Glossary
Types of Shots
| Long shot | A shot taken from a sufficient distance to show a landscape, a building, or a large crowd. |
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| Medium shot | A shot between a long shot and a close-up that might show two people in full figure or several people from the waist up. |
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| Close-up | A shot of one face or object that fills the screen completely. |
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| Extreme close-up | A shot of a small object or part of a face that fills the screen. |
Camera Angles
| High angle | The camera looks down at what is being photographed. |
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| Eye level | A shot that approximates human vision; a camera presents an object so that the line between camera and object is parallel to the ground. |
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| Low angle | The camera looks up at what is being photographed. |
Camera Movement
| Pan | The camera moves horizontally on a fixed base. |
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| Tilt | The camera points up or down from a fixed base. |
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| Boom | The camera moves up or down through space. |
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| Tracking (dolly shot) |
The camera moves through space on a wheeled truck (or dolly), but stays on the same plane. |
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| Zoom | Not a camera movement but a shift in the focal length of the camera lens to give the impression that the camera is getting closer to or farther from an object. |
Editing
| Cut | The most common type of transition in which one scene ends and a new one immediately begins. |
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| Fade-out / Fade-in | One scene gradually goes dark and the new one gradually emerges from the darkness. |
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| Dissolve | A gradual transition, in which the end of one scene is superimposed over the beginning of a new one. |
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| Wipe | An optical effect in which one shot appears to "wipe" the preceding one from the screen. |