Box Peek February Update (Patreon)

As is tradition, I'm writing last month's update in the new month. But now I have two days' worth of extra perspective!
 
PRODUCTION UPDATE
Episode 6 is pretty much finished! It still needs sound effects, credits, and some tinkering, but for the sake of this post let's consider it done. I'll probably spend this weekend wrapping it up and cleaning up Box Peek Studios (my dining room table) and then we're onto Episode 7, which will be full of its own unique challenges, but will hopefully not take longer than 2 months. Despite another wedding trip and an intensive storytelling class I picked up, this has been the most productive month since finishing Ep 5 in November. There were moments where I truly thought "We're back in business baby!" Feels good.

BEHIND-THE-SCENES THOUGHTS
I kinda want to talk about the 180 degree rule. Before that we have to think about continuity in its most basic purpose--keeping the viewer connected to this illusion of 3D space you're creating on their flat screens. Basically every time you make a cut, the brains watching have to figure out where this new image is taking place in relation to the one that came before it. Continuity is important to establish first so that your audience can focus on everything else you're trying to portray. Just imagine a dumb voice indignantly and slowly asking "Wait--where is this??" while you're trying to introduce a character or make a joke.  
So the 180 degree rule was first introduced to me in college during an intro to production course, also the first time I really thought about why a director or editor puts any thought into shots they take. The rule states that, when filming, your camera should never cross an imagined 2D plane that exists perpendicularly to your virtual stage. If you cross this line, the brains in your audience will have a hard time telling what's going on. Wikipedia has a nice diagram:  

Basically, blue shirt man should always be on the right of the frame and orange shirt man should always be on the left. The most regular way to shoot a scene is with a medium shot and two over the shoulder shots. Like this:

If you're scared that's a spoiler, trust me on this that it's not. Anyway, we get to see Mike's face as he disarms this guy, and this guy's face as he gets smacked with a gun, and we know exactly where they are in relation to each other because of these three nice shots. Continuity baby.
The first time I had ever heard the word "cheating" in production was doing some student films, they'd be setting up an over the shoulder shot and ask "Kyle can you cheat to the left a couple inches?" And you're kind of too embarrassed to ask what that means? It just meant scoot to the left a couple inches. It's called cheating though because you're cheating the actual physical space that existed in the previous shot to make this next shot make more sense, even though it's not actually how it was in 3-dimensional space. Continuity first.
With 2D animation you're cheating all the time since you're creating the 3D space. A lot of Adult Swim shows where they primarily use one or two preset angles for each character will just zoom in instead of redrawing the characters from a whole new angle:

Continuity is maintained because we never broke that 180 plane, and in fact we didn't rotate the camera at all, so we're definitely not confused about where the second shot takes place, and the zoom was dramatic enough that we recognize it as a new shot. (If your zoom isn't substantial enough, your audiences' brains ask "Wait what just happened??" but this does not apply to YouTube videos and so I must assume that this stipulation will disappear in 20 years)
Anime is not scared to go over the shoulder:

But as you can see, a lot of cheating going on here. The distance between these two characters shifted dramatically from one shot to the next, but we still at least get where they are in relation to one another.

Now, with Box Peek, I have 2-dimensional paper puppets in a 3-dimensional space, so things are weird. Just like with Adult Swim shows, I'm not going to redraw them at each angle, so I'll definitely employ the "Just Zoom In" method:

With the bush and part of Jordy's hair in each zoom, you're really not confused about where these characters are in relation to the previous shot. Honestly I think the entire series could have worked like this. But then I also try to do over the shoulder a lot:

Since I'm using the same puppets in the mediums and close-ups, this is extreme cheating. Ashley Madison tier. For almost every character I make on shoulder model for the camera to look over, put it nice and out of focus up front, and just pretend everything makes sense. The reason I can get away with this when Metalocalypse can't is just that Box Peek characters have little black eyes and our brains infer where they're looking. Also it's cool if I rotate the characters because we've already accepted they're all 2D puppets, but if a cartoon character rotates and suddenly becomes 2-dimensional our brains will get mad.
There's almost no reason to do these over-the-shoulder shots other than I just like the effect. If you're willing to buy in, it almost makes it feel more like this is all happening in a 3D space. It gives a rough illusion of following the 180 degree rule as film and TV does, and in doing so kind of makes the whole thing feel more dramatic. It's like when video games manufacture lens flare just because it looks cool in movies.
The reason I bring this all up this month is that Episode 6 has been a real continuity puzzle at times. There remain parts of the edit that I've resigned to figure out some other time. I'll probably show it to a couple of friends and ask if any part is particularly jarring. The 180 degree rule isn't necessarily a rule, just a nice simple guideline, and if your audience still gets what is happening then that's really all that's important.
And I mean there's also some directors who are like "I'm going to break this rule on purpose to make you uncomfortable" and most people are like "No, I feel fine and didn't notice."

Wish me luck on episode 7! It's a true doozy.

Thanks again for your support and patience,
Kyle

P.S. I'm upset that those images with three shots got cropped off at the right but I'm learning to let things like that go. I just want you to know that I see it and it bothers me too so we can be bothered together.