Grammar of the Shot, 2nd Edition

Diagonal Lines

So far, all of these horizon line examples have been locked in two-dimensional frames. The strong horizontal line, one-third down the screen from the top, is a good compositional start, but it does not create depth. You need to establish that this XLS captures depth in the physical world of the filmed image. To help with this goal, you could employ an old artist’s trick called the vanishing point. In our current example, we could have placed our camera in the center of a two-lane highway that stretches straight out to the horizon. For the most part, roads have a consistent width and therefore the lines that represent the edges of the roadway should be parallel to one another for as long as the road covers the ground. When observed ...