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Over the Shoulder

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Over the Shoulder (trope)

An over-the-shoulder shot is one of the most common shots in film and television. It frames a dialog speaker with the shoulder and back of the head of the character being spoken to.

Along with the Medium Two-Shot, it is one component of the Shot/Reverse Shot. A classic tactic for Double Vision. Sometimes used as a variant of The Faceless.

The video game trope Always Over the Shoulder—in which the camera in third-person video games is directly behind the player character to make looking and aiming easier—is named for this. See Over-the-Shoulder Murder Shot for a horror-specific Sub-Trope.


Examples:

Films — Live-Action

  • Alien (1979) was the first to introduce target-centered over-the-shoulder shots in its action scenes, such as the Marine gunner's incursion and Ripley's final assault on the hive.
  • Chinatown: To emphasize the point that the audience is seeing everything from Gittes' perspective, director Roman Polański often puts the camera behind Jack Nicholson, so the audience sees his back and shoulders.
  • Black Scorpion: Darcy's hallucination sequence of fighting Black Scorpion is done with a stunt double actress, of whom we only see her back, as the two of them wrestle and take hits.
  • Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid: Since the movie it's essentially a Clip Show parody, this is the camera technique that makes most of the interactions possible.
  • Moon: The Sams playing Ping Pong is accomplished through a combination of this, split-screens, and computer effects. This trope is mostly in action when we go back and forth between each strike of the ball, shooting off from one Sam (of whom we see the nape and outstretched arm) and as it approaches the other.
  • Nickel Boys: Adult Elwood meets a fellow former inmate at a New York seedy bar. Elwood's face is obscured, framing the other guy's reaction to his words with his shoulders, of which we can only see his extended arm. The reason for all this secrecy is that neither man is Elwood.
  • Rush Hour 2: We see Kenny's attempt to point a gun at Carter's head from the point of view of the latter's nape. The shot is angled in such a way that we, alongside Inspector Lee, get startled at how quick of a draw the former pulls to uno-reverse the situation on his assailant.

Live-Action TV

  • The Benny Hill Show: When Benny is acting for two, and two of his characters interact, he's filmed from the back on a chromakey and then front view so he can pull these kinds of shots.
  • The Boys (2019): In "You Found Me", three generations of The Team—Mallory, Butcher, and Hughie—are shot from this perspective, as the shoulder and nape of the character addressing them frame the shot.
  • The Brittas Empire: In "At the Double", Brittas and Vlad—who are played by the same actor—are shown together, conversing, by switching the camera from the back of either's stand-in as a blurring silhouette, framing the face of the one currently speaking, and vice versa.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: "Doppelgangland" accomplishes a Double Vision camera for the title doppelganger partially through the switching of camera angles of the same actress and someone wearing a wig.
  • Community: In "Modern Warfare", Britta, sporting a shit-eating grin, is shown pointing her paintball gun Gangsta Style as viewed from the back of the character she's about to shoot.
  • Dogfights: Scenes where the camera follows a Kamikaze are shot in a standard cockpit over-the-shoulder (of the pilot) camera view, mixed with some Arrow Cam angles due to the pilot and his plane being both combatant and projectile.
  • Farscape: In "My Three Crichtons", the scenes between Crichton and his clones are shot in this manner.
  • M*A*S*H: The Title Sequence features a shot of Radar watching the approaching choppers. All we see of Radar is his nape and part of his right shoulder.
  • Mimpi Metropolitan: In the first episode, Mami Bibir's face is obscured by switching the camera angle from behind her to just her lips front view.
  • Los Misterios de Laura: All Murderer P.O.V. sequences are shot in a way as to obscure the perp's identity. One of them is to film their back when they are speaking, so we don't see their face.
  • The Sweeney: In "Night Out", a one-take of a woman follows her until she meets Regan, whose reflection frames her over his shoulder while they talk.
  • Star Trek: Voyager: In "Tattoo", shots of Chakotay and the alien facing off each other are intercalated back and forth. Of special note is that the back of either is positioned in such a way that it splits the view of the other's face in half, making it a variant of the Juxtaposed Halves Shot as well.

Video Games

  • Hyrule Warriors: Linkle's basic Strong Attack zooms the camera directly behind her head. This allows the player to still be able to move her around as she's firing huge arrow barrages.
  • Metroid: Other M: When charging up certain attacks while in visor mode, and in some cutscenes, we see Samus from this perspective. Sort of. We see her arm and part of her head, either from the full back or sideway, but if you zoom enough, you stop seeing Samus' head.

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