STORY-TELLING: 180 RULE

The 180 rule is where you position the camera in a scene is where you place the audience in the scene. As an example of this we watched a scene from the film 'Good Will Hunting' which has two characters talking and we see a good amount of coverage from basically 3 different shots. The 180 rule is basically an invisible line which is where you can place the camera and the scene will work. This line is known as the 'Line of Action'.

As you can see from this photo, the line of action is where you can't cross, once the line has been drawn, you can make a 180 degree shape and you can then place the camera in any place within the 180 and it'll work with the scene. The way that this rule gets established is we get an establishing shot which has the characters standing and facing the ways that they need to be and then it cuts together and works well if the rule has been followed. What the audience see's matters, if the rule is going to change then the audience needs to see it otherwise it won't make sense. 

This rule can be 'broken' in a sense with a tracking or moving shot. If you've got a camera moving through the scene then the audience will understand and follow along with the scene and it will make sense. The rule has been known to be broken for stylistic reasons, "Rules are made to be broken" is a famous quote and this can happen here as well. A good example of the rule being broken is from 'The Shining' directed by Stanley Kubrick. The scene below is where this rules gets broken.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc0_SYZJfzU

As you can see from this, the camera jumps behind and tries to throw the audience off but it works with the scene since this is where the main character is starting to go crazy and we can see it as the audience. It helps show that madness with the mixture of the acting and the bright red room.