Ultimate Guide to Camera Shots: Every Shot Size Explained [The Shot List, Ep 1]

Summary by Krater

This video explains nine essential film shot sizes from establishing shots to extreme close-ups, detailing their storytelling purposes and compositional rules with examples from various movies.

From the video

Answers: What are the different film shot sizes and how do you use them?

• Establishing shot
• Master shot
• Wide shot
• Full shot
• Medium full shot
• Medium shot
• Medium close-up
• Close-up
• Extreme close-up

What it concludes

• An establishing shot is crucial for establishing geography, time of day, scale, and transitioning between scenes.
• A master shot confirms the location, geography, and spatial relationships of characters in a scene.
• A wide shot positions subjects far from the camera to visually represent their relationship to their environment.
• A full shot is composed head-to-toe to communicate a subject's physicality and posture.
• A medium full shot frames subjects from the top of the head to just below the waist, often called a cowboy shot.
• A medium shot captures subjects from the waist to above the head, providing a neutral framing similar to real-life interactions.