Location Taken: Ruby Beach, Olympic National Park, Washington
Time Taken: June 2008
Such a classic scene, the sun setting over the ocean, with trees and rocks forming an intricate silhouette. Add in a couple kissing and you’d have a romance movie ending.
If you think about it, though, it’s not that common of a scene. Location-wise, that is. Time-wise, it happens many times a day, as the sun sets at various beaches. But statistically, not that much of the world is a beach. Ocean makes up 70% of the world, and land tends to be found in very large portions. It’s only where the two meet that you can find a beach where you can see the sun setting on the horizon line. Well, a sufficiently large lake can substitute for the ocean, but you get my meaning. There’s a very large percentage of the world that’s too wet or too dry for this scene.
It also has to be oriented correctly. The ocean (or lake) has to be on the west side of the scene. If it’s in the east, you get to see the sun rising at the ocean horizon instead. And while that’s pretty, it actually looks rather different. And if the ocean’s to the north or south, well, you’ve got the sun rising at the dividing line between land and sea. Now, there is a lot of wiggle room on how west it has to be, which is good because the sun actually sets in different spots during the course of a year. But still, west. Which means only, say, a fourth of the beaches out there.
So, a quarter of a very small percentage of the world, that’s really not much. So why is this scene so common in movies and the like? Well, some of it’s because we humans are drawn to the water’s edge. We build our towns and cities along these borders, seeking both the basic benefits of increased transportation options and the psychological appeal the ocean brings. So while only a small percentage of the world is a beach, we humans cluster around it.
And, of course, there’s the simplest reason for the commonality of movie scenes with a setting sun over the ocean. The place where the most influential movies have been made since nearly the start of the form is Hollywood. And guess what? Hollywood happens to be right near a large stretch of fantastic west-facing beach.
