The rooftop scene of The Room appears amateur due to lack of following the basic rules. Both the rule of thirds, and the 30 degrees rule are broken often. The 180 was not violated though, the scene remained mostly focused in a single direction. The entire scene consists of a conversation between two talent. There is little action in the scene aside from slow character movement. The only motivation of the shots is to show dialogue and reactions. The framing of the shots is too wide on character close ups, we never get a real sense of connection during the scene.
Often the medium to close shots centers the subject with horizontal lines through the middle. Often the shots consist of half of one substance and half of another. This creates less of a relationship with the screen then following the rule of thirds. Since there are very defined lines within the set, it’s interesting that the rule is not used more often. Only the wide shots effectively make use of the formula. Since the scene is obviously trying to convey stress and confusion, the lack of emotional connection due to wide framing do an effective job of masking this.
The scene often is very close to jump cutting. A true jump cut is never fully made, however pointless cutting often brings the same feel. While the scene progresses, the shots vary from a 2 shot to a 1 shot and slightly different lengths but identical angles. Had a full zoom been used the shots would not appear so abrupt and jolting. This is executed successfully a few times to track character movement however. While many cuts appear random, much of the conversation is tracked effectively. What little action that happens throughout the scene is conveyed and never vague. The director obvious was using multiple cameras in a set environment, so all of the movement is shot from one side of the scene. This shows the spacing rather well.
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