Not entirely sure what you are asking, are you asking about different methods of framing a conversation or specifically variations of the Shot/Reverse Shot with the shoulder/head of the other person in frame? Because inverting that framing doesn't really change what is happening, one is on the left and the other on the right.
There is what is called the Five Shot Sequence, which is the fundamentals of understanding what "The Line" is. The line is basically drawn between the two characters and extend out into infinity. The camera naturally goes on one side of the line and they have 180 degrees of space to put the camera anywhere while maintaining the idea that, say, character A is to the right and character B is to the left. When you break the line it puts character A on the left and character B on the right, changing our perceived orientation to the characters and is not considered a good thing. That doesn't mean you are locked in to that orientation for the entire scene, but other tricks are needed to reorient the characters to each other when crossing the line, either via movement of the characters within the frame or the five shot sequence, which goes as such:
- Shot 1- Character A on right
- Shot 2- Character B on left
- Shot 3- A breaking shot, something that changes the image away from the two close-ups of the characters (traditionally a close-up of an object being past between them).
- Shot 4- Character A on left, which reorients the perceived space between the characters
- Shot 5- Character B on right, affirming the new orientation.
Some directors, such as Jonathan Demme, enjoy minimizing the Shot/Reverse Shot by having the characters look straight (or almost straight) into the camera to heighten the unnerving effect that comes from that. Hannibal Lecter is looking straight at YOU instead of at Clarice. It is used knowing the audience is accustomed to traditional camera shots
, and is breaking certain rules because they know why those rules exist.
Great information, thank you.
Let me try to more clearly illustrate: we have two characters in conversation, Character L on the left and Character R on the right, and The Line is never broken in this sequence.
When we are looking at Character L, she is physically in the right half of the shot composition, facing to our right (at Character R), with the space behind her filling the left half of the frame.
Next, we look at Character R, and he is physically in the left half of the shot composition, facing to our left (at Character L).
This is atypical of how the opposing characters would be positioned in the frame.
Whereas the standard positioning seems mainly to reinforce character position relative to each other, I am supposing that this variation is a decision intended to, perhaps: convey something about the interaction between the characters, such as how sympathetic they feel about each other; or maybe it's a purely stylistic decision that has nothing to do with the scene (this would be disappointing to me); or something in the middle, or different entirely. Context might have everything to do with it, but I thought I'd begin with purely structural ideas.
Note that I've also seen shot-reverse-shots that place each character in the same half of the screen in each shot. One that comes to mind [I might eventually remember the film] has the character on the left face-lit with a dark background, whereas the character on the right (almost from the first character's POV) is rear-lit and silhouetted, and this appeared to be a decision meant to reinforce that the face-lit character was being honest and the rear-lit character dishonest; the shots were approximate inversions of each other; the honest character was positioned 'toward' the other, the dishonest character 'withdrawn'.
Thanks again for humoring me this discussion.
Well we are talking about infinite combinations of character movement, environment, body posture, etc when it comes to framing a conversation. The default is similar height and locked eye contact for the entire scene, which is what creates the line, you'll hear a lot of talk about the eyeline. But imagine cutting from a medium shot to a POV shot of the environment while a person off screen is talking. You'd prefer a single on the subject character in order to make that cut clear, whereas an over the shoulder can make it seem like the POV is the person with the shoulder in the previous shot. Other times it's just what shot looks best.
[Reposted here from Ask The Tropers, at recommendation of a Troper...]
I've been looking for discussion about the intended meaning of positioning subjects in the frame, especially in 2-subject shot-reverse-shot situations. Typically, the subject on the left will be positioned to the left side of the frame, and vice versa. But occasionally the decision is made to do the opposite. I can't decide on reasons why this would be done. Ideas?