Reading and Writing
Once you have an understanding of the way shots can be framed and how to make them appealing, the next challenge is to place them in a sequence to create riveting scenes.
Basic Sequence
As Tom Schroeppel states in The Bare Bones Camera Course for Film and Video, looking at the same shot for thirty seconds will bore your viewer. The scene should be cut into several shots with a wide variety and add to the interest of the scene. The example Schoreppel poses in the book is a scene between and boy and a man talking beneath a tree. Instead of a wide shot of the whole conversation, a mix of medium shots, close-ups, and over-the-shoulder add different perspectives and emotions.
Cutting on the Action
One way to make a smooth transition between shots is to cut on the action. For example, if we have a wide shot of a baseball player up for bat and then swinging to hit the ball. An excellent transition would be to cut at the moment (or right before) the ball hits the bat, and then do an extreme close-up of the impact.
Clean Entrance / Clean Exit
A shot can have a built-in cutaway scene that acts as a buffer before and after an action. Essentially, it’s filming a shot with no movement, having the object come into the shot, leave the shot, and continue shooting with no movement. This makes it easier for the editor that the movement of the object in the shot doesn’t necessarily have to match the movement of the previous shot.
Clean entrances and exits also help move time forward by quickly getting from one place to another. A scene with someone walking on a sidewalk can then cut to a path in a park where the person enters and then exits. The viewer understands that time has passed.
The 180˚ Rule
Every scene has an imaginary line that cuts horizontally through the action or subject(s). A camera can film from any position on one side of the line. As soon as the camera crosses the line, the reality that you created becomes skewed and will confuse the audience. It’s visually jarring.
Research to Inform
As always, the best part is finding examples of these concepts in the “real world.” Continuing with my favorite TV shows…
Gus: Easily one of the greatest written characters ever
Breaking Bad is undoubtedly one of the greatest pieces of television in recent history between writing, acting, and directing. One of the great things Breaking Bad does is its ability to take conventional sequences and add a twist to them. In the example above, Walt and Gus are having a conversation at a table. Normally scenes of this nature toggle back and forth with over-the-shoulder shots of each character speaking. Here, different angles are mixed in such as bird’s eye view, tabletop, medium close-up, and cowboy shots.
I was obsessed with this show and learning about non-verbal communication. Still am…
One of my favorite television shows of all time is Lie to Me*. This opening scene (0:17-1:50) from the pilot illustrates a common trait of continuity on the show. Scenes are often cut to extreme close-ups of micro expressions that a character is picking up on, then returning back to the shot before the close-ups. The viewer knows that this is a quick shift to the character’s perspective, gaining key information and analyzing at the same time the character does. Some of the scenes accentuate this by L cutting the audio.
This song will now be stuck in your head for the next two weeks. You’re welcome.
Those who love the challenge of tracking continuity will love this one. The most famous scene from American Horror Story: Asylum is when Jude hallucinates herself singing Shirley Ellis’ “The Name Game” and turning the room into a dance party. There are so many quick cuts, transitions, and cutting on action that it’s hard to keep up, which I think helps cover up some errors. I find a potential new one almost every time I watch it. That and the fact that this is taking place in an asylum where everyone is “crazy,” so if anyone catches any errors it’s accepted because it’s just part of the aesthetic.
Speaking of continuity errors, a recent one was found by die-hard fans of Game of Thrones. In one of the scenes during the final episodes of the series, a Starbucks coffee cup was left on a table, very much way out of time with when GoT takes place. Oops.
Create
Playing around with continuity and sequencing, I created a how-to video. Remember those paper square things that you would use your fingers to move and would tell you a fortune based on what colors and numbers you chose? I dove back into my childhood and created this tutorial. Somehow it’s easier than I remembered?
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