Week III: Language of the Screen Pt.2

For the week three blog task, we've been asked to find further defintions of the following film shot terms:

VLS/WS*

LS
MLS

MS*

MCU
CU

BCU

ECU*

*have been explained in a previous blog-post

Here is an explanation of these terms and an example of each shot, taken from the films of Leonardo Di Caprio. Oh yeah!

LS: Long Shot. In this type of shot, figures are visible but the background/foreground dominates.

Image sourced from here

MLS: Medium Long Shot. Typically, this type of shot focuses on the body from the knee up.

Image sourced from here

MCU: Medium Close-up. This shot focuses on the subject's face with a portion of their upper chest visible. Often used when two characters are talking to one another.

Image sourced from here

CU: Close-up. This shot singles out a portion of the subject, most commonly the face, in turn emphasizing non-verbal communication, such as a facial expression or gesture. Most films with Leo Di Caprio consist of about 3.7 of these shots every 10 seconds, since that's the only reason why most people go to see his films. He's a good-looking dude.

Image sourced from here.

BCU: Big Close-up. This shot is used most often to highlight the features of the subject's face, and is used for the same purpose as the Close-up. I got over looking up Leo, so here's another example which is probably better. My friend took this photo.

Bibliography

Film Directing and Film Making Tips for the Independent Filmmaker, Understanding camera techniques - shot size, viewed 18 August 2009