camera rules and shot types

match-on-action - this occurs when an action that begins in one shot is completed in the next shot, eg an exterior shot of a door opening, followed by a shot inside the house with the character.



shot-reverse-shot - this is when a character is shown looking off-screen at another character, and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. This gives the impression that the chracters are looking at each other.



180° rule - this is a basic rule, which states that characters in a scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis, it is called crossing the line.



(picture from www.wikipedia.org)