Talking About the Camera

Here I will introduce vocabulary for talking about how the camera is used in a movie.

Close-up: A close-up fills the entire screen with an actor's face or body. If Jim and Judy are talking, and there is a close-up of Jim's face, we won't see Judy on the screen, only Jim's face.

Sample sentence: "The director uses a close-up of Jim's face when Jim tells Judy that he loves her."

Here's a close-up of a cat's face.

http://z.about.com/d/cameras/1/0/j/4/monkeyCloseup.jpg

Medium shot: If Jim and Judy are talking, a medium shot would show both Jim and Judy. You would be able to see Jim and Judy and not very much else.

Sample sentence: "The director uses a medium shot when Jim and Judy talk about Plato's father."

Here's a medium shot of two characters in a video game talking.

http://www.annamorphic.co.uk/machinima/images/ms2.jpg

Long-distance shot: A long-distance shot places the subject (the person or thing we want to see) far away. You will see the people and things in front of the subject. If Jim and Judy are talking in a long-distance shot, we might see Jim's car in front of both of them, or we might see another person walk by.

Sample Sentence: "When Jim talks to Judy, the director uses a long-distance shot. We see the trees in front of them. This long distance shot shows that nobody else is around."

Here's a long-distance shot of a space shuttle launch. The space shuttle is far away, and you see the lake in front of the shuttle.

http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/photos/images/launchpad1.jpg

Editing: Editing refers to the use of camera shots to make one scene. A scene could use one camera shot or hundreds of camera shots.

Rapid editing: Rapid editing changes the camera's view every few seconds. The audience will see one event from many different perspectives.

Sample Sentence/Example: "When Jim and Buzz race, the director uses rapid editing. For a few seconds, we see a close-up of Jim sitting in his car, smoking. Next, we see for a few seconds a close-up of Buzz sitting in his car. Finally, we see a medium shot of Jim's car and Buzz' car driving toward the cliff."

Long take: A long take is when the camera doesn't move for several minutes.

Example: There is only one shot in the scene where Jim and Judy talk about love. We see Jim and Judy in the same medium shot for several minutes.