Are most movie scenes filmed with one camera?

Vamp · Post by **Vamp** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 7:21 pm

For instance a dialogue between two or more people, is there just a single shot of each actor saying his lines after a few pauses, then when editing, they just cut between shots... You don't film each person speaking "live" with 2 or more cameras and then just switch camera angles right? Any tips on getting continuity and fluidity right when editing in the former way?

foxwood · Post by **foxwood** » Sat Jul 03, 2004 12:10 am

Well I think most films are shot with more then a single cammera, and the edit is made up of multipul good takes. The way to do it with one cam, is to point the cam at one person do the sequence untill its good, with both people talking like normal, because you want reaction shots, and such. Then turn the cam to the other person, making sure not the break the rule of 180, and repet. And when you get back to the editting room you will have tons of footage ready to go and cut toghter, and it will look good. Make sure to keep the cam at the same hight if you can, and ruffly on the same horizonal line. Otherwise the shots might look strange, but as long as you don't break the rule of 180 you are fine.

Vamp · Post by **Vamp** » Sat Jul 03, 2004 12:39 am

What's the rule of 180? Any good resources for Cinematography and Sound Editing tips?

foxwood · Post by **foxwood** » Sat Jul 03, 2004 1:05 am

Here are a few links that I found to describe the rule a bit better then I can

http://www.ouc.bc.ca/fina/glossary/o_li ... erule.html
http://www.student.chula.ac.th/~4445143 ... _arts.html (midway don't the page)
http://www.teako170.com/glossary4.html (big index of terms)

Hope that helps.

Jass Films · Post by **Jass Films** » Sat Jul 03, 2004 2:25 am

Vamp wrote:What's the rule of 180? Any good resources for Cinematography and Sound Editing tips?

It's better known as crossing the line.

foxwood · Post by **foxwood** » Sat Jul 03, 2004 4:33 am

Right the line is the 180 degree line in a circle.

Monty_PythonFjords · Post by **Monty_PythonFjords** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 5:27 pm

Mostly the only scenes with more than one camera are expensive stunts or SFX shots - Expensive and time consuming to reshoot.

edinc90 · Post by **edinc90** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 9:36 pm

The show Scrubs is shot with only one camera. It's also edited on Final Cut Pro.

foxwood · Post by **foxwood** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 10:32 pm

Most things are shot with more then one cam, most TV shows are shot with three, so that they can quickly get all the angles that they need. But each shot is diffrent and requires diffrent amounts of cams for the proper covrage.

spoonstudiosintl · Post by **spoonstudiosintl** » Sat Jul 10, 2004 7:02 pm

It depends on what kind of scene you're doing and what style you prefer. Frankly, I perfer using just one camera and panning about, Steven Spielberg often does the same. If you watch enough of his shows, you'll often see that rather than use different angles in say, a conversation in a living room, he'll just pan around to different people. I prefer it to using numerous different angles.

padawanNick · Post by **padawanNick** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 8:06 pm

For movies, most dialog scenes are shot with a single camera. The camera is setup for a particular angle/focal length and they run through the scene until the director gets what he/she wants. Then the camera is moved to a new angle and the process is repeated.

One of the biggest factors for this is that film is very expensive, to shoot, develop, edit etc. Shooting with mutliple cameras multiplies the amount of film wasted for each mistake. It also helps the director, who can devote all her/his attention to the particular angle being shot rather than having to track several angles at once.

As has been metioned before, multiple cameras are mostly only used for shooting TV shows or scenes/shots/events that are expensive/difficult/dangerous to perform more than once.

Have fun.

Gyro · Post by **Gyro** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 8:09 pm

spoonstudiosintl wrote:It depends on what kind of scene you're doing and what style you prefer. Frankly, I perfer using just one camera and panning about, Steven Spielberg often does the same. If you watch enough of his shows, you'll often see that rather than use different angles in say, a conversation in a living room, he'll just pan around to different people. I prefer it to using numerous different angles.

Is this in reference to Catch Me if You Can?
But, I agree it really depends on what you're filming, if it's a nice little conversation you don't neccessarily need to change too many camera angles but if you're doing a high end action shot, a single angle could get reletivaly boring.

foxwood · Post by **foxwood** » Sun Jul 11, 2004 9:24 pm

The only times that you might use to Cams for a conversation is to get an intresting effect, or if there is a lot of spontanious moviement, a good example of this is the first conversation in the Bat between Jack and Tyler in Fight Club, to Cams to caputre the crazy movment.