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Film & Television vocabulary · Shots and Camera Movements

Master shot

Meaning in film & television, with examples

nounAdvanced term

In film & television, master shot means: A wide or complete shot that covers an entire scene from start to finish, providing the main visual base for editing.

In Turkish: ana plan

How it is used

Used in directing and editing for the shot that records the whole action before or alongside closer coverage from other angles.

Example sentences

  1. The director insisted on one clean master shot of the dinner scene before moving in for close-ups of each argument.

    Here the term means the full-scene shot that preserves the complete action and gives the editor a reliable structural option.

  2. Because the child actor improvised several lines, the master shot helped the editor keep the scene coherent across later inserts.

    In this example, the master shot serves as a continuity anchor when smaller shots vary in timing or performance.

Common collocations

  • shoot a master shot
  • master shot first
  • wide master shot
  • scene coverage
  • shotOne continuous piece of film recorded from the moment the camera starts until it stops, or the piece of it that appears between two cuts.
  • wide shotA shot that shows a large area, with people appearing small or full-length inside their surroundings, so that the audience sees where they are.

More terms: Shots and Camera Movements

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