If you saw a really great movie over the holidays, you’ll probably want to tell everyone all about it. I’m sure you’ll want to know exactly how to describe what your favorite scene looked like, and the place to start is with shot types. There are many different types of shots that cinematographers use to create exactly the look they want; different shots can be used for different purposes, drawing the audience’s attention to the things that are most important, or even acting symbolically themselves. So let’s break down some of the most popular shots you’ll see in film, TV, and video.
Establishing Shot- This very wide shot is used to introduce a new location. It generally shows the outside of the location, to the give the audience an idea of what the place looks like before the action gets going there.
Wide Shot (WS)- The Wide Shot shows a whole person, from head to toe. You can see a lot of what’s going on in a scene from a WS. Also called a Long Shot.
Medium Shot (MS)- This shows a person roughly from the torso up. Closer than a Wide Shot, but wider than a Close-Up. Obviously.
Close-Up (CU)- This iconic term refers to a shot that shows a person just above the shoulders. Close-ups are great for reaction shots, since they’re so close on a person’s face. An Extreme Close-Up (ECU) shows only the face, with basically nothing else in frame. These can often feel extremely claustrophobic, so they’re usually only used for artistic purposes. Les Miserables used a ton of these—if you left the theater feeling strangely intimately acquainted with Hugh Jackman’s face, that’s why.
Low Angle- In a Low Angle shot, the camera is below the subject, looking up at them. This is usually used to create a sense of power about the subject, whether heroic or evil. Darth Vader is often shown from a Low Angle shot, to make him look large and powerful.
High Angle- Conversely, a High Angle shot shows the subject from above. It often is used to make a character look small and isolated.
Over-the-Shoulder (OTS)- Usually used in conversations, the over-the-shoulder shot looks, well, over the shoulder of one of the subjects. The shoulder generally appears in the shot, so that the audience can tell where the shot is oriented in relation to the characters, and so that the connection between the characters is evident.
Point-of-View (POV)- The POV shot shows what the character sees, kind of in the sense of a first-person shooter video game. Horror movies are fond of these to show the perspective of the killer without revealing who it is. Think Jaws, where you just see what the shark sees slinking through the water, without seeing much of the shark itself. Granted, Spielberg only did that because the animatronic shark never worked, but it felt scary, right?
Dutch Tilt- This is a very artistic shot, where the camera is slightly tilted to one side. It’s usually used to suggest something a little off about what’s going on. Alfred Hitchcock was pretty fond of the Dutch Tilt, but probably my favorite example is in Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King, where Robin Williams’s character Parry is almost always shown with a Dutch Tilt.
Tracking Shot- Tracking shots follow a subject, and are great for showing a character moving from point A to point B. The coolest tracking shot I’ve ever seen was in an episode of True Detective; over several minutes, it showed the characters leaving their car, entering a house, moving through several rooms in the house, leaving the house through the back, jumping over a fence, and getting back in the car—without a single edit. That’s an extreme example, but tracking shots are pretty useful and common.
Tilt/Pan- These two are often confused for each other, or incorrectly used interchangeably. This is a distinction that can really help you sound like you know what you’re talking about: a tilt moves up and down, while a pan moves left and right. You can never “pan up,” nor can you “tilt left.” It’s one of those pretentious-seeming differences that this industry is so fond of.
So now that you know about some of the common types of shots you’ll see, you’ll be well-equipped to talk about that great movie you saw over the holidays and why it looked the way it did. Now see how many shot types you can identify next time you watch something!
(As a side note, sometimes it can be hard to even notice—as viewers, we’re so accustomed to seeing certain shots and certain types and rhythms of edits that we don’t even see them anymore, unless it’s something really spectacular. If you’re really interested in media production, it’s definitely worth your while to try to pay more attention to those things you may not otherwise notice; you’ll find you appreciate them so much more!)