In the notes provided for this week’s class, we looked at the difference in form/style in Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” and Anderson’s “O Lucky Man!”. In this discussion, we noted the difference in coverage for both directors. The former seem to utilise locked down tripod shots with a wide lens, whereas Anderson uses standard focal length lens and moves the camera according to the action. For Anderson, there are more closeups of objects to guide our attention. Kubrick, on the other hand, uses long takes and lets the audience to see what is most important in the shot. This had me thinking about other directors and how they might plan coverage for a scene. 

We also looked at the coverage of a bar scene in Gossip Girl and A Flame Within. In the two clips, we see a dialogue exchange between two people. In doing these shot reverse-shots, the concept of the 180-degree rule came into discussion. Most notably, how the scene in A Flame Within did not follow this. The result of which was a feeling of disorientation, as the positioning of the characters become difficult to understand. Yet I believe there are ways to cross the line without it becoming disorientating. One such example is in Parasite by Bong Joon Ho.

In a shot-reverse-shot dialogue scene between two characters, the camera crosses the line and delivers the rest of the conversation with the character looking at the same screen direction. Yet, in this example, the positioning of the characters was not confusing. I believe this is because, in a shot, the camera itself moved as it crossed the line, this gives the audience a better understanding of the space they are in.

In addition, the shot-reverse-shot are dirty, and more than half of the frame is taken up by the back of the other character. Through this, we can still understand that a conversation between these two characters is taking place.