Film Vocab-Q1

Shot types

how much we see in a frame

Shot angles

where the camera is placed

Extreme Wide Shot

all about showing the world in which the story takes place. In an extreme wide you will see large landscapes in the frame.

Wide/long shot

puts characters in context to the backdrop you establish in an extreme wide shot. The characters can be seen from head to toe and you see them in relation to the location or each other.

Full shot

is different from the wide because it focuses more on the character in the frame. The character is full body from head to toe again, but the location is no longer the focus

Medium shot

shows your character from the waist up, often used in dialog scenes. As we get closer to our subjects we can see things that we wouldn’t catch in a wide, like body language.

Close up shot

the character’s face. In a close-up shot one can see even more detail that tells us how a character feels. A close-up highlights emotional clues in the eyes and you can see a twitch or a tear that you might miss in a medium shot.

Extreme close up

frames even tighter on a face (or subject), highlighting facial features more. It usually frames a particular part of the face like the eyes or the mouth.

medium close up

Halfway between the close-up and the medium shot is the medium close-up that frames the subject from the shoulders up.

establishing shot

to let the viewers know where they are as the story moves from location to location in a film. The establishing shot can be a mixture of shot sizes, so it is technically not a shot type.

combination shots

the truth is there are an unlimited number of shot types, and subsets of the aforementioned shots. For instance, you can have not just a high angle but an extreme high angle. You can have not just an extreme long shot but a panorama shot

Coverage

Each time the camera is moved is a new setup and each of these pieces are used to cut together your movie. What kind of coverage you get will vary from scene to scene, depending on what you want to highlight from moment to moment.

Two shot

two people in it

Interpretive mode

the one-way process of viewers analyzing and deriving meaning from a film without direct input or feedback from the filmmaker

Presentational Style

the distinctive method a speaker uses to communicate with an audience, involving factors like visual design, tone, and the way information is structured to engage listeners

Adaptation

a film made from a pre-existing work, such as a book, play, comic book, or even non-fiction, that is transferred into a cinematic medium

Mise en scène

The arrangement of objects, figures, and masses within a given space. In the cinema, that space is defined by the frame; in the live theater, usually by the proscenium arch. Mise en scène includes all the means available to a film director to express his attitude toward his subject. This takes in the placement of the actors in the setting or décor, their costumes and make-up, the angle and distance of the camera, camera movement as well as movement within the frame, the lighting, the pattern of color, and even the editing or cutting.