Tic Tac Toe
When I was in high school, I took a video class that covered basic film theory, techniques, and processes. One of the most memorable lessons I learned was ‘the rule of thirds.’ Our teacher used the movie Golden Eye the James Bond movie with Pierce Brosnan as an example of maticulous cinematography that adhered to the rule of thirds. Our teacher carved himself a slide with a tic tac toe grid (as shown in the image below) for an old school slide projector. He aligned the projector’s tic tac toe lines onto the television set and proceeded to play the movie Golden Eye. Now to our amazement the eyes of every actor fell right on the intersecting points of the grid. “Coincidence?” asked our teacher… or deliberate? If deliberate, why? No one had an answer… but it all made sense in the end.
The two horizontal lines are to be treated as horizons for the picture. So in essence, if the landscape of your frame, were an ocean view… either the bottom or top horizontal line should be where the sky and ocean meet. There may even be a need for both lines, such as a stunt motorcycle driver launching off a ramp over a row of cars. The row of cars would line up with the bottom horizontal line (the lower third) and the stunt driver sailing through the air accross the top horizontal line (upper third). The center space is left empty to emphasize big air.
The two vertical lines are to be treated as divisions of space for composition pertaining to balance and direction. For instance, in horror movies, you’ll often find actors being brought over to one third leaving an empty third behind their head. This insinuates that something or someone is behind them. Whereas in another movie, the actor will be shifted to have one third of space in front of their gaze. This makes it seem like they are approaching something. And like the horizontal lines, the vertical lines are often used together. Take a good look at the next argument you see on TV and notice that each person is lined up with one of the vertical lines as they face each other. If however, one of them is in between the two verticals, chances are someone is going to walk into the picture and take stand right on that vertical line.
So in short, the rule of thirds is the professional approach to alignment/placement of subjects/objects on screen. Anything placed smack in the middle tends to look like the average joe’s point and click approach. Using the rule of thirds can create direction, balance, or place emphasis on space when needed or reserve it for action.