Screen direction is the direction that actors or objects appear to be moving on the screen from the point of view of the camera or audience. A rule of film editing and film grammar is that movement from one edited shot to another must maintain the consistency of screen direction in order to avoid audience confusion.
"Camera left" or "frame left" indicates movement towards the left side of the screen, while "camera right" or "frame right" refers to movement towards the right side of the screen. "Foreground" refers to the apparent space close to the camera (and thus to the audience), and "background" refers to the apparent space in the distance away from the camera and the audience.
As an example of screen direction in use, if an actor is shown in one shot walking from screen left to screen right and then is shown in the next shot to be moving in the opposite direction (screen right to screen left), the audience will assume that the actor has changed direction and is walking back to where he started (in the absence of obvious contextual or environmental cues).
If the shot shows him again moving from screen left to screen right (as in the first shot), the audience will assume that the actor is continuing his previous movement and extending it to apparently cover a greater distance even if that is purely a fabrication of editing.
Another example would be if two characters are shown in a medium shot, say from the waist up, looking at each other, it is generally established that one is on the left of screen and the other on the right. The one on the left looks right to the other character and vice versa. When the editor cuts to a close shot of a person, it would be disorienting if the character looked the other way. The audience would assume that the character is looking at something else.
In the coverage of the scene, it is customary in film technique to be sure that screen direction is maintained. In a close up, the environmental cues are at a minimum.
It is the responsibility of the director, cameraman, and script supervisor on the set to maintain consistency of screen direction so that later during editing, the myriad short pieces of film can be properly assembled by the editor into a coherent film that tells the story intended.
Avant-garde, experimental, and some independent film and video productions often deliberately violate screen direction rules in order to create audience disorientation or ambiguity. However, unless it is done very skillfully, violation of screen direction can appear to the audience to be the result of filmmaker ineptitude rather than experimentation.
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screen, direction, this, article, does, cite, sources, please, help, improve, this, article, adding, citations, reliable, sources, unsourced, material, challenged, removed, find, sources, news, newspapers, books, scholar, jstor, december, 2009, learn, when, re. This article does not cite any sources Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Screen direction news newspapers books scholar JSTOR December 2009 Learn how and when to remove this message Screen direction is the direction that actors or objects appear to be moving on the screen from the point of view of the camera or audience A rule of film editing and film grammar is that movement from one edited shot to another must maintain the consistency of screen direction in order to avoid audience confusion Camera left or frame left indicates movement towards the left side of the screen while camera right or frame right refers to movement towards the right side of the screen Foreground refers to the apparent space close to the camera and thus to the audience and background refers to the apparent space in the distance away from the camera and the audience As an example of screen direction in use if an actor is shown in one shot walking from screen left to screen right and then is shown in the next shot to be moving in the opposite direction screen right to screen left the audience will assume that the actor has changed direction and is walking back to where he started in the absence of obvious contextual or environmental cues If the shot shows him again moving from screen left to screen right as in the first shot the audience will assume that the actor is continuing his previous movement and extending it to apparently cover a greater distance even if that is purely a fabrication of editing Another example would be if two characters are shown in a medium shot say from the waist up looking at each other it is generally established that one is on the left of screen and the other on the right The one on the left looks right to the other character and vice versa When the editor cuts to a close shot of a person it would be disorienting if the character looked the other way The audience would assume that the character is looking at something else In the coverage of the scene it is customary in film technique to be sure that screen direction is maintained In a close up the environmental cues are at a minimum It is the responsibility of the director cameraman and script supervisor on the set to maintain consistency of screen direction so that later during editing the myriad short pieces of film can be properly assembled by the editor into a coherent film that tells the story intended Avant garde experimental and some independent film and video productions often deliberately violate screen direction rules in order to create audience disorientation or ambiguity However unless it is done very skillfully violation of screen direction can appear to the audience to be the result of filmmaker ineptitude rather than experimentation References edit nbsp This film technology article is a stub You can help Wikipedia by expanding it vte Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Screen direction amp oldid 1191636925, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
