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Week 8: Continuity and rhythm
Use screen direction, action matching and shot duration to help a viewer move through time and space.
12 April 2027
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A viewer tracks the space and action of a scene without being told to — screen direction, action matching and shot duration are the systems that make that tracking effortless, and each one fails the same way: invisibly, until it’s wrong. This lecture extends Week 3’s light-continuity principle to space and time, gives the 180-degree line and match-cut geometry in depth, and connects the re-cutting exercise directly to the final project’s premise-scoping workshop.
Outline
We work through the axis of action and the 180-degree line, action matching and eyeline geometry, and shot duration as a deliberate rhythm tool, before diagnosing named continuity errors (the jump cut, the 30-degree rule, screen-direction flips). The session closes with the re-cutting exercise on a shared sequence and a workshop that stress-tests final-project premises for scope and access.
Bring one sentence describing your final project subject and a reference video whose rhythm you want to study.
Teaching team
- Idris Fenn — tutor