The scene of these men talking in a bar in the film Reservoir Dogs by Quentin Tarantino is a great example of how dialogue scenes with multiple characters should be shot. In this scene, the director rarely breaks any of the three rules, and when he does he has a clear purpose for doing so. The rule of 30 is always followed, as every consecutive shot switches angles at least thirty degrees. The rule of thirds is usually followed, because the point of interest (in this case, the heads of the characters) is always put on an intersection of the imaginary grid in the shot. This rule is broken, however, when only Mr. Orange is in the shot. In these shots, Mr. Orange talking is the only thing happening in the frame, so he is obviously the point of interest, yet the director puts him in the center of the shot. The director does this to show that during this scene, Mr. Orange is the center of attention. He gets away with this because there is nothing else in the frame to distract the viewer, so Mr. Orange doesn’t have to be on one of the intersections. The rule of 180 is followed, although it may seem like it isn’t at times. Because there are three characters listening to Mr. Orange, the 180 line shifts depending on who is talking back to him, and once you take that into consideration you realize that the director has not broken the rules at all. At first the camera has to stay to the left (if you’re facing Mr. Orange) of the 180 degree line, but once Eddy speaks up the 180 degree line changes and therefore the director can move the camera to whichever side he wants to begin the conversation between them.
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