54 Grammar of the Shot

The Third Dimension

As we have said, the lm or video camera captures a at, two-dimensional image and
the movie theatre, television, and computer screens display a at, two-dimensional
image. So how is it that when we watch television and, more noticeably, movies on
very large theatre screens that the elements of the frame (either static or moving) seem
to occupy a three-dimensional space? Well, the simple answer is to say that this phe-
nomenon is achieved through visual illusions and tricks for the human eye and brain.
There are many more in-depth physiological and psychological reasons, but this is not
the appropriate place to explore those topics fully. Feel free to do your own research on
the human visual system and how we interpret light, color, motion, depth, and so forth.

What we can discuss briey is how our human visual system differs from the visual
system of a lm or video camera. On the most simplistic level it comes down to how
many lenses get used to create the image. Humans have two eyes on the front of their
heads, and the eyes are spaced several inches apart from one another. This congura-
tion results in binocular vision (bi meaning two and ocular referring to the eye).
Binocular vision allows us to establish depth in our visual space by causing us to see
the same objects from two separate vantage points. Each eye sees the same objects
from slightly different horizontal positions and therefore captures a slightly different

FIGURE 3.1 Each eyes vantage point helps create the illusion of 3D depth. Test this yourself by holding any 3D
object about 1.5 feet in front of your face, making sure that it is askew and not perfectly at to your vision, then
alternately open one eye and look at the object and then close that eye and open the other eye to see the same
objectnote how the two views of this close object are different.