Shot Reverse Shot

Shot, reverse shot is a camera shot type. It consists of usually a conversation/meeting between two people who are opposite each other. There is commonly a camera over the shoulder of the first person facing the second person face on. There is the same camera set up for the second person, over their shoulder facing the first person. Another camera is often set up facing the two characters face on. The shot gives the audience a sense of action as there is a constant change of shot with every characters turn of dialogue. 

This shot has become a staple of modern and classic film editing, almost every film uses the shot at some point. Early films that didn't use the shot for conversations were boring and often unwatchable. Below is an image of a scene from 'The Dark Knight Rises' in which Batman is conversing with The Joker; The camera is over The Jokers shoulder and so the image contains both characters face to face.

Below is my own short film demonstrating shot reverse shot. As it's only a demonstration it is very scruffy and floored. The film is only to demonstrate that i can shoot scenes using shot reverse shot. I found that whilst shooting the scene we had to pause the conversation after each characters line so that we could go around to the other characters side and shoot the clip of their speech. This was frustrating however there is no way around it. I have also learned how to join individual clips together to create a film.

 

I will be using match on action in my preliminary and main tasks so it is important that i comprehend the idea. My own version of match on action is poor quality and seems rushed however i have learned the basic technique and am comfortable using it in later films.