If filmmaking is telling a story with visuals, then composing each frame is like picking just the right word. String those words together and you’ll have a sentence (or in this case a shot). So think of this post on the building blocks of visual language as a sort of “vocabulary” lesson. These may not be the most complicated words in the world, but once you master them, you’ll be more than able to communicate your point.

How to Frame Common Shots#

For the most part, when we refer to different ways to frame a shot, we refer to how close the frame is to its subject (usually an actor).

Wide Shot/Long Shot#

A wide shot or long shot (often abbreviated to WS or LS) lets you see the actor’s entire body from head to toe. Shots at this end of the spectrum are great for highlighting physical movement and posture, but struggle to communicate subtler emotions in an actor’s face.

If we’re soooo far away from the actor that you’re mostly seeing the scenery around them and can’t make out their face, this is referred to as an extreme wide or extreme long shot.

Medium Long Shot / Medium Wide Shot#

If the shot cuts off the actor around their knee so you can’t see their shins or feet, this is called a medium long shot (MLS) or medium wide shot (MWS).

Medium Shot#

If the shot cuts off the actor somewhere between their waist and chest, this is referred to as a medium shot (MS). This is a great shot if you want the ability to read an actor’s facial expression without the heightened emotional intensity that comes with a close-up.

Medium Close-Up#

If you’re only able to see the actor’s head, neck, and shoulders, you’ve moved into a medium close-up (MCU). At this point, subtle facial movements and eye twitches are going to register for the audience.

Close-Up#

The close-up (CU), as you may have guessed, is a shot that is so close to the actor so you can only see their face. Up this close, any emotion your actor shows is going to feel heightened. Close-ups are powerful tools, but can be emotionally draining for an audience so be thoughtful about when and how often you use them.

Extreme Close-Up#

If you’re so tightly framed on the actor that you’re not even seeing their whole face, this is called an extreme close-up (ECU). Perhaps you can only see their eyes or even just one eye. These shots are used to highlight something hyper-specific you don’t want the audience to miss (a blood-shot eye, a chipped tooth) or to totally hide the world behind the subject of your frame.

While the easiest way to understand these shots is by describing the frame’s relationship to people, note that these terms can be used to describe a shot of anything. A close-up of a door knob is going to show the knob itself, but very little of the door around it. A wide shot of a couch will show the entire couch plus a bit of the walls on either side.

These terms give you and your camera team a short hand to set up and frame your shot. That way the adjustments you have to make with your cinematographer will be a matter of inches (”Actually, I want this close-up to be a little bit tighter.”), rather than a matter of re-setting the camera in a totally new location (”Why is the camera thirty feet away?!?! I need to see his face.”)

Other Common Shots/Framing Terms#

Master Shot#

The master shot captures all of the action in a scene. It can be a static wide shot or it can be a moving shot that captures all the key actions from different perspectives. The important thing with a master is that you should be able to watch it without any edits and understand the events of the scene. That way, in the edit room, you have a starting point from which to cut to your other shots if you so choose.

Inserts and Cutaways#

These are crucial shots that, if remembered on set, can give the editor a lot of freedom in the cutting room. While some directors will use these two terms interchangeably, here are the two basic ideas:

An insert is a close-up to show some important action, moment, or object in the scene. Even if this image was somewhat captured in the master, the insert allows you to make it very clear to your audience what something is or what took place.

On the other hand, a cutaway is any shot that happens away from the main action. It may show us what a character is looking at or reveal what they’re thinking. Unlike an insert, a cutaway doesn’t necessarily have to take place in the same space as the shots around it.

So, why are these terms often used interchangeably? Well, let’s say you have a scene where a character is interrupted while reading. During the ensuing conversation, you need the audience to notice that the book in question is the Bible. Well, you’re going to want to get a close-up of the cover so we can clearly see the title. Now, this is clearly an insert since you’ll be able to see the book in the master and this angle will just ensure the title is clear to the audience. But let’s say in the edit, you don’t cut to the close-up directly from the master. What if you cut from a medium close-up of your speaker’s face to this shot of their book on the table? If you do that, then the insert is also a cutaway (cutting away from the face over to the table). Since you don’t know exactly how you’re going to edit this sequence while on set, either term will work.

One Shot vs. Two Shot#

A one shot (or a “single”) only shows you one person while a two shot shows you two people. This is a great way to further clarify your frame in addition to the frame’s proximity to its subject. A medium two shot is going to show both characters from the waste up while a medium single will be angled towards only one of your characters (and again, show them from the waste up).

Reverse Shot#

In a scene of two characters interacting, you’ll often hear people refer to a “shot-reverse-shot” style of editing. All this means is that you are cutting between similar angles of the two people. So if you shoot a medium shot of the bride on her wedding day, then the “reverse shot” would be a similarly framed medium shot of the groom.

Establishing shot#

This sort of shot is often edited in at the start of a scene to “establish” our location. It may be an extreme long shot of your characters in an open field or it may even be an exterior shot of an apartment building before you cut inside to show your characters moving around their apartment. These shots may not seem crucial to you on-set, but they can be incredibly helpful in creating editing transitions by letting the audience know that the location has changed.

Oner#

A favorite shot of filmmakers trying to show off their sense of style, the oner— or long take— is a shot that is intended to play out without any edits. Take a look at films like Birdman or 1917 for extreme versions of this shot (neither film is actually made up of a single oners, but they are edited to look like they are).

A oner, by definition, should function as a master, but the key difference is that with a oner, you aren’t planning to cut to any other angles. (We’d still recommend grabbing a few inserts for safety though, even though you hope and pray you don’t have to use them).

POV Shots#

P.O.V. stands for “point of view” so a POV shot is any shot where the camera is assuming someone’s point of view and only sees what they see.

Clean and Dirtied Frames#

A clean frame is when there is nothing between the lens and the subject. However, if you put something or someone in the foreground (even if they’re out of focus), then that object or person is said to be “dirtying the frame.”

While the benefits of a clean frame are pretty straightforward—you can see the subject of your shot without obstruction—the benefits of a dirtied frame may be less clear. However, a well dirtied frame can have a number of effects.

1. It can create spacial awareness since the audience can see the relationship between the shot’s subject and the thing doing the dirtying.
2. It can create a sense of documentary-like naturalism since it doesn’t look like objects were moved beforehand to calculate the shot.
3. Or it can even create a sense of unease, like the camera is hiding behind something to get this particular shot of your subject.

Over the Shoulder#

An over the shoulder (OTS) is a shot commonly used in conversation scenes. Sometimes just called “overs” these shots are usually mediums or medium close-ups of one person while their conversation partner’s shoulder, head, and/or back dirties the frame.

Headroom#

Headroom refers to how much space there is between the top of a character’s head and the top of the frame. General practice is to give actors a bit of headroom but not too much. That way, they can shift around without moving in and out of frame.

However, if you give your subject too much headroom, this can create a sense of emptiness in your frame’s composition (a bad thing unless it was done on purpose). On the flip side, if you give your character no headroom at all and begin to cut off the tops of their head, this can create a sense of intensity or emotional intimacy. This technique is often referred to as giving the actor “a haircut.”

Rule of Thirds#

While not an absolute rule (remember: there are no rules in art!), the Rule of Thirds can be a helpful starting place when composing your image. It works like this: if you divide your frame into thirds both horizontally and vertically (creating nine segments overall), then the most visually compelling places to focus your images are on the lines and the intersections of those lines.

Note how our character is standing right along one of the vertical lines with their eyes very close to an intersection between that vertical line and one of the horizontals.

Again, this isn’t an exact science, but it can be a guiding principal when you first start framing your shots. In fact, many camera have the ability to put a nine-rectangle grid on your viewfinder so you can more easily frame your shot around the Rule of Thirds.

Shot List#

As the name suggests, this is a list of shots that you hope to capture on a day of shooting. Each shot on the list comes with a short description as well as its framing (MS vs MCU vs CU, etc) and any equipment required (a specific lens, a dolly track, a certain light). For many directors, the shot list is an essential part of planning done either instead of or in tandem with storyboarding.

If you’re working with a cinematographer, you’ll want to create the shot list with them. The shot list then should be given to anyone on set who needs it— particularly the lighting and camera team. If you’re working with an Assistant Director, they’ll also need to see your shot list in advance for scheduling, but that’s something we’ll discuss in another post (LINK TO: On Set Direction and How to Run a DIY Set).

Coverage and the 180 Rule#

Whether you do it in pre-production with a shot list (which you should!) or you’re just finding it in the moment, at some point you have to decide what shots you need in order to edit together a scene. Now you’ll likely already have a version of this scene in your head, and you’ll definitely want to shoot those shots. But you’ll also want to get some other shots: shots that you’re not 100% sure how to use, but which may prove to be good ingredients to have in the editing room.

Shooting the scene from all these different angles is referred to as “covering a scene” and all these different shots are known as “coverage.”

The 180 Rule#

Have you ever had this experience? You shoot a scene from a variety of different angles: wide shots, medium shots, close-ups. When you’re done, you take the footage home and try to edit it together, but find that when played in sequence, the shots seem incoherent. There are no continuity mistakes, no mismatches in lighting, and no performance issues, and yet every time you cut from Shot A to Shot B, you find it jarring or disorienting. If this sounds familiar, then you may have broken the 180 rule.

The 180 rule works like this: once you place the camera for the first shot of the scene you’ve created an imaginary 180 degree line that you shouldn’t cross when placing the camera for future shots. As long as you place the camera on the correct side of the line, the scene will edit together coherently. However if you “cross the line,” suddenly the footage won’t cut together as seamlessly.

Let’s take a bird’s-eye view of a scene in which two people sit on either side of a table. If you place the camera like this...

...then you’ll have a shot that looks something like this:

Note that the Man in Orange is on the right side looking across the frame towards the left. Meanwhile, the Man in Blue is on the left side looking towards frame right. So, going back to our bird’s-eye view, your 180 line is going to look like this:

If you place the camera anywhere on the green side of the line, you’ll be fine. Anywhere on the red side of the line and you’ll be breaking the rule. So for the sake of our example, let’s have three more camera set-ups in the following places (all on the correct side of the line):

Those will lead to shots that look roughly like this:

Note how in every single shot, the Man in Blue is on the left side of frame looking right while the Man in Orange is always on the right side looking across the frame to his left. No matter what order you choose to edit these shots, the characters will always be in roughly the same spot and looking in roughly the same direction. This is the 180 rule in action.

Breaking the 180 Rule#

So can this rule be broken? Of course! But this must be done intentionally. For example, the effect of “crossing the line” can be one of disorientation that totally changes the feel of a scene. For example, if you plan to cross the line once Character A dumps Character B, the disorientation from the cut can mirror the way Character B is feeling. However, if you know you’re going to do this, then make sure you shoot coverage for the post-dump half of the scene on the other side of the line so that you’re not then crossing back and forth every time you go from a wide to a medium.

Other times, the line must be crossed for logistical reasons. For example, let’s say at the beginning of the scene, you need to draw our attention to something on one side of the room, but then by the end of the scene you need our attention back to the other side. The best way to do this kind of line crossing—where you want to minimize any disorientation—is through movement. That can be literal movement of the camera across the line without cutting. Or it can be by cutting across the line on some motion of a character. We get into this more in our post on editing (LINK), but if you cut on a particularly strong movement in the frame, the audience will be more oriented on the other side of the cut. For example, if someone stands up in frustration, you may plan to cut across the line at the moment they begin to stand up. The audience won’t be as disoriented because even though we’ve flipped 180 degrees, we still have the continuity our character rocketing up out of their chair to orient ourselves in this new frame.

Ordering Your Shots: Start with Your Master and Move In#

So we’ve covered why you want to do all of your coverage on one side of the line. But what sort of coverage do you need? Well, when crafting your shot list, you should always start with a master shot that shows all the action of your scene. For our two-person table scene, let’s say your master shot is just going to be a static (unmoving) wide two shot of the men and the table:

With your whole scene captured in this master, it’s time to move in for the coverage of your two performers. Traditionally, you’ll want to pick one performer and shoot all of their coverage before moving on to the other performer and shooting theirs. This is a matter of practicality. Lighting and equipment adjustments are going to be relatively minor if you’re just moving the camera closer to the same actor. However, if you were to shoot Actor A’s Medium, then Actor B’s Medium, then Actor A’s Close-Up; you’d be totally turning around all the lights, equipment, and crew between every single shot. If you cover Actor A entirely, and then switch to B, you only have to do a big adjustment once.

So let’s say we want to cover our Man in Orange first and you get a Clean Medium Shot, an Over-the-Shoulder Medium Close-Up, and a Close-Up.

After you’re done there, you’ll want to flip everything around and capture your reverse shots looking at the Man in Blue:

At this point, all might seem done, but don’t forget your inserts and cutaways! It’s often helpful to get these shots even if you don’t think you need them to make your job in the edit room easier.

For example, let’s say during this scene, the Man in Blue is telling an elaborate lie that he must sell as the truth or face dire consequences. Let’s also say he is smoking a cigarette. In your head, you always imagined the end of these scene as one unbroken close-up of the Man in Blue’s face, but after shooting it, you have a problem. The first half of the speech is better in take one, but the second half is better in take three. Well, if you were smart enough to get an insert shot of the cigarette in the ash tray, you can briefly cut to this in between your two shots. That way, you can still play the scene all in close-up rather than having to cut out wider which would let out some of the tension.

Once you’ve created your shot list, you and your cinematographer can create an overhead shooting scheme. Here you show a bird’s-eye view of the room with all the different places you’re planning to put the camera. So for the shots we just listed the overhead would look like this:

That’s eight different camera set-ups for a simple two-person dialogue scene! If that seems like too much for one day, you can always cut some of your shots out of the plan. For example, if the Man in Blue is your main character and the emotional crux of the scene, you may fully cover him, but then only shoot the medium shot of the Man in Orange in order to save time. With just one decision, you’ve cut your coverage down to a more manageable six shots.

Getting More Complicated and Wrapping Up#

And with that, you have a nice starting place for framing your shots and covering your scenes. However, that’s all this is: A starting point. As you continue to hone your craft, these static shots won’t be enough for you, and you’ll start planning movements within your shots. Perhaps the shot starts as a wide shot but then dollies in towards the character until we’re in a close-up. Or perhaps you start in an extreme close-up and then zoom out to a medium to show us who/what we were looking at. Or maybe the camera doesn’t move at all! Perhaps the camera stays stationary, but the character paces back and forth so the exact same frame can be a wide shot, then a medium shot, and then a wide again.

Then once you get the hang of moving your camera or your actors, maybe you’ll find ways to move both the camera and the actors for maximum effect. This “vocab lesson” was a starting point, but the “words” you can use to tell your stories are endless.