Edit Suite: The Mysteries of Screen Direction

Jim Stinson
January 2000

When director James Cameron shot the scene of the departure of the S.S. Titanic on its fatal voyage, every dockside sign appeared in mirror type, every vehicle had its steering wheel on the wrong side and every man or woman's costume was buttoned backward. Why? Because he'd built only the starboard side of his behemoth ship set and it was aimed screen right (so the prevailing winds would blow its funnel smoke backward). Since passengers of the real Titanic had boarded on the opposite (port) side, he sent his actors up the starboard gangplanks and then flopped all the shots horizontally, re-aiming his doomed monster screen left.

Cameron was able to pull this off because he's a master of the mysterious principles that govern geography in two-dimensional media.

These principles are deceptively simple:

• There are only two basic directions in the screen world: toward the right edge of the frame or toward the left edge.
• Screen directions have no relation whatever to real-world directions.
• You can control screen direction by keeping the actors and the camera on opposite sides of an invisible "action line."

That's about all there is to screen direction. But, as simple as these principles are, I have seen costly Hollywood productions stopped dead in the water while the director, cinematographer and continuity person argued about the correct direction for action in a shot. (Imagine a scene assembled from the viewpoints of six cowboys playing poker at a circular table, and you'll realize how hairy screen direction can get.)

The main idea behind screen direction is that, from one shot to the next, people and objects (like vehicles) should remain pointed--at least approximately--at the same side of the screen. This consistency strengthens the continuity from shot to shot and helps keep the audience oriented.

So let's see how screen direction works and how an editor controls it, starting with a closer look at those deceptively simple principles. (As often happens, however, editors have to stray onto the director's turf because screen direction is created in the process of shooting-- editors are stuck with whatever results they get.)

1. The two basic screen directions are screen left and screen right. Imagine a clock face lying on the ground with a performer at its center. Every hour that the actor might aim for, from just past 12 through 3 to almost 6 o'clock is screen right; every hour from past 6 o'clock to 9 to almost 12 is screen left.
2. Screen direction is independent of real world geography. In Figure 1, an actor walks south, turns east, and then turns north. In the real world, as shown in 1a, he reverses direction completely. But as the videotaped images (1b) show, his screen direction doesn't change at all; in every shot it's left to right. The seeming contradiction between the real and screen-world directions is explained by the third principle:
3. Screen direction is created by the action line. The action line is an imaginary divider between the camera and its subject(s), as you can see from Figure 2. When you establish the first camera setup of a sequence, you automatically create an action line.

The action line follows the direction that the performer (or object) is facing. As long as you keep the camera and the subject on opposite sides of that line, the screen direction will remain consistent. But if the camera crosses the line, (Figure 2, and Figure 2b) the subject's screen direction will reverse.

To see this principle at work, look again at Figure 1. If you add imaginary action lines to the three setups, you'll see that actor and camera always stay on their own sides of the line.

Figures 1 and 2 illustrate different forms of screen direction. The walking man in Figure 1 illustrates screen direction of movement. In figure 2, the actor travels in the same direction, but the camera position changes.

There is also what you might call screen direction of convention. When you shoot the two ends of a phone conversation, for instance, you should have each speaker pointed in a different screen direction, even though they are not on screen together. Because they are talking to each other, the audience expects them to be "looking at" each other too.

A second screen direction convention is map orientation. Maps typically show north at the top, west on the left side and east on the right. For this reason, a car or plane traveling from, say, New York to San Francisco is usually shown moving screen left, or, if you will, "map west." This convention usually shows brief transitional shots of vehicles. In Titanic, for example, Cameron used several un-flopped shots of his right-facing mockup, even though the ship was supposedly sailing "left" (westward) toward America.

In some cases, conventions are used because movie makers simply have no other choice. For instance, if you shoot scenes inside a car, the driver will always face screen right and the passenger screen left, no matter which way the car is moving. After a zillion scenes like this, audiences simply accept this convention. However, if the vehicle's racing westward (screen left), a direct cut to the driver's profile aimed screen right (conventionally, eastward) can be disorienting. In this case, it may be better to use a neutral angle as a buffer shot between the two. You can also use buffer shots when you want to change screen direction.

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