No. 176, Staging with Perspective

Using Extreme Perspective in Staging, with Notes on Matching Consecutive Shots

Creating a layout with unusual perspective

Just now I am working on a scene that has to match the previous scene closely; the difference between the two is just a matter of "camera" angle on the two characters.

The first scene, 5-24, looked like this in storyboard:

(The female officer is about to draw her service pistol, but the male officer  quickly blocks her move with his hand. She then looks up at him to see his face.)

Then after animation, it looked like this:

The following scene, 5-25, was drawn this way in the storyboard...

(The male officer shakes his head, as if to say: You don't need that here.)

...but this drawing no longer matched the animated version of 5-24, so my problem was to make a layout of 5-25 that looked like a natural change of angle.

I had to imagine and draw a rotation of the crouching woman officer and a corresponding view of the man.  It took me a couple of tries before I got what I was looking for. Note that the perspective is quite close to the storyboard panel above.

The version on the right was what I felt I needed. Though the final layout was to be a closeup, this long shot showing the characters' full poses was important for understanding how the heads and shoulders should be positioned. Note the faint perspective lines behind the two figures.

From here it was a simple job to do the closeup layout. In the end what is important is the eye contact between the two characters, but getting the poses right helps to make a convincing and dramatic shot.

The final layout for scene 5-25.