A Question of Angles!

   On the morning I was about to note down the dialogue for the previous piece of blog, something caught my eye. Why I had never observed this before I don’t know, possibly I just accepted it as it is. When No.22, Mark Burns, enters the office, with Andre Van Gyseghem as No.2 35 minutes into the episode, he does so from the right of the chamber! Just a minute I thought, that’s not right at all, because when No.6 enters No.2’s office in ‘Arrival’ he does so from the left of the chamber, and I checked that to be right. So I checked the rest of ‘It’s Your Funeral,’ and found when No.8 Wanda Ventham, enters No.2’s office she does so from the right, as does No.6 when he pays a call on No.2, Derren Nesbit, to warn him of an assassination plot. For a time I thought they’ve changed things round, the pair of doors now on the opposite side of the chamber because that is how it appeared to me. I attempted to show this to my wife, but she could not see it, I showed her the film of the Prisoner entering No.6’s office from the left of the chamber, and then No.22 entering the chamber from the right. She didn’t see what I meant, and I couldn’t understand why she didn’t see what I saw, to me it was as plain as a pikestaff! Morag said it’s a question of camera angles, and went on to explain that when No.22 enters No.2’s office they are filming him from left to right, when they film the Prisoner entering the chamber in ‘Arrival’ he’s filmed right to left. I still didn’t see it, and tried to force my point, to make Morag see what I saw. For her part she drew two diagrams of the two scenes, as the Prisoner enters No.2’s office in ‘Arrival’ and as No.22 enters the chamber to explain what I’m seeing. I said that’s all well and good, but the wall screen, what about he wall screen? My wife said what about he wall screen? When No.2, Andre van Gyseghem watching No.6 and Monique at the café on the screen it’s on the opposite side of the chamber, opposite the pair of doors! Well that’s how it appeared to me. And we even acted out the scene two or three times, so we could each make our point, with the television as the wall screen, and the coffee table as No.2’s desk, the lounge door as the pair of steel doors. And we were still of differing opinions.

   As for the wall screen in the office, yes it’s a different wall screen to the one which appears in earlier episodes. But it wasn’t on the opposite side of the chamber; it was where it should have been. And then the penny finally dropped! The door had not been moved, for all the scenes in No.2’s office the right to left camera angle was used, instead of right to left. However this misunderstanding on my part does raise one interesting point. The fact that the right to left camera angle as people enter No.2’s office is only used in ‘Its Your Funeral’ and in no other episode! I wonder why? Perhaps it was to give No.2’s office a different aspect simply by using a reverse camera angle. In the end I had over thought it; an idea stuck inside my head and I could not see beyond it, I was reading more into the scene that was actually there. And yet it has raised an interesting technical point, and demonstrates how sometimes articles for my blog are physically worked out!

See you soon.