we started the recording for our real project.

180 Degree Rule - Moviemaking Technique from Peter John Ross on Vimeo.

I watched this clip where they were explaining the 180 degree rule in full and all the things we could do if we wished to cross the line appropriately.

What i learnt from this is that we need to imagine a horizontal line between between the middle of our clip and we need to make sure that when recording this we stay on one side of the line. We can shoot at any angle as long as we sick to one side of our imaginary line. If we was to cross the line it would be very confusing for the audience, this is because what was one on the left would soon be on the right because of this rule. 

For example like in the clip there is a shot of a man and woman around the table and the man is on the left and the woman is on the right from the shot on one side of the line. If we was to cross this line then the woman would now be on the left and the man would now be on the right.