Film

extreme long shot

the camera is placed at a great distance from the subject, whether that subject is a human figure or an element of the land- scape.

long shot

includes a wide range of camera distances.

Medium shots

show the figure from the ankles, knees, or waist up.

extreme close-up

variation of the close-up shot. It shows only part of the human face—the eyes,

Depth of field

is the portion of the frame that is in focus in a shot.

rack- ing focus

The cinematographer also has the ability to redirect the viewer’s attention by shifting focus within the frame.

eye-level shot

The camera is placed about five or six feet off the ground so that it is level with the subject’s face.

low-angle shot

increases the perceived height of the subject. 

high-angle shot

camera is placed up high and shoots downward.

bird’s-eye shot or aerial shot

the camera is positioned high overhead— on a crane or helicopter, or atop a building or promontory.

oblique-angle or Dutch-angle shot

the camera is tilted to one side so that the horizon line is no longer horizontal, but skewed.

pan shot

the camera does not actually change location, but rather pivots from side to side on a vertical axis created by a tripod or some other piece of mount- ing equipment.

a tilt shot

the camera pivots up or down on a horizontal axis. As with a pan, the location of the camera itself does not change.

crane shot

the camera is attached to a mov- able arm mounted on a motorized vehicle.

handheld shot

is achieved without use of a tripod or any other type of stabilizing equipment.

establishing shot

s typically a long or an extreme long shot that appears early in a scene and identifies for viewers the location in which the scene’s action will unfold

180-degree rule

The technique consists of drawing an imaginary line through the scene from a bird’s-eye view and insuring that the camera always remains on one side of the line during filming.

eyeline match

h a character looks off to one side of the frame and then there is a cut to another shot indicating what the character sees.

match on action

two different shots of the same action are edited together in order to maintain continuity.

lap dissolve 

an editing transition in which one image slowly fades out while another fades in, with the two images briefly super- imposed.

cross-cutting or intercutting—

switching back and forth between shots of events taking place in multiple loca- tions.