Zankyou no Terror Episode 7

The Rule of Thirds is a general guideline to help with balancing a composition and avoiding splitting a picture/shot in half. This episode broke this rule with numerous centered shots to provide more tension and impact to the more significant moments. Perhaps it was bit overdone but I think most of these shots at least had a set-up and reasoning behind breaking the rule.

From left to right:

1. This was the scene where Shibazaki and his colleagues were thinking about the possibility of the authorities orchestrating the bomb threat. This last shot is Shibazaki basically confirming it.
2. A winning shot of Nine after beating Five in chess.
3. A centered shot of Five that expresses her commanding and controlling presence. This also nicely sets up the scene where she loses some control after being outwitted by Nine.
4. POV shot of Nine pointing the gun at Five. I have to admit this was a bit cheesy.
5. Probably the best rule-of-thirds breaking shot of this episode. The first encounter between Shibazaki and Nine.
6. In addition to breaking the rule, there’s shallow focus and foreground framing. Combined they frame Lisa to make her look even more helpless.
7. This sets up the first conversation between Shibazaki and Nine.
8. Five insulting Shibazaki. This and the POV shot were the most unnecessary ones.
9. Being centered accentuates Nine’s triumph and also adds some bravado to his mocking salute towards Shibazaki.

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This is a great shot. It uses foreground framing and shallow focus to frame Five in her moment of defeat. Also, the forced perspective creates an imagery of a giant gun being pointed at Five. A clever way to illustrate that in this given situation an indirect threat is better than a direct one.