TYPES OF SHOTS
Extreme Wide Shot / Establishing Shot

These types of shots give us the big picture. It displays the location we are in, they tell us about the setting ourcharacters are performing in. If the characters are in the shot at all they are usually so small we can barely see them,
it's not about our characters it's about the environment and the world where the scene is taking place.

Long Shot / Far Shot

When we need to see our characters and what they are doing in their environment, we go for the Long Shot. With thistype of shot they are not establishing the ‘world’ so much as establishing the character(s) in that world.

Full Shot

This is a full body shot of the character. There is some space above and below them inside the frame. No part of themis cropped off unless they are behind an object. The environment the character is in becomes less important. This shotis all about the ‘who’. This shot wants us to look at our characters, see them move about, full body gestures, walking
around, interacting with others.

I consider Extreme Wide Shots, Long Shots, and Full shots to all be "wide shots".
They used wide shots through out the film to help establish or re-establish the location the characters were in. The
closer you go in on a character the more clearly you can see what they are doing, and how they are interacting with
their environment or other characters.

Medium Shot

Medium Shots are widely used through out the film, they are a reliable standard to show you the character nice andclose, but not too close, usually cutoff at the waist, plenty of empty space is left around the character, giving him roomto act out, gesture, and still see the character in relation to the environment he's in. It's not too intimate, but it's
showing you something specific.

There are slight variation like the Medium-Full Shot, where the characters are cut off around the knees.

Close-up Shot

The close-up is usually the full head and sometimes a bit of the top is cropped off, and includes the neck and a bit of
the shoulders. It's an emotion-teller and and information-giver. This shot is ALL about the subject, it tells us theimportant stuff we need to know to understand the story. We can tell what the character is feeling and thinking.

There are variations on these too, like the Medium Close-Up, which crops the character off somewhere between theribs and the chest.

The closer you frame your main subject the more it becomes all about them. The background gets phased out as thefocus closes in on the character or object you are centering on.

Extreme Close-up

It can be used for a very intense or super intimate moment or it can just be a very useful information tool. It depends
what the director wants to show you and why. In this shot, nothing else matters but the subject matter. And it’s usually
only a portion of that subject matter. Backgrounds are usually unrecognizable, you can only see the character or object
as they cover most (if not all) the frame. It keeps the audience informed about the story, the characters and thesituation, up close, in detail, clear information-giver.

There's not much room for the character to move, so the audience can focus on the expressions and emotions. You
can call this a "cut-in" also, instead of zooming in, you cut the camera in closer, or to a different part of the body toshow something important.

Depending on what the director wants to show the audience, every type of shot has it's purpose, how the filmmakers
decide how close or wide to frame a scene, depends on what they want the focus to be and what information they aretrying to display.

Let's have a quick look at camera angles...
Straight-On

The camera is level to the ground and the lens is lined up parallel to the main subject.

Up ShotThe camera is pointing up at the subject.
This is called a 'Low Angle' in live action.
Down Shot

The camera is angled to point downwards towards the subject.
This is called a 'High Angle' in live action.

Up Shots place the viewer beneath the focus and Down Shots
place the viewer above, both physically and psychologically.
I'll talk a lot more about this later.

Bird's Eye View

Worm's Eye View

More extreme version of up shots and down shots where the angleof the camera is pointing nearly (or entirely) straight up or down.

Over The Shoulder Shot(OTS) One of the most efficient and widely used methods of shooting a conversation scene, or even to see thevantage point of one character as s/he glares at another. Sometimes the characters are in close proximity, sometimes
they are far away, the shots reverse back and forth and can be used in combination with up shots and down shots,depending on the camera angle and height or placement of characters.

1 Shot

2 Shot

3 Shot

Group Shot

These are pretty self-explanatory, 1 shot: one subject in the frame. 2 shot: there's two, when you get more than 3 inthere, you've got a group shot.

There are endless combination that can be used to describe a shot.

Here's a 2 Shot, Medium Shot, and a slight Up Shot all rolled into one.

Low Angles
When the camera is sitting right on the ground.

Each angle and framing technique and the combination they are used in - can all help to tell the story and to clearly
display the information on screen so that the audience can follow along easily. Variety of shots is important, but as I
will show you, the Incredibles excelled at using dynamic angles and perspective to make the film very visually exciting.
I've noticed that different film theory books have slightly different terms for this sort of thing. My terms here are moreakin to Animation Filmmaking, some studios and directors have variations on these as well.

Point of View (POV)This shot places the audience in the character's shoes, seeing the world through their eyes.

Rack Focus
Shifting the attention of the viewer by changing the focus of the lens from a subject in the foreground to a subject in thebackground (or vice versa).

Foreground/Background
Framing characters or objects of varying depth can help to keep the image well balanced and keep the eyes moving.
Framing the subject with elements in the foreground can also add scale and depth to pictures.

Overhanging tree branches, doorways, anything that covers at least two sides of the frame can give added depth that
invites audience into the location.

Layers of foreground, mid-ground and background can help add depth to a composition. Rather than showing all of thecharacter all the time, characters can be blocked by objects in the foreground and middle ground, helping to place thecharacters within the situation, making them part of their environment and the story.