Cinematography (Types Of Shots) Flashcards
General points
❣️ Cinematography (the framing and design of shots) encompasses a range processes and techniques that come together to give the film its visual look and convey messages and values. ❣️ The five key areas of cinematography are: • Shot types and camera angles (from which viewpoint we see the camera) • Camera movement (how the camera moves around the action) • Lighting (how the shot is lit) • Colour (how colour is used to communicate additional information) • Composition (the way people and objects are placed within the shot the ❣️Other aspects to be considered are: • Film stock: 16mm, 35mm, 70mm, 3D, IMAX (although, today, shooting digitally is the primary method) • Aspect ratio: the standard ratios in use are 2:35:1 or 1:85:1. 2.35:1 is usually used for action/blockbusters, 1:85:1 for character-led films. 4:3 was the standard until the 1950s • Frame rate: the standard is 24 frames per second (fps), but there have been 48fps and 120fps releases
ELS
❣️ Extreme long shot (ELS) or establishing shot ❣️ Filmed from a very long way away, an extreme long shot will often be a view of an exterior location. ❣️ It is often used as an establishing shot to show a panoramic view of where the film is set. ❣️ Such shots are the cinematographer’s equivalent a landscape painting: full of shape and hue but with little precise detail, although usually just enough to provide clues to the film’s genre and setting.
LS
❣️ Long shot ❣️ A long shot clearly features the main character or characters, but will also offer a fair amount of background. ❣️ This shot is useful for showing us who the central characters in the scene are and where it is set
MLS
❣️ Medium-Long shot ❣️ A medium-long shot focuses on the main part of the characters, but probably cuts them off at the knees. It can be comfortably used to show two figures walking, talking, dancing, etc.
MS
❣️ Medium shot or mid-shot ❣️ A medium shot, or mid-shot, shows a character’s upper body, arms and head. ❣️ If there are two figures they will have to be quite close to each other in order to fit them both in the shot. ❣️ This sort of shot therefore implies a certain intimacy between characters and between the characters and the viewers.
MCU
❣️ Medium close-up ❣️ A medium close-up (MCU) is used to direct the viewer’s attention entirely onto one character by focusing on their head and shoulders. ❣️ This shot is used to deliver powerful/emotional lines of dialogue or for more nuanced facial expressions
CU
❣️ Close-Up ❣️ A close-up is perhaps the most important shot in the development of cinematography and the moment that the power is taken away from the viewer. ❣️ The director is drawing attention to where they want you to focus ❣️ This is a shot where the whole of the actor’s face fills the full frame while showing their emotions, delivering key lines or simply showing their best side.
ECU
❣️ Extreme close-up ❣️ Extreme close-ups (ECUS) get you almost too close to an actor, allowing the viewer into the character’s intimate space to reveal detail or emotions that would go unnoticed. ❣️ Developments in macro-photography have enabled extreme close-ups of individual flecks of colour in an actor’s iris or something reflected in them.
Further information
❣️ Deep focus shot has a great depth of field from front to back, with the foreground, middle ground and background all remaining in sharp focus. ❣️ The placement of objects or actors in the plane of vision allows for the manipulation of size and scale. ❣️ If an object in the foreground looms larger than anything else in the frame then this is likely to be of greater importance. ❣️ The opposite is shallow focus, where the small depth field has one plane in focus (i.e. the foreground) and the background out of focus. ❣️ The eye will be drawn to the object or actor in the foreground that is in sharp focus, rather than blurred image in the background
