The coverage shots
The Establishing Shot - is a shot that shows the locale of the scene. This
familiarizes the audience with where the scene is taking place.
The Master Shot - is wide enough to include all the actors. If you are shooting on
film and have a very small budget this may be the only shot you can get.
Wide Shot - moves in closer but still includes most of the body of the actors. This
may be a single grouping of a few of the actors in a larger crowd scene when you
want to concentrate on a single conversation.
Two-Shot - shows two characters related to one another usually from the waist up.
A Three Shot is three actors, a Four-Shot is four actors and so on.
Over-the-Shoulder - is a medium or close up shot including 2 actors taken over the
shoulder of one actor and showing the face of the other actor. When it shows the
actors shoulder it is considered a dirty single.
The two-shot is probably the most common shot in movies. The usual technique is to
cut back and forth between two over-the-shoulder shots of the actors like the image
above.
The worst way to film a two-shot is to line up the actors facing each other at a
normal conversational distance as in the following image.
The camera is too far away and the profile of the actors doesn't show their
expressions very well. A better solution is to move the actors closer than they would
normally stand and have them cheat to camera (turn their bodies to face the camera
slightly). Also, have them turn their heads slightly toward the camera and look at the
ear of the other actor that is closest to the camera rather than the other actor's
eyes.
This adjusting of positioning to give a better angle for the camera is called
"cheating". You can see how the following image looks a little better than the
previous image when we "cheat" the actors toward the camera.
We are able to get closer and see their faces better, but it still looks natural to the
camera. Another common "cheat" is to have both actors face the camera while they
talk. Few people spend a lot of time facing like this in real conversations but it works
well in a movie. Any view of an actor that is face-on or in profile is not as good as
having the face in a three-quarter view like the actors in the following image.
Compare this third image to the first one to see how much closer we are to the
actors and how we can now see their faces very clearly. Placing actors within the
frame to best tell the story is part of the art of blocking and staging.
As you watch movies be aware of the various ways that actors are positioned and
angled to keep their conversations interesting.
Medium Shot - is a shot showing an actor from the waist up.
Close-up - is a shot from the actors neck up. Sometime a close-up is a little looser
and includes the actor's shoulders.
Any image involving a single actor, or any moving object, needs to have some visual
space in front of it within the frame like the following, to give a sense of dynamics.
Putting the actor in the middle of the frame looks static and feels like a snapshot.
Having more space behind the actor than in front feels like the actor has left, or is
leaving, the scene, and just feels uncomfortable.
Even when the actor is facing away from the camera, having more space in front still
gives the feeling that the actor is in the frame.
More space behind the actor again feels like they are out of the scene.
Extreme Close-up - is so close that only part of the actor's face is visible. This
angle can be used very powerfully at highly emotional moments. Save the extreme
close-up for such emotional moments.
Insert - is a shot of something other than the actors that will be edited into the
scene, for example: a ticking clock. Insert shots can save the editing of a scene if
you later discover you don't have the right angle to transition between to shots. Put
the insert in between and the transition looks smooth.
P.O.V. - means Point Of View. This shot is intended to show the audience what one
of the characters is seeing, i.e. from the character's point of view. Point-of-view is
discussed in the previous section.