Storyboard Blog

            The director of these few shots from 300 followed the camera rules quite well. The 180 degree rule was completely followed in these shots. In the first there is not really a clear establishment of a line. However, in the second shot the close up of the captain clearly shows his eyes looking off in the distance and a line is set for the following shots. The camera stays on the one side of the captain and Leonidas in shots 2 and 3. In the fourth shot, a wide shot is used to view all of the Spartans in the setting, but the camera still stays on the established side while switch to another degree so that we can see what the men’s attention was drawn to in the second shot. In the fifth shot, the camera continues to remain on the same side, but moves to a degree where we can see the Spartans head on again.

            The Rule of Thirds seems to be mostly followed as well. It was a bit difficult to tell in one or two shots because the version I viewed was in fullscreen rather than widescreen. If it had been viewed in widescreen, some of the objects or people would be more clearly observable in a third or not. In the first shot, the two men appear to be in their own left-right third. In the second, the captain is shown in a close up and appeared to be in the middle-left of the screen (if in widescreen he would have been more in the left third). In the third shot, a close up of Leonidas is shown and he is clearly in the left third. For the fourth shot, the view of all the Spartans is shown and most of them appear to be in the left third along with the bottom third while the arrows occupy the top and left thirds. Finally, for the fifth shot, there seems to be no true focus of where our attention should be, so the Spartans occupy the entire frame with no real organization.

            Lastly, the 30 rule is followed with shots 2 and 4. In shot 2, the camera does not change degrees but does do a close up of more than 30% on the captain. Also, in shot 4, the camera zooms out in a wide shot more than 30% on the entire group of Spartans. Whenever the camera performed a zoom in or out or degree change, it was 30 or more percent of the previous shot or 30 degrees or more from the previous spot .

            Altogether the director of these shots from 300 followed all of the rules of camera actions.