Shots and Scenes – Part 1, Presentation

Welcome. In this and the upcoming modules we’re going to show you how to shoot lived-reality documentary films. Lived-reality documentary stories are constructed from scenes. Scenes are the activities of our characters. When edited into a narrative order they create a story with a beginning, middle and end.

Let’s watch a scene from the documentary, Streetwise, by Martin Bell and Mary Ellen Mark. As you watch this scene pay careful attention to the visual story and make a mental list of everything that happens.

This is scene-based storytelling at its best. It’s a masterful integration of visual and aural filmmaking using camera work, sound recording, interviewing and editing. This training program will cover all of these skills one step at a time and you’ll bring them together in your final project. Right now, we’re concentrating on camera work.

The scene we just watched visualizes a detailed story through a series of shots. Let’s watch it again without sound and define what each shot communicates.

[Video Transcript:] In the first shot, a boy leaves a building from a second story window. The shot leads us to wonder if he lives in this apparently abandoned building. We learn from the next shot that he lives in an urban environment. In the third and following set of shots, he’s arrived at a laundromat. He puts his clothes in a washing machine, even some of the clothes he’s wearing. For a young boy he’s clearly used to doing his own laundry. He adds soap and starts the load.

He then leaves the laundromat, to at first unsuccessfully and then successfully beg for money to finish his laundry. This allows the viewer to witness the precariousness of his financial situation. In the last two shots, we see him carefully folding his clothes and then grabbing his bag of finished laundry and leaving. 

Every shot provides evidence that the viewer uses to figure out what is going on. Sometimes the shots raise questions in the viewer’s mind which engages their curiosity. All of these shots, when edited together, visualize a story about how this boy does his laundry. Nothing has to be explained verbally. The scene has a clear beginning, middle and end – as most stories do. Think of every scene as a short story.

Video by Don Waldron

[Video Transcript:] Now let’s look at shots from a student’s film about a ceramicist working with clay and shaping it into an object. This shot introduces the environment that the ceramicist is working in. This shot is of the object being refined into a cup or vase and then there’s a shot introducing us to the ceramicist.

Lets’ see what the editor did to construct these and similar shots into a scene. The scene, one shot after another, provides the viewer with the experience of the character starting with a lump of clay and forming it into a finished object – once again the scene visualizes a story with a beginning, middle and end.

Like the relationship of words to sentences and sentences to paragraphs, shots are the words that are used to construct scenes and a sequence of scenes, like a series of paragraphs, becomes a narrative story.

[Video Transcript:] Here are two scenes about a man with mental disabilities living in his own home for the first time – instead of in an institution or on the street. In order to visualize his story, the scenes must show him living independently and doing everyday activities like preparing a cup of coffee and enjoying a craft project.

This is scene-based experiential storytelling.

Our goal now is to learn how to shoot shots for scenes.

To review, scenes are constructed from shots and shots are the fundamental building blocks of films. When edited together, shots create scenes.

[Video Transcript:] We’re reviewing the original, unedited video, called footage, that was used to create the scenes we just watched. We need to learn what the cameraperson is thinking about and looking for while shooting this footage.

Notice that the footage consists of different types of shots of the same activity – in this case, of Mr Poole working on a craft project. For your first Skill-Builder exercise, you’ll shoot a similar set of shots of someone reading.

Looking again at the original footage, we see that some shots provide a wider view of Mr. Poole, while others are closer or show details of what he’s doing. In the language of cinematography, each of these shot types has a name.

 

[Video Transcript:] One way to name shot types is by their framing. Framing refers to the subject’s size within the shot. For example, here is a Medium Full Shot, in which the subject is seen from the knees up. Here is a Medium Shot in which we see the subject from the waist up. And here’s a Medium Close Shot in which we see the person’s head and shoulders. Shot types range from an Extra Long Shot, where the subjects are small in the frame, to an Extreme Closeup, where a person’s fingers and actions fill the frame.

Another way to name shot types is by their content. For example, in this graphic, we see a Two-shot with two people, a Three-shot with three people, and a One-shot with a single person in the frame.

Let’s look more closely at shot types identified by their framing.

[Video Transcript:] This footage includes an Extra Long Shot which is defined as the subject filling about one-third of the frame from top to bottom. This type of shot requires the cameraperson to move some distance from the subject. This shot shows that a man is working at the kitchen table at home. No verbal communication is necessary for viewers to get a sense of what his home is like. It’s a relatively nice home, clean, has basic furniture but there are no decorations on the walls.

This Medium Full Shot brings us closer to Mr Poole, allowing us to see more of what’s on the table and what he’s doing.

The camera person then adjusts the framing to a Medium Close Shot and then finally a Close Shot of Mr Poole’s face. Detail shots like this are crucial for good storytelling because they convey lots of information. With this intimate face shot we get to know Mr Poole’s features and expressions. You’ve got to capture face shots in every scene.

This is an Extreme Close Up. It  engages the audience in Mr Poole’s activity. All too often, when we are starting out, we shoot way too many Medium or Full Shots and don’t capture enough details.

 

[Video Transcript:] This graphic illustrates all the shot types in relation to the human body. It shows the body in an Extra Long Shot where the subject, as previously described, fills one third of the frame and a Long Shot where the subject fills half of the frame. Here the shot types are a Full Shot of the whole body. A Medium Full Shot, from the knees up. A Medium Shot from the waist up. A Medium Close Up from the chest up. A Close Shot of the head and shoulders. A Close Up of the head and an Extreme Close Up of the eyes.

While the human body is the reference in this graphic, you can apply shot types to any object. For example, this Full Shot of Mr Poole shows him from head to toe, while a Full Shot of his home and yard captures it from top to bottom.

[Video Transcript:] As mentioned earlier, we also identify shots by their content. One important shot type in this category is the POV shot, which stands for Point of View. POV and Over-the-Shoulder shots, as seen in this graphic, allow the viewer to see from the subject’s perspective, which creates a more intimate experience for the viewer. 

Here in the original footage, we see Over-the-Shoulder shots of Mr Poole’s craft-making activity. These Point of View shots make us feel like we are with Mr Poole, rather than looking at him, as we feel in these shots.

That’s it for our presentation about shot types, shots and scenes. In the next module, we’ll demonstrate how to shoot a scene by gathering a variety of shot types.