Shooting your first Film:

Know the Camera Shots:

Every Film School can have different curriculum, method and pattern for teaching filmmaking but all of them provide their students the class of camera shots. Let’s discuss camera shots, before googling 10 best film making schools in Mumbai.

Whether you are Writer, Director, Cinematographer or Editor you should know the basic grammar of scenes which is addressed by different camera shots. If right camera shots have not been selected by the Director/Cinematographer, the impact of a well written scene is worthless. So, precise selection of shots is very important to present the right emotion of the scene. If you are making a film and going to start your shooting then it is very mandatory to know the camera shoots, that would help you to choose your required lenses for the shoot.

Establishment Shot : The shot which is used to establish every prop, character or set-up in the scene in terms of time and place.

Extreme Long Shot (or Extreme Wide Shot):Used to show the subject from a distance, it is a kind to establish the scene, in these types of shots the character doesn’t necessarily have to be viewable in this shot.

Long Shot (or Wide Shot): From top to bottom; the focus is our character if there is a person, this would be head to toes, it is not necessarily filling the frame.

Full Shot: Character is in the frame head to toe, but roughly filling the frame. It is used to emphasise the character’s emotion.

Medium Long Shot (or 3/4 Shot): Intermediate between Full Shot and Medium Shot. it shows the primary actions of the characters in the frame.

Medium Shot: It is a more detailed short in terms of character's behaviour and presence in the scene.

Medium Close-Up: Falls between a Medium Shot and a Close-Up, generally framing the subject from chest or shoulder up. Show more details about the character's expression.

Close-Up: It is a tighter shot that shows a person's head/face. Framed this tightly, the emotions and reaction of a character dominate the scene.

Choker: Type of the Close-Up shot, it frames the subject’s face from above the eyebrows to below the mouth.

Extreme Close Up: It is also known as Italian because Sergio Leone’s Italian-Western films popularised it. Focused on a specific area or details of the subject or character’s particular part, such as the eye(s) or mouth.

Two Shot: When in the frame there are only two characters or subjects, and there is a need to present them equally as important, this shot is used.

Master Shot: Presenting a whole kind of an establishment shot with a single character.