TWO PEOPLE ARE TALKING. WHERE DO YOU PUT THE CAMERA?

There is no right answer to the question “Where do you put the camera”. It depends on a thousand creative variables, and a thousand logistical ones (i.e. often there’s a wall in the place that you want to put it…).

Filmmaking does have certain traditions that make it easier though, and 90% of the time normal, low tension dialogue can be shot by-the-numbers. Not everything needs to be clever, sometimes the audience just needs to follow a conversation!

ENTER THE TRIANGLE SYSTEM

Draw an imaginary line between your two characters. Now picture a triangle on one side of it.

Wherever you put a camera within that triangle will cut with any other shot in the triangle. That's the whole trick.

Obviously on a higher budget you could have 3-7 cameras rolling at once, all working together within the triangle. As long as you get one good take, you’ll then be able to edit however you want.

On a lower budget, you just re-shoot at the necessary angles. And with AI, you’ll need to learn the lingo - e.g profile shot, master, OTS, and build that into your prompts.

PUT TOGETHER AN EDIT IN THE CHEAT SHEET.

We've built an interactive cheat sheet, with a list of common camera positions used within the Triangle System. You can edit them together on the sheet itself, and see how the end result plays out!