Chapter 2

Shots, Our Building Blocks

Before you tackle any job, you need to gather together the tools and raw materials that will enable you to do that job. Editing is no different. Our raw material (and sometimes it’s very raw!) is in the form of photographed shots, and our tools are the skills with which we put those shots together.

First of all, let’s have a look at the range of the types of shots which might be presented to us and how we might describe and categorise them.

This chapter is divided as follows:

• 2.1 Shot Sizes—This describes the framing, or content, of individual shots, thus we talk of close-ups or wide shots.
• 2.2 How the Shot Moves—This describes the way the shot develops from its start to its finish, such as tracking, panning, or tilting.
• 2.3 What the Shot Does—This describes the shot’s role when it is used as part of a sequence, for example, an establisher, a reaction shot, or a cutaway.
• 2.4 Special Shots—Here, I look at shots designed for specific and unique occasions.

2.1 Shot Sizes

To start with, this section concentrates only on the framing, or content, of the shot and not its ultimate use in a sequence.

Let’s start with the most common size of shots, especially if the content of the scene is dialogue.

 Who Framed Roger Rabbit?—Introducing Shot Sizes

I will let Video Mickey model the different viewpoints.

First, let’s look at the shots that are most commonly used to photograph the human (sorry, rat-like) face and body.

 Close-Up (CU)

A close-up, or CU, tightly frames a person’s face (or an object) to fill the whole frame. Close-ups display the most detail in that face or object, and therefore they do not include much of the background. They are used to show a specific detail, such as misty, tearful eyes or a hint of a smile, that would otherwise go unnoticed in wider shots.

Close-ups are used more often in TV productions than in movies. This used to be to compensate for the lower resolution of a TV picture; however, with the advent of HD TV, the need for so many close-ups may decline, though I’ve not seen any evidence of this yet. Actually, quite the reverse seems to be happening, because it’s the movies, now edited on small screens, which are piling in many more close-ups.

 Mid-Shots (MS)

Mid-shots (MS) are generally framed down to the waist, and therefore not as good at showing facial expressions, but they work well to show body language.

 Medium Close-Up (MCU)

A medium close-up, or MCU, frames the subject’s head and shoulders; it’s halfway between a mid-shot and a close-up. It is probably the most commonly used shot where spoken dialogue is involved.

 Over-Shoulder Shot (OS)

You’re not going to believe this, but an over-shoulder shot (OS) is a shot of someone, or something, taken from over the shoulder of another person. The back of a head, and perhaps part of a shoulder, are used to frame the image of whomever (or whatever) the camera is pointing towards. This type of shot is closest to the eyeline between two characters or groups of characters. Being so close to the eyeline, the shot allows more of the opposing face to be shown.

 Long Shot (LS) or Full-Length Shot

A long shot (LS) is a slightly vague term. The question is, how long is long? A long shot of a person is a very different size of shot from a long shot of a building. Sometimes, this type of shot is more properly referred to as a full-length shot.

 Extreme Close-Up (ECU or XCU)

Extreme close-ups (ECUs or XCUs) are framed so tightly that only a fraction of an object or face is the focus of attention, such as a person’s eyes or mouth.

Actors are naturally nervous about this size of shot, because of the detail it can show, such as pimples, spots and fillings. Mickey seems to have no such reservations!

 Wide Shot (WS)

Sometimes referred to as a full shot, a wide shot, or WS, typically shows the entire setting, with the intention of placing characters or objects in some relation to their surroundings.

Again, we have the problem of how wide is wide? The answer is that it depends on the shots in the sequence that surrounds the shot in question. A wide shot of the planet earth would be considered very wide indeed if the rest of the action is contained in a domestic environment, but it would be completely normal if our sequence was set in interstellar space.

Don’t worry too much about this terminology; it will become second nature to use the term most appropriate for the situation.

 High-Angle Shot (HA)

A high-angle shot, or HA, is photographed with the camera located above head height, and thus the shot is angled downwards.

This shot is sometimes used in scenes of confrontation to show dominance over an opponent. The subject of a high-angle shot is made to look vulnerable or insignificant.

 Low-Angle Shot (LA)

A low-angle shot, or LA, is a shot from a camera positioned low on the vertical axis, often at knee height, looking up.

Again, like the high-angle shot, the shot is used in scenes of confrontation. In terms of objects, this type of shot exaggerates the importance, and certainly the size, of that person, object, or building.

 Two-Shots, Three-Shots…(2S, 3S)

A two-shot or three-shot simply describes the number of people framed in the shot. It greatly simplifies shot description to define the shot by how many people are actually in it; thus we get the terms two-shots, three-shots, singles, and so forth.

You’ll soon meet the phrase two-shot favouring X or Y (2S FAV X or Y). This simply means a shot that frames two people (X and Y) that is pointing more towards X than Y. This usually means it shows more of X’s face compared with Y’s.

I’ll just leave that in the air for now, as you all must be getting fed up with all this schoolwork, especially now that algebra seems to be creeping into the lesson.

 Reverse Angle Shot

Imagine two characters on a park bench. Most of the action is usually photographed from the front as they chat together. The scene might end with a shot from behind them, showing the backs of their heads and the view they have been enjoying. This is a reverse angle shot.

Here the camera is positioned behind the action and framed to contain the characters previously seen from the front (or vice versa). Thus, the camera has been repositioned by about 180° from its previous position, with respect to the subjects.

See also the discussion about ‘crossing the line’ in Chapter 3.

 A Shot in the Dark—Shot Names

It’s high time for an exercise. This time it’s just a few clips for you to look at. It’s called Exercise 2: Shot Names.

2.2 How the Shot Moves

Shots can also be categorised by how they move or develop. This usually involves describing how the camera was moved during the filming of that shot.

 Movin’ On—A Tracking Shot

A tracking shot, also known as a dolly shot, is a shot taken from a camera mounted on a wheeled platform (or dolly) that is pushed on rails (or tracks). You can ‘track in’ on a stationary subject for emphasis or ’track out’ to reveal more of any surroundings, or even track beside a moving object. Dollies with hydraulic arms can also smoothly ‘boom’ or ‘jib’ the camera up and down several feet on a vertical plane at the same time as any track.

 Horizon—Panning Shots

A panning shot is where the camera is moved in a predominately horizontal plane in either direction, hence the terms ‘pan left’ and ‘pan right’.

The main problem with this shot (and you see this too often in material shot by amateurs) is that they are very difficult to shorten. Cutting while a camera is still in motion can look awkward, especially if all shots that surround the pan are still and framed for little movement.

 Up North—Tilting Shots

A tilting shot is where the camera is moved in a predominately vertical plane, generating terms like ‘tilting up’ or ‘tilting down’.

 Trigger-Happy TV—Hand-Held Shots

A hand-held shot, just as the name suggests, is where the camera is off its mount and in the hands of the camera operator. There is a growing trend, especially in drama and documentary programmes, to shoot more scenes this way. With the advent of Steadicam mounts (a sort of counterbalanced mount carried by the operator), these shots can look great, and you can now easily produce acceptable coverage of a conversation on the move, which would have meant, until quite recently, the laying of long lengths of track.

On the downside, I’ve seen some exaggerated hand-held coverage with absurdly intentional camera movements, which only serve as a distraction. Just look at the first series of the BBC’s This Life, and you’ll see what I mean.

 Bob the Builder—A Crane Shot

A crane shot is a shot taken by a camera on a crane—no kidding! The crane, or ‘cherry-picker’, allows the camera to view the actors from above or to move up and away from them, producing a common, if not clichéd, way of ending a movie. Most cranes accommodate both camera and operator, but some can be operated by remote control.

The use of a crane on a golf tournament, for example, will allow each camera to cover the action on several holes.

 Bird’s Eye View—Aerial Shots

Aerial shots are usually shot with a camera attached to a special mount that can be installed in a helicopter, light aircraft, or airship in order to view wide landscapes. Today, remote-controlled drones can also provide such a filming platform. This sort of shot would clearly be restricted to exterior locations. Clever camera mounts can virtually eliminate the vibration associated with such shooting.

If the aerial shot is of a character or group of characters, it can make them seem insignificant or vulnerable. Alfred Hitchcock loved using these shots, even at moments of high drama, thereby intentionally cutting away from the close action to see his characters reacting like ants to the situation. The escaping petrol catching fire in The Birds (1963) is a good example of his technique here.

Incidentally, talking of birds, the shot is often referred to as a bird’s-eye shot.

2.3 What the Shot Does

I think you’ll find the worst is over, and we’ll soon be graduating from the classroom. Just before we do, we need to talk about what a particular shot does in relation to others which make up a sequence.

 First Report—Establishing Shots

An establishing shot sets up a scene’s location and its participants, or to put it academically, its ‘spatial continuity’…yuck! Establishers enable subsequent closer shots to fit into the ‘space’ already created by the establisher…yuck again! For example, the use of an exterior shot of a building at night followed by an interior shot of people talking implies that the conversation is taking place inside that building and it’s night-time. We, as viewers, are so easily convinced.

Where would those classic American TV series of the recent past, such as Dallas, Ironside, or Dynasty, be without a zoom in to a window of a building, followed by a cut inside to find J.R., Chief Ironside, or Alexis Carrington in full flow?

Typically, an establisher is placed at or near the beginning of a scene, indicating where, and sometimes when, the remainder of the scene takes place. The same shot can be used again at any time in the body of the scene to reestablish the geography. This might be necessary after a complex sequence of cuts and movements that may have disorientated the audience. The establisher’s reappearance informs us of the new status quo.

An establishing shot may also establish a concept rather than a location, for example a time of the year, or Christmas, or simply a change in the weather.

As audiences grow ever more sophisticated, it is increasingly fashionable to skip the establishing shot at the start of a scene in order to move the story along more quickly and instead to drop it in later.

 Blott on the Landscape—General Views (GVs)

General views, or GVs, are shots of a general nature which can be used to set a scene or establish a location—establishers, in other words. Well, not quite. They distinguish themselves from establishers by the fact that they are shots taken during the filming process that might not have any specific use at the time of filming but are worth shooting anyway. They might end up in a montage, or some future title sequence, or act as breathers or segues between constructed scenes.

GVs are the type of shots that documentary filmmakers shoot all the time to allow a future edit to have as many options as possible. It’s better to run off a few feet of this or that now rather than to have to go back and reshoot. The sad fact is, however many GVs are shot at the time of filming, there will never be as many as you want in the edit suite. It’s the same with cutaways, no editor has ever complained about there being too many.

 Wacko!—Master Shots

A master shot is camera coverage of an entire scene or sequence of events from start to finish. It is photographed from an angle that keeps all or most of the action in view. It is, by its very nature, a wide shot, and it can sometimes perform a double function as an establishing shot…yes, that again!

Usually, the master shot is the first shot ticked-off during the shooting process, and it is the foundation of subsequent camera coverage. Alternative closer shots can (and will) produce better coverage of specific moments later in the scene.

 Money Box—A Money Shot

A money shot (also called a money-making shot) is a provocative, sensational, or memorable sequence in a film. In other words, it is a shot on which the film’s commercial success is expected to depend.

Borrowing the meaning from the pornographic film industry (yes, you’ve guessed it), the term is used to refer to a highly anticipated or satisfying climax…I will say no more!

Mainstream filmmakers generally use the term money shot as slang for the image that costs the most money to produce.

 The Golden Shot—A Pack-Shot

A pack-shot is the shot in a commercial that shows a close-up of the product itself. A close-up lens is therefore sometimes called a pack-shot lens. Every advert or promotion has one of these; it’s the ‘ding’ shot of the tube of toothpaste, or the ice going into the gin and tonic, or a cat licking its lips next to the new variety of cat food.

 Points of View—A Point of View Shot (POV)

A point of view shot (POV) is a shot seen from the point of view of the actor. It’s as though we, the viewers, are looking through the performer’s eyes and seeing what he or she sees. Sometimes the POV can be taken from over the shoulder of the character whose viewpoint we are seeing.

Imagine coverage of a character walking up to a cliff edge. A shot swooping round the back of this character can still be considered a POV shot, as it achieves the same result of enabling us to see the character’s viewpoint.

When an animal or alien is the featured character, the POV shot will usually be treated to look distorted and/or strangely coloured to match whatever the creature is seeing.

The view through a Dalek’s eyepiece in Doctor Who is a good example of this technique. Here, the shot is typically tinted, geometrically distorted, with a target sight and range-finding data superimposed, and it pans around to match the movement of the Dalek’s eyepiece.

 Look Back in Anger—A Reaction Shot

A reaction shot is a shot that cuts away from the main source of drama in a scene to show us an emotional response to that drama.

The framing of a reaction shot is most commonly a close-up, although a group of actors may also be shown reacting together. The reaction shot is generally bereft of any dialogue of its own, though this is not an absolute rule. Reaction shots are essential in comedy sequences, as the reaction of an actor (or actors) to a comedic incident provides a cue to the audience about how to respond to that incident. It makes it funnier, in other words. In some cases, the deliberate avoidance of showing reaction shots can be used by an editor to dramatic effect.

Reaction shots help keep the audience in contact with the ebbs and flows of the changing emotions of all the characters in a scene, whether speaking or not—the ‘doers’ and the ‘done-to’. Reaction shots are in essence emotional multipliers, making the funny funnier, the sad sadder, and the scary scarier.

It’s high time for an exercise after all that classroom stuff.

Now, as with all these exercises, you can cheat just by looking at my cut sequences, but I would encourage you to take the time and try to create a sequence of your own, and only then look at my version.

Have a go at Exercise 3: Reaction Shots.

 Don’t Look Now—Cutaway Shots

A cutaway is where a reaction shot, or at any rate a different shot, is inserted to enable a time-shortening edit to be achieved in the action or soundtrack.

The term cutaway is more commonly used in TV production rather than filmmaking. A cutaway is therefore used to allow an edit to be made in the dialogue track, during which we, the audience, can look either at the person receiving the information or, alternately, something else relating to their conversation.

For example, in a programme about antiques, say, many cutaways are shot in order to cut down the chat about an object, usually with the object in question acting as the source of the cutaways. This helps in two ways: first, to enable edits to be made in the dialogue, and second, to give the audience a better look at the priceless painting before it is sold.

Cutaways in TV news interviews are sometimes referred to as noddies. This is because the shot often photographs the reporter nodding away to what the interviewee has just said.

Careful choice of the best noddy is a skill you will have to acquire. It makes a huge difference to the naturalness of a piece to get this right.

I will take another look at noddies and the use of good cutaway techniques in Chapter 5, but for now, here is an exercise involving cutaways to start you off.

Exercise 4: Cutaways 1 awaits your attention.

 Look Who’s Talking—More on Cutaways

Here’s another exercise to demonstrate how to deal with cutaway vision that illustrates dialogue.

In this example, you have a variety of shots to punctuate Tim’s verbal explanation of what he is doing with a computer. Sequences of this kind, where you are painting a dialogue track, can look very literal and plonky if you illustrate every single point with a visual cutaway. You have to create a balance between subject and object.

 The Frost Report (BBC TV) (1966)—The Lord Privy Seal Sketch

Just before you do the exercise, there was a great Frost Report sketch (BBC, 1966) called ‘Lord Privy Seal’ which illustrates my point about visual cutaways admirably.

Dig it out on the Internet and have a watch. I just love that second smiling shot of the then Prime Minister, Harold Wilson.

Now have a go at Exercise 5: Cutaways 2.

2.4 Special Shots

 On the Move—Locked-Off Shots

A locked-off shot is where the camera mount and pedestal are physically locked in one position. All adjustments to the camera’s lens must be out of bounds when shooting such a shot. If they do have to be altered, then they must be returned to exactly the same setting; otherwise, what should be invisible in a future edit session will turn horribly visible and cost much more time and money to repair.

If the shot is successfully photographed, then invisible jump cuts can be performed anywhere in that fixed image. Magical appearance and disappearance effects can be created by the editor by jumping between characters present and absent in the locked-off shot. Ghostly half images, where a foreground character is seen to be semitransparent, can be created in a similar way by mixing or superimposing the shots with and without the character concerned in view.

Modern computer-driven mounts can allow the camera to perform shot adjustments in a totally repeatable way. With this feature, as you’d imagine, you can create magnificent multilayered shots without the need to resort to computer graphics. The drawback is such a mount is very expensive.

Here is an exercise, Exercise 6: Locked-Off Shots.

 The Fix—Plate Shots

Occasionally, the machinery of film and TV production has to be contained within a shot alongside the actors purely because, for whatever reason, it has to be there. Boom poles and lights are possible examples of what I mean. A plate shot is a shot that doesn’t contain any of this machinery or even performing actors; it is therefore a background shot.

A director will shoot a plate shot with the offending equipment removed, in order that in post-production, a wipe can be set up around the offending kit and a composite image produced that excludes such machinery. You’ve probably guessed it, but the camera would not be allowed to move between the shooting of the real action and the plate shot, unless of course the camera is on a computer-driven mount that ensures it tracks and moves in exactly the same way each time the shot is attempted.

 The Glass Ceiling—Glass Shots

A glass shot is an economical, if not old-fashioned, method of producing elaborate-looking sets without actually building them.

A sheet of glass is painted with aspects of the set and scenery on it, usually at the extremities of the framed shot. This could be a ceiling that complements the rest of the photographed picture. The painted glass sheet is placed between the camera and the real set so that a composite picture is formed. Actors can perform freely, provided they don’t stray into areas that are obscured by the paint. The technique can also be used to hide objects that are immoveable and unwanted in the shot.

Nowadays, you’d more probably turn to your friendly CGI operator rather than getting your paint brush out.

 Enough—Phew!

You’ll be glad to know that’s it for shot descriptions. All we have to do now is glue some of them together.

Sadly, just as with self-assembly furniture, this can be a bit tricky to do. I hope the next chapter will help.