Composition of Image.

Over the last week or so i have been watching various films in order to gain inspiration and influence on how film makers shoot scenes relevent to our own. Our short film involves a meal at a table, and so ive been looking for influence of how to shoot this scene.
Two very good examples of this are American Beauty and Citizen Kane.

I had imagined a fixed camera from a distance, with everything very symmetrical, this meant the table would be very open and both actors actions are very clear. American Beauty has a scene very similar to this, which can be seen below:






the camera then pans in and when the two actors are talking the camera is close up, while blurred by something in the foreground on the table.










Citizen Kane is very similar, though the layout of the surrounds and actors are slightly different. the way it is shot is alike.

The camera starts from far out and then pans into the table.










This i feel is very useful inspiration and clarification of how to shoot our film, as it confirms that how we envisioned it was a feasible way of filming it.