In my recent takedown of The King’s Speech, I focused largely on director Tom Hooper’s overbearing use of "short-siding" (i.e., framing a shot so a character looks and speaks towards the edge of the frame that they are most closely positioned rather than across the length of the frame to where their partner in conversation will appear after the next cut).

As with any artistic choice available to a director, short-siding is not inherently evil. But by making it the default mode of framing in The King’s Speech, Hooper turned it into a mere gimmick—conspicuous, but never compelling. When used sparingly and with intelligence in a richly designed scene, the short-sided shot becomes a component to help convey apprehension and conflict. When used well, you may not even notice that short-siding was ever used at all.

Below are but two recent examples where short-siding was used by a director to great effect.

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Oh, lord. Here we go again. Somebody, please stop the ride. I think I’m going to throw up.

If you’ve spent anytime in a movie theatre over the last few months, you’ve no doubt been subjected to the trailer for the latest film adaptation of Les Misérables. Repeatedly. And although Anne Hathaway’s vocal performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" that plays over the teaser is truly breathtaking (without a doubt the greatest "Holy shit!" moment I had at the movies this year), the images themselves are a canted, shaky, fish-eyed mess. The biggest question for me during this year’s run of awards-contending films has not been "When will I find the time for all these movies?," but "Can I really stomach another Tom Hooper film, even if it is guaranteed to contain that performance?" I’ve never been to France, but if Hooper’s vision of Les Misérables is to be believed, it’s a place where visitors should always be on the lookout for the nearest handrail in order to avoid losing both their balance and their lunch.

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