Over-the-Shoulder Shot

What this is about

Two chairs, two people talking: the default coverage is a pair of over-the-shoulders plus singles. The foreground shoulder anchors both characters in one space, keeps screen direction readable and gives the editor clean back-and-forth. On set the pair is shot one side at a time — shoot out one direction, then turn around — so continuity of drinks, hands and hair has to hold across the turnaround. Depth of field decides how present the foreground shoulder is; too sharp and it competes with the face.

A term only helps when everyone on set means the same thing by it — so what follows is how it is used, not a dictionary definition.

What runs differently here

In planning terms, that means:

• OTS and single alternate in dialogue coverage; the OTS keeps connection, the single isolates.
• Both OTS angles should mirror each other in size and height, or the cut feels lopsided.
• The foreground shoulder is often a stand-in when the schedule splits the pair across the day.

With TillyGen

For dialogue scenes Tilly AI drafts the OTS pair with matching sizes in the TillyGen shot list — symmetric by default.

Change one constraint and the consequences travel through the whole plan: affected shots are flagged, the call sheet is regenerated, and nobody keeps working from yesterday's version.