Writing About Film by Jules LeFort-Cleary: Film Vocabulary

Types of Shots

A shot is any continuous stretch of film occurring between cuts or edits. 

The camera’s point of view automatically tells you something about how a film’s creators intend viewers to perceive a setting or subject. Below are terms to describe a subject’s spatial relationship to the camera.  

• Close-up: The camera is a very short distance away from the subject. This is used to depict detail. Close-ups of faces are common (usually to show an important expression or reaction), but the term also applies when the camera is very close to any body part or object. 
• Medium Shot: The camera is a middle distance away from the subject, focusing on the subject while still conveying contextual or background information. If the subject is a person, the shot typically encompasses their head and shoulders. This is often used in dialogue scenes. 
• Long Shot: The camera is a long distance from any identifiable subject, or is encompassing an overall view of a setting or scene. Long shots are often used at the beginning of new scenes as establishing shots that orient the viewer in a new setting. If the subject of the shot is a person, their whole body is usually visible.
• High-Angle Shot: The camera looks down on a subject. Often used to make the subject appear powerless, vulnerable, or overwhelmed by their surroundings.
• Low-Angle Shot: The camera looks up at a subject. Often used to make the subject appear powerful or threatening, or otherwise increase their sense of importance. 
• Reverse Shot: The camera cuts from one shot to show the opposite view of the previous shot. This is often used in dialogue sequences to track who is speaking and put the viewer in the place of the interlocutor. 
• Point of View Shot: The camera sees what a particular character sees.
• Static Shot: The camera is stationary for the entire length of the shot, performing none of the movements discussed in the next section.
• Dynamic Shot: At some point in the course of the shot, the camera performs one of the movements discussed in the next section.  

Cuts & Other Postproduction Transitions

A cut is a break between two shots. After filmmakers have gathered sufficient raw film, in postproduction they choose which shots will make up the finished product, and how to best transition between them. The term “cutting” comes from the old process of physically slicing rolls of film. Much of this editing process happens digitally today, but we still use the same terminology. Below is a short list of some common types of postproduction edits. 

• Jump Cut: A sudden or otherwise startling cut that provides a strong contrast to the previous shot; this cut violates the 30 degree rule, thereby dirupting the viewers' orientation and the shot's continuity.  
• Fade In / Out: A shot gradually appears from a blank screen, or a shot gradually disappears into a blank screen
• Dissolve Edit: A transition in which the old shot fades out while the new shot fades in. 
• Montage: Several disparate shots are overlapped in editing so that they appear on-screen at the same time or in sequence.
• Pacing: If a sequence makes use of a lot of cuts in a short span of time, it’s considered fast-paced and usually conveys the feeling that there’s a lot of action happening. On the other hand, if a shot is not broken by a cut for a long stretch of time, this can slowly build tension as the audience anxiously waits for a cut. A shift between fast- and slow-paced sequences often marks an important narrative or tonal shift.