Reposting here a #NerdyFilmTechStuff thread that was buried in replies. It's about how the stage line is a guiding principle, not an inflexible mandate.
It was originally a reply to someone asking if the cut between these two shots breaks the stage line rule.
It was originally a reply to someone asking if the cut between these two shots breaks the stage line rule.
The stageline is a thumbnail for understanding, not an ironclad law to slavishly follow. One must understand screen direction to know how to break the rule, like a poet has to know grammar before creatively breaking its rules or a cubist painter has to know classical painting.
This scene is a good case in point why understanding the stageline rule is more important than mindlessly following it. The “rule” is actually just a mental shortcut to remember to keep an audience oriented. So they don’t get jolted out of the story...
We have to be mindful of an audience's senstitivity to characters looking at each other. Which they’re not doing in this case: Rey is facing away from Luke and has her eyes closed. We also have very strong geographical markers always visible: the sky versus the mountain...
So geography in this particular case, rather than eyeline, is the stronger, more orienting visual cue. And indeed we did not jump to the other side of the *geography*. That is: didn’t flip the camera to the other side of the ledge.
Also, to Rian's point in the original replies: this is a case where I think geography trumps eyeline *anyway*, but doubly so because both actors' faces are visible in both shots, so we don't need to adhere to the stageline to keep the eyeline from feeling jolting across the cut.
