Studio Lesson #2

On Thursday 24th September we had our second studio lesson and we learned about the 180 degree rule and how to film sequences, along with some studio "lingo" for example "Stand By", "Roll", "Rolling", "Action" and "Cut".

The 180 Degree Rule:
In film making, the 180-degree rule is a basic guideline regarding the on-screen spatial relationship between a character and another character or object within a scene. An imaginary line called the axis connects the characters, and by keeping the camera on one side of this axis for every shot in the scene, the first character is always frame right of the second character, who is then always frame left of the first. The camera passing over the axis is called jumping the line or crossing the line; breaking the 180-degree rule by shooting on all sides is known as 'shooting in the round'.

How To Film Sequences (The Five Shot Sequence):
1) Start with an extreme long shot:

2) Then you move into a long shot:

3) You start to zoom in to the action with a mid shot:

4) Then you move closer in with a close up, which normally shows a face:

5) Finally you focus on part of the body that is being focused on, for example the eye. This is called a big close up: