Camera shots
A camera shot is the amount of space that is seen in one shot or frame. Camera shots are used to demonstrate different aspects of a film's setting, characters and themes. As a result, camera shots are very important in shaping meaning in a film.
Aerial Shot
An exterior shot filmed from — hey! — the air. Often used to establish a (usually exotic) location. All films in the '70s open with one — FACT.
Arc Shot
A shot in which the subject is circled by the camera. Beloved by Brian De Palma, Michael Bay
.Bridging Shot
A shot that denotes a shift in time or place, like a line moving across an animated map. That line has more air miles than Richard Branson.
Close Up
A shot that keeps only the face full in the frame. Perhaps the most important building block in cinematic storytelling.
Medium Shot
The shot that utilizes the most common framing in movies, shows less than a long shot, more than a close-up.
Long Shot
A shot that depicts an entire character or object from head to foot. Not as long as an establishing shot. Aka a wide shot.
Cowboy Shot
A shot framed from mid thigh up, so called because of its recurrent use in Westerns. When it comes, you know Clint Eastwood is about to shoot your ass.
Deep Focus
A shot that keeps the foreground, middle ground and background ALL in sharp focus. Beloved by Orson Welles (and cinematographer Gregg Toland). Production designers hate them. Means they have to put detail in the whole set.
Dolly Zoom
A shot that sees the camera track forward toward a subject while simultaneously zooming out creating a woozy, vertiginous effect. Initiated in Hitchcock's Vertigo (1959), it also appears in such scarefests as Michael Jackson's Thriller video (1983), Shaun Of The Dead (2004), The Evil Dead (1981) and The Goofy Movie (1995). It is the cinematic equivalent of the phrase "Uh-oh".
Dutch Tilt
A shot where the camera is tilted on its side to create a kooky angle. Often used to suggest disorientation. Beloved by German Expressionism, Tim Burton, Sam Raimi and the designers of the villains hideouts in '60s TV Batman.
Establishing Shot
The clue is in the name. A shot, at the head of the scene, that clearly shows the locale the action is set in. Often comes after the aerial shot. Beloved by TV directors and thick people.
Handheld Shot
A shot in which the camera operator holds the camera during motion to create a jerky, immediate feel. Beloved by Steven Soderbergh and Paul Greengrass. It basically says, "This is real life, baby".
Low Angle Shot
A shot looking up at a character or subject often making them look bigger in the frame. It can make everyone look heroic and/or dominant. Also good for making cities look empty.
High Angle Shot
A shot looking down on a character or subject often isolating them in the frame. Nothing says Billy No Mates like a good old high angle shot.
Locked-Down Shot
A shot where the camera is fixed in one position while the action continues off-screen. It says life is messy and can not be contained by a camera. Beloved by Woody Allen and the dolly grips who can take the afternoon off.
Library Shot
A pre-existing shot of a location — typically a wild animal — that is pulled from a library. Aka a "stock shot", it says this film is old. Or cheap.
Matte Shot
A shot that incorporates foreground action with a background, traditionally painted onto glass, now created in a computer. Think the Raiders warehouse or the Ewok village or Chris Hewitt's house.
Money Shot
A shot that is expensive to shoot but deemed worth it for its potential to wow, startle and generate interest. In pornography, it means something completely different.
Over-The-Shoulder Shot
A shot where the camera is positioned behind one subject's shoulder, usually during a conversation. It implies a connection between the speakers as opposed to the single shot that suggests distance.
Pan
A shot where the camera moves continuously right to left or left to right. An abbreviation of "panning". Turns up a lot in car chases and on You've Been Framed (worth £250 if they use a clip).
POV shot
A shot that depicts the point of view of a character so that we see exactly what they see. Often used in Horror cinema to see the world through a killer's eyes.
The Sequence Shot
A long shot that covers a scene in its entirety in one continuous sweep without editing.
Steadicam Shot
A shot from a hydraulically balanced camera that allows for a smooth, fluid movement. Around since the late '70s, invented by Garrett Brown. Beloved by Stanley Kubrick, Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuaron. A lengthy Steadicam shot is the directorial equivalent of "Look ma, no hands!"
Tilt
A shot where the camera moves continuously Up to Down or Down To Up. A vertical panning shot. A tilt to the sky is traditionally a last shot in a movie.
Tracking Shot
A shot that follows a subject be it from behind or alongside or in front of the subject. Not as clumsy or random as a panning shot, an elegant shot for a more civilized age. Beloved by Stanley Kubrick, Andrei Tarkovsky, Terence Davies, Paul Thomas Anderson.
Crane Shot
A shot where the camera is placed on a crane or jib and moved up or down. Think a vertical tracking shot. Beloved by directors of musicals. Often used to highlight a character's loneliness or at the end of a movie, the camera moving away as if saying goodbye.
Zoom
A shot deploying a lens with a variable focal length that allows the cinematographer to change the distance between camera and object without physically moving the camera. Also see Crash Zooms that do the same but only quicker.
Whip Pan
A shot that is the same as a pan but is so fast that picture blurs beyond recognition. Usually accompanied by a whoosh sound. Beloved by Sam Raimi and Edgar Wright.
Editing
Cut A visual transition created in editing in which one shot is instantaneously replaced on screen by another.
Continuity editingEditing that creates action that flows smoothly across shots and scenes without jarring visual inconsistencies. Establishes a sense of story for the viewer.
Cross cutting
Cutting back and forth quickly between two or more lines of action, indicating they are happening simultaneously.
Dissolve A gradual scene transition. The editor overlaps the end of one shot with the beginning of the next one.
Editing The work of selecting and joining together shots to create a finished film.
Errors of continuity Disruptions in the flow of a scene, such as a failure to match action or the placement of props across shots.
Establishing shot A shot, normally taken from a great distance or from a "bird's eye view," that establishes where the action is about to occur.
Eyeline match
The matching of eyelines between two or more characters. For example, if Sam looks to the right in shot A, Jean will look to the left in shot B. This establishes a relationship of proximity and continuity.
Fade A visual transition between shots or scenes that appears on screen as a brief interval with no picture. The editor fades one shot to black and then fades in the next. Often used to indicate a change in time and place.
Final cut The finished edit of a film, approved by the director and the producer. This is what the audience sees.
Iris Visible on screen as a circle closing down over or opening up on a shot. Seldom used in contemporary film, but common during the silent era of Hollywood films.
Jump cut A cut that creates a lack of continuity by leaving out parts of the action.
Matched cut A cut joining two shots whose compositional elements match, helping to establish strong continuity of action.
Montage Scenes whose emotional impact and visual design are achieved through the editing together of many brief shots. The shower scene from Psycho is an example of montage editing.
Rough cut
The editor's first pass at assembling the shots into a film, before tightening and polishing occurs.
Sequence shot A long take that extends for an entire scene or sequence. It is composed of only one shot with no editing.
Shot reverse shot cuttingUsually used for conversation scenes, this technique alternates between over-the-shoulder shots showing each character speaking.
Wipe Visible on screen as a bar travelling across the frame pushing one shot off and pulling the next shot into place. Rarely used in contemporary film, but common in films from the 1930s and 1940s.
Sound
Diegetic sound
Sound whose source is visible on the screen or whose source is implied to be present by the action of the film:
- voices of characters
- sounds made by objects in the story
- music represented as coming from instruments in the story space ( = source music)
Diegetic sound is any sound presented as originated from source within the film's world
Digetic sound can be either on screen or off screen depending on whatever its source is within the frame or outside the frame.
Another term for diegetic sound is actual sound
Non-diegetic sound
Sound whose source is neither visible on the screen nor has been implied to be present in the action:
- narrator's commentary
- sound effects which is added for the dramatic effect
- mood music
Non-diegetic sound is represented as coming from the a source outside story space. The distinction between diegetic or non-diegetic sound depends on our understanding of the conventions of film viewing and listening. We know of that certain sounds are represented as coming from the story world, while others are represented as coming from outside the space of the story events. A play with diegetic and non-diegetic conventions can be used to create ambiguity (horror), or to surprise the audience (comedy).
Another term for non-diegetic sound is commentary sound.
MISE-EN-SCENE
Mise en scène encompasses the most recognizable attributes of a film – the setting and the actors; it includes costumes and make-up, props, and all the other natural and artificial details that characterize the spaces filmed. The term is borrowed from a French theatrical expression, meaning roughly “put into the scene”. In other words, mise-en-scène describes the stuff in the frame and the way it is shown and arranged.
Setting creates both a sense of place and a mood and it may also reflect a character’s emotional state of mind. It can be entirely fabricated within a studio – either as an authentic re-construction of reality or as a whimsical fiction – but it may also be found and filmed on-location. In the following image, from Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (2006), the ornate décor evokes 17th century France and the castle of Versailles. But here the baroque detailing overwhelms the character, conveying her despair. The actress’s position in relation to the objects within the frame suggests that, as a pawn in the dynastic enterprise, Marie Antoinette is little more than a footstool.
LIGHTING
Three-Point Lighting
This arrangement of key, fill, and backlight provides even illumination of the scene and, as a result, is the most commonly used lighting scheme in typical narrative cinema. The light comes from three different directions to provide the subject with a sense of depth in the frame, but not dramatic enough to anything deeper than light shadows behind the subject.
Blake Edward’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) applied the three-point lighting technique to illuminate scenes. Though the subjects of the frame (Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard) are properly highlighted, faint shadows are visible in the background, adding to the depth of frame.
High-Key Lighting
High-key lighting involves the fill lighting (used in the three-point technique at a lower level) to be increased to near the same level as the key lighting. With this even illumination, the scene appears very bright and soft, with very few shadows in the frame. This style is used most commonly in musicals and comedies, especially of the classic Hollywood age.
Low-Key Lighting
Low-key lighting is the technical opposite of the high-key arrangement, because in low-key the fill light is at a very low level, causing the frame to be cast with large shadows. This causes stark contrasts between the darker and lighter parts of the framed image, and for much of the subject of the shot to be hidden behind in the shadows. This lighting style is most effective in film noir productions and gangster films, as a very dark and mysterious atmosphere is created from this obscuring light.
One of the most noted for their use of low-key lighting in their films was Orson Welles. Used extensively throughout his film noir Touch of Evil(1958), Welles also featured low-key lighting in several scenes of Citizen Kane (1941).
COSTUME
Costume can include both makeup or wardrobe choices used to convey a character’s personality or status, and to signify these differences between characters. Costume is an important part of signifying the era in which the film is set and advertising that era’s fashions.
SPACE
Deep Space
A movie uses deep space when there are important components in the frame located both close to and far from the camera.
It is used to emphasize the distance between objects and/or characters, as well as any obstacles that exist between them. In Finding Nemo, there is an ongoing juxtaposition between the tank in the dentist’s office and the ocean. In this image, Nemo and Gill are discussing the possibility that Nemo’s father, Marlin, might be waiting for him in the harbor, which is visible in the distance. Deep space is used in this frame to stress how far away Nemo is from his father and the barriers separating them.
Shallow Space
The opposite of deep space is shallow space.
In shallow space, the image appears flat or two dimensional, because there is little or no depth. In this image from Finding Nemo, the whale is approaching Dory and Marlin from behind, which creates suspense for the viewer, because the fish are unaware of the whale’s presence. There is a loss of realism, but it enhances the viewing by emphasizing the close proximity of the whale to Dory and Marlin and creating concern in the viewers that they may soon be eaten.
Amy takes drugs to school
The toilet is cover in graffiti,
signifying law breaking as they are talking about drugs, this environment has
been used well to demonstrate they live in a poor area and most kids are like
this.
This shot has been recorded at head
height, a close up of the girls and pans from one girl to the other, and then
stays static at the second girl for a second, this demonstrates how the editor
wants the audience to feel as if they are in this toilet with them, and the
camera almost acting as a POV shot, from the way the hand held camera moves, we
are meant to be in this situation, as the camera like a human, focuses on the
main person talking, the pan almost acts as our head moving to focus on the
other girl talking.
but reversed. This shot has been recorded at
head height, a close up of the girls and pans from one girl to the other, and
then stays static at the second girl for a second, this demonstrates how the
editor wants the audience to feel as if they are in this toilet with them,
again handheld, but differently the camera pans over to the other girls again,
this quick motion connotates that the environment is getting more tense,
foreshadowing something is going to happen, there is a definite trend building
as the shots are getting quicker in cuts and camera movement gets faster.
After the pan, it is a quick cut to the
next shot, another close up at head height, this editing may have been used as
a fault with the scene, as this is obviously a different take, as only one
camera is in that cubical, this almost acts as a blink, as the long shot which
panned twice, for a person they may have blinked, referring to this idea of
cinematography making the audience feel like they are present in this cubical.
The next shot is a high angle medium
shot of the two girls, this is similar to the first shot of the two girls,
demonstrating that these drugs will not get them anywhere in life, they are
still where they begin in the clip and drugs will only hinder their life. The
toilet is cover in graffiti, signifying law breaking as they are talking about
drugs, this environment has been used well to demonstrate they live in a poor
area. 
The next shot is a head height over the
shoulder shot, it sees the girls move out of the cubical into the area of the
girl, this demonstrates that these drug takers have no real place in society
and have to enter a place they aren’t welcome in, where this blonde girl is comfortable
and welcome in, signifying to the audience that drugs ruins your life.
These two shots have
straight editing cuts through them, these switch to view the person talking,
the rhythm of these shots are fast, the fast tempo signifies that this is a
quick argument, both people trying to be as quick in their repsonse, the first
shot is a over the head shot, head height of the blonde girl and also a
heandheld camera, and the other shot isnt a over head shot, slightly over eye
height and also handheld, the use of only one of the shots being over the
shoulder demonstrates how the camera is
at the other persons POV, witnessing the argument, but due to this fast tempo
cant join in as the tempo is too fast to intervine, as from her POV, the
audience is meant to feel stress and anger as in her perspective we can almost
empathise for the character not involved. This intereaction happens until the
end of the clip.
