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Film & Television vocabulary · Shots and Camera Movements

Shot

Meaning in film & television, with examples

/ʃɒt/nounCore term

In film & television, shot means: One continuous piece of film recorded from the moment the camera starts until it stops, or the piece of it that appears between two cuts.

In Turkish: plan, çekim

How it is used

The basic unit of filmmaking. Directors plan shots in a shot list, crews set up and get the shot, and shots are named by size and movement: wide shot, close-up, tracking shot, insert shot. One shot may need many takes.

Example sentences

  1. We still need two more shots before we lose the light.

  2. The film opens with a single shot that lasts almost six minutes.

Common collocations

  • shot list
  • get the shot
  • set up a shot
  • long shot
  • single shot
  • takeOne attempt at filming a shot. If something goes wrong or the director wants a different version, the crew does another take.
  • sceneA part of a film or TV episode that happens in one place and at one time, usually made up of several shots.
  • close-upA shot taken very near the subject, usually showing a person's face or a small object so that the audience can see emotion or detail.
  • 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.
  • camera angleThe position and direction from which the camera looks at the subject, such as from above, from below or at eye level.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Shots and Camera Movements

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