UNKNOWN

Immersing myself into the language behind our understanding of films helped me to see more ways of storytelling than I had considered before, such as the directions in which our eyes move comfortably around the frame having a vital role in how we relate to characters and objects. But the direction of movement around a frame was just a small part of this new world of possibilities, and this is what I plan to continue exploring.

With the rule of thirds, one thing I want to experiment with in the future is using a deep depth of field, placing objects in different places on the X axis of depth, as well as using different third border lines to create emblematic shots with several differing subjects.

In lighting, I want to create more realistic scenarios, such as dawn sunlight coming through windows, or the damp, soft shadowed light of a cloudy day in the woods. I also want to create the genre specific lighting that I didn’t manage to fit into my schedule in this module, such as film noir and dreamscapes.

After being allowed time to explore the big bad world of cinematic composition, I now understand how little I know of my craft. There are hundreds of cinematographic conventions, techniques and theories I am yet to learn, and that I feel I must learn in order to be able to apply or break them in my own way and develop my own style. For this module, I scratched the surface of the overall subject and art form of cinematography, and now I just want to keep going, reading, watching, filming. I intend to continue exploring the various avenues in cinematic composition deeper after this module’s end, using the work of countless inspiring filmmakers as my stepping stones.

Rule of Thirds Experiment

To familiarise myself with the rule of thirds and the different ways it can be applied, I went to 3 different locations to film different subjects. All of my shots were static and with minimal information in them, usually 1 or 2 main subjects. I tried to place the main subject in one of the ‘sweet spots’ in each composition, and have the horizon run along a third border in the frame.

After filming several examples of this type of compositing, I now feel I would automatically consider the rule of thirds when creating storyboards or while framing other cinematic pieces.

My Thirdsday Proposal

I’m told crappy puns are a whole blog-culture thing, so yeah… thirdsday… am I cool yet?

The rule of thirds is a basic tool used in the composition of photography, cinema, painting and other artwork; it is likely labelled as a rule because it is such a widely used, important consideration in the framing of a shot, that it may as well be compulsory. The rule is implemented in various types of shot, but more commonly in establishing shots and during 180° rule dialogue scenes.

Here is one example of the rule being applied in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).

When the frame is divided into thirds along the width and the height, ‘sweet spots’ are created. These sweet spots are located at the crossing points where the lines meet. The theory behind this rule is that a main subject or detail centred or focused on these points is more comfortable and pleasing to look at. Although film’s don’t usually feature a shot using the exact points these lines would cross, as long as the guides are closely followed the rule still applies.

We can now see that the left third guide line runs through the centre of the character’s face, framing him in a position that is comfortable to view. The sweet spots are located near his mouth and eye, a common choice of position as these are the main two features on the human face that people concentrate on and read for information. Usually a person’s face would be centred on the vertical line opposite to the direction they are looking in, to give them appropriate ‘nose room’; I have chosen this as an example as it uses this rule differently. In this scene, the viewer is not yet aware of what the character is looking at, and this lack of nose room helps create suspense, as it is not the comfortable close-up a film audience is used to. The shot keeps to the rule of thirds even while breaking other rules.

As well as the human face, the rule of thirds is also valuable when practiced with establishing shots. Such as these two examples from The Beach (2000).

The main subjects (the characters) are all centred around one of the left sweet spots in these shots; this is proven to be more pleasant to view than placing them in the middle, but also allows other information in the frame to be experienced without being over crowded. The horizon in these pictures also sits and runs along one of the horizontal guide lines. In the first picture, the top guide line was chosen because it was more important for the land to be in frame during a scene which tells the viewer where the characters have just arrived. In the second picture the bottom line was chosen as there is no visible information on the beach except for the fire, but the sky looks so damn good, and evokes feelings of a paradisiacal land.

When filming my own compositions using the rule of thirds, I will be taking into account both the aesthetic qualities and the importance of each piece of information in the frame, in order to create a number of varying types of shot, differing in meaning and purpose.