Welcome to The Stage and Screen Academy. We are a Film and musical theatre kids club based in Irlam, Salford, Manchester. We teach children singing, acting, dancing, street dancing, ballet and of course, filmmaking.
The club is run by professional videographers from Brading Images. They do both Video and Photography in Irlam, Salford, Manchester.
There are many shot sizes to learn in film making, but here are the main ones that any filmmaker should know.
You can achieve these different shot sizes by either changing focal length, also known as zooming in or moving the camera further or closer to a scene.
First, the wide shot, marked WS.
The wide shot is perfect to establish where the scene is located and where all the characters are in relation to one another.
Scenes often begin with a wide shot. This is often the “master shot”. When filming, you will likely record the whole scene on the wide shot, so that if something went wrong in the other shots, you can fall back on this shot as a safety net.
You should see the character’s full body in this shot. That includes their heads and their feet.
Second, the mid shot, marked MS.
The mid shot is typically when you frame people at the waist.
This is a good shot to cut to when people start talking, so perfect for dialogues.
Third, the close up, marked CU.
The close up will be used when you want to see people’s facial expressions. Maybe your character is sad in the scene? Well this is the shot you would use to show that.
To frame this, you will show the shoulders, or frame just above the shoulders, up to the top of the head.
Fourth, the extreme close up, marked ECU.
At this point, you might be cropping parts of the head. This means, you might be showing just the eyes for example.
You might use this to emphasise a character spotting something for example.
A close up of an item, will be referred to as an insert. If a phone rings, then you might cut to a shot of a phone, to draw the audience’s attention to it.
So let’s recap. The 4 shot sizes are: Wide shot, mid shot, Close up and extreme close up.