Crossing the Line Twice

The Ballerina¹ trailer finally dropped, and I'm cautiously optimistic. It’s directed by Len Wiseman, who used to direct good, fun action movies, and starring Ana de Armas, who was easily the best only good part of No Time to Die.

The Ballerina has apparently had some production troubles. The movie has been in production so long, I was very confused when I first saw the poster for Abigail.

Do ballerinas really sit like this a lot?

Production issues aside, I still think Ballerina looks cool. There was one part of the trailer that bugged me, though, and it was probably the coolest scene—

No, not because it’s implausible. In fact, a firehose vs a flame thrower is, surprisingly, totally possible—

What actually bumped me was the way the camera jumped the line. At least, that’s what I thought the first time I watched. Upon re-watching, the editing issue appears to be more nuanced. Confused, I decided to try and “fix” it myself. The results are in the video above, but the process by which I arrived at that is more interesting.

Crossing the Line

One of the most well-known, yet least understood, principles of editing goes by a lot of names: The 180 Degree Rule, “eyeline matching,” or simply The Line.

The quick and easy explanation is, if there are two characters in a scene, draw an imaginary line between them. The camera should stay on one side of that line, so the character facing left is always facing left, the character facing right always right (thus matching their eyelines). This gives you 180° worth of camera positions, in theory.²

Sometimes this rule is violated in deliberate, clear ways, to create a sense of unease (as in the bathroom scene in The Shining) or to imply symmetry between the characters, like with the final fight in Matrix Revolutions:

Other times, filmmakers shoot their coverage willy-nilly and then claim the confusing editing reflects the confusion of the fight. Nevermind the fact that the protagonist is rarely this off balance in said fight. David Bordwell³ wrote about The Bourne Ultimatum as an example:

Run-and-gun technique doesn’t demand that you develop an ongoing sense of the figures within a spatial whole. The bodies, fragmented and smeared across the frame, don’t dwell within these locales… In The Bourne Ultimatum, could anybody reconstruct any of these stations, streets, or apartment blocks on the strength of what we see? Of course, some will say, that’s the point. Jason himself is dizzyingly preoccupied by the immediacy of the action, and so are we. Yet Jason must know the layout in detail, if he’s able to pursue others and escape so efficiently. Moreover, we can justify any fuzziness in any piece of storytelling as reflecting a confused protagonist. This rationale puts us close to Poe’s suggestion that we shouldn’t confuse obscurity of expression with the expression of obscurity.

(The whole article is worth a read.)

That’s what I felt watching the flame thrower scene. The characters were jumping all over the place. But were they really? And why?

Filmmaking Vs Film Theory

In fairness, what constitutes "jumping the line" can be confusing, especially in the moment of shooting. I've seen directors and DPs get into shouting matches about which shoulder the camera should be over.

More characters increase the number of “lines” exponentially, as well, which is why scenes taking place around a dinner table are notoriously difficult to shoot.⁴

But the flame thrower scene has a literal line on screen. How could the screw that up? Well, maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. It’s debatable.

To see what I mean, watch the original cut of the flame throwing scene again—

Which Way, Western Woman?

First, let’s break down the sequence of shots. For the most part, flame thrower guy is facing camera right, and Ana de Armas is facing left.

But this overhead shot really threw me. Suddenly the flame was shooting left—

So, my first simple solution was to try flipping the shot horizontally—

It still didn't quite work, and it took me a minute to figure out why.

While the screen direction worked, the guy was rotating the wrong way. In the angle from behind him, he's panning left, but when the same action gets repeated from above,⁵ he's suddenly turning right.

The editor decided to preserve matching action (de Armas running and the flame turning to catch her) over screen direction. You can see why “the 180° rule” isn’t so simple when you add a third dimension. Where exactly are we in that theoretical arc when the camera is floating above?⁶

Going further, I tried flipping the shot both vertically and horizontally. The result is much cleaner, I think—

Notice that the final shot of the sequence matches my flipped image, not just in the direction of the flame, but also showing de Armas fleeing in the same direction (screen up).

Because of this, I also flipped the interior shots, so her eyeline inside matches her leftward movement outside.⁷ Interiors and exteriors don’t always have to match, but in this scene, they’re functionally the same location, so I felt it worked better. What do you think?

Cinematic Compromises

I should note this sequence of shots was likely cut together by a trailer house and not the film's editor.⁸ In fact, the trailer editor may not have even had a finished scene to work with. The final movie may not look like this at all, removing some shots and replacing them with angles that didn't fit the pace of the trailer for whatever reason.

And I don't even blame the trailer editor! They were clearly aware of the screen direction, as they put the flame thrower on the left for the end of the sequence. Balancing screen direction with character movement can be tricky. I chose one way, they chose another.

Presumably, this trailer was test screened, and the cut didn't bother that audience. Maybe I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be fulfilling the promise of the title of this Substack if I didn’t make a big deal about things like this.

So, in conclusion, I have no conclusion. Just some things to think about. I hope you enjoy these cinematic thought experiments, too, even if there is no final, correct answer.

1. No, I will not be referring to this movie as From the World of John Wick: Ballerina.

2. I should note this only applies to cutting between angles. A continuous, unbroken shot can go wherever it wants.

3. RIP

4. I learned a valuable lesson shooting a four-woman scene in Other Halves. Although I had my shots planned out, I changed the plan on the day of filming. My editor, Don Stroud, put in a heroic effort to render the scene comprehensible, but some of the cuts are still rough. So if you see any bad edits, blame me, not him.

5. A stylistic quirk I don't love, but I'm taking as a given for the purposes of this exercise.

6. I had a similar issue with my short A Boating Accident, starting at about 7:08, but limiting those shots to a single character made it easier on myself.

7. Interestingly, she blocks the flame thrower guy in the last frame of the shot. If it had continued on even a few frames more, we probably would've been on the wrong side of the line!

8. The editor doesn’t cut the trailer for several reasons:

1. She’s probably focused on finishing the darn movie.

2. Although there’s obviously much overlap, cutting together a two hour story and a two minute promo are separate skills.

3. After months of working with the footage, having an outside person give it another look is probably helpful for finding the best, most exciting shots.