Storytelling Using Camera Scope: Wide Shots, Medium Shots and Close Ups.

How many words is your video worth?

According to folklore, a good picture is worth a thousand words. So let’s say in a good video, each shot is worth a thousand words. As an extreme example, you might have sixty shots in a fast-paced :30 commercial. Pull out the calculator.

60 shots x 1,000 words = 60,000 words in :30 seconds.

That’s a lot of words in just half a minute!  (For context, 60k words would fill approximately 200 pages double-spaced.)

That’s the power of video.

A standard narrator would need over 6 hours to read 60k words, but amazingly, viewers can assimilate quite a bit from that many pictures in 30 seconds.

Clearly, visual communication is the most powerful, instantaneous and complete form of communication known.

Visuals for video come in a wide array of different forms. No doubt you’ve heard the terms:

• Wide-shot (WS)
• Medium-shot (MS)
• Close-up (CU)

These are common descriptions for video shots that make up the basic language of video production. As a video maker, you use wide shots, medium shots or close-ups as storytelling elements. A close-up says something entirely different from a wide shot of the same object.

On a practical level, wide shots, medium shots and close-ups are terms that help crew members communicate with each other about how they will go about telling their story. If the director tells the camera operator to get a close-up of the insect, that will probably be all the direction needed to get the necessary shot.

HOW ARE THE DIFFERENT SHOTS USED?

Wide-shots- Wide-shots establish your setting and are generally the first shot in a sequence. Wide-shots are important, but beginners overuse them. Lots of beginners use nothing BUT wide shots.

In well-done professional quality videos, wide-shots are often kept to a minimum because they usually don’t say much to your viewer other than to reveal location.

“We are here in the airplane,”
“The house is located in the mountains,”
“The interstate is suffering a traffic jam.”

This is important information, but your story should be told with details and details need close-ups. With a wide shot, your viewer has a lot to look at. Don’t ever make a viewer hunt through a wide shot to see the details; only use wide shots when you want the viewer to consider the big picture and absorb the location.

Here’s my theory on why beginners overuse wide-shots so much. (And this is definitely a universal newbie mistake.) When you look around with your eyes, everything is a wide shot. So inexperienced video producers assume their job is to capture on video what they see with their eyes.

WRONG!

Their job is to convey information to the viewer. Remember, your brain and your eyes work together to “zoom in” on details when you go through life seeing nothing but wide-shots. As I stare out my living room window at the houses across the street, I can focus in on a specific doorknob if I want to. The street, the trees and the rest of the house can be easily ignored. Not so with video; the doorknob would be completely lost in a wide shot. As a video producer, it’s up to you to show the doorknob in a close-up if that’s what you want the viewer to think about.

Wide-shot is commonly abbreviated as WS. You might also see EWS which stands for extreme wide-shot. You will also see MWS, which stands for medium wide-shot, and ECU stands for extreme closeup.  TV alphabet soup!

A medium shot is probably the most commonly used shot. A medium shot might show two people talking from the waist up, whereas a wide shot of the same scene would show the entire room and each person would be seen from head to toe. Medium shots are useful, but they can get boring. Medium shot is abbreviated MS.

Close-ups are your single most important shot. Close-ups say the most to the viewer. If you have a storytelling detail you want the viewer to know, use a close-up.

A close-up of a soda means soda is important to the story, perhaps a character will get sick from drinking a soda.  Without the closeup, a soda seen in a wide shot doesn’t mean much and will probably go unnoticed by most viewers.

Close-ups are also valuable because they make up for the small size of the viewing screen. Especially in online video, viewers are watching a tiny little screen. If you want people to really see those earrings you are trying to sell them, it is essential you take a close-up.

USING MEDIUM SHOTS

Medium-shots are the most commonly used because they’re so versatile. Generalized action can almost always easily be conveyed in a medium-shot. Use close-ups for punctuating your message with specifics. Use wide shots to show your location. For most everything else, a medium shot is appropriate. A MS can include several people at once.

At the same time, don’t make the mistake of stringing together nothing but medium-shots, or your show will be visually monotonous and therefore boring. Break up your medium shots with CU and wides.

What makes a MS?

As with everything in video, the definition of precisely what constitutes a wide-shot or a medium-wide-shot is not an exact science. Whether a shot is referred to as a wide, medium or close-up will often depend on the perspective of the person doing the labeling. But generally, a medium shot is one where the entire scene can’t be seen, but about 2/3 or half of it can be.

If the shot is of a person, a medium shot would be from the waist up or looser. Chest up or tighter would be considered a close-up. Being able to see a person in their surroundings from head to toe would be a wide shot.

If I had to give a percentage for the divisions between wide, medium and close-up shots in the edited mix of a “standard” video, (if there is such a thing) I’d say:

• Wide- 10%
• Medium- 60%
• Close- 30%

Remember, that’s a rough estimation of what’s typical, please don’t consider that a mandate. (There are no mandates in video, that’s one reason why I like it!)

FOOD FOR THOUGHT DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 

• Name the three basic shots and give their abbreviations.
• Of the three basic types of shot, which is the most commonly used?
• Which one is used to convey detail and intense emotion?
• Which is the most commonly overused by beginners?