Jan 15 2008
Movement in motion - left to right
On the escalators depicted above most of us will see the person on the left as going up, and the person on the right as going down - why is that? The usual explanation is that we read books left to right so we read images the same way.
It seems just as likely that we write left to right because of some more instinctive disposition, that long predates reading and writing.
If our eyes enter from the left of the screen they will tend to settle more comfortably on the right.
So in most images placing the focus of attention on the right of the screen will produce a more harmonious composition.
Placing people or objects towards the right of the screen lends them more significance.
David Letterman, Jay Leno and Jonathan Ross all sit on the right of the screen. Bill Moyers, Larry King and Michael Parkinson on the left. The star sits on the right.
What happens when you move the hero from top right to bottom left? You break the rule. On the contrast-affinity continuum you move from affinity to contrast - from comfortable/ familiar to edgy/dissonant.
In that sense the left-right rule is like all the other shooting/editing rules - it is not about good video/bad video or even good composition/bad composition. It’s about harmony/intensity.
Flower photo from Bryan Peterson’s Learning to see creatively
Leonard Shlain gives a thought-provoking insight of his own into these visual paradoxes in his book Art and Physics. Recommended read for how the two lobes of the brain interpret data and images.
Right side dominance would rear its head in an animated discussion in the 90s over seating arrangements on shows, if I remember well, such as, The Big Breakfast.
Through out its run of different presenters e.g. Chris Evans, the men always sat on the left hand side and the women, the right.
great BB clip David - glad to see the cheeky chappie persona has lost none of its allure to Brit audiences.
Tony Blackburn lives!