The Filmmaker's Eye

medium shot

Medium shots typically show one or more characters from the waist up, while still including some of the surrounding area. A medium shot is tighter than a medium long shot, but wider than a medium close up, although the cutoffs between these shots are not exact. Like the medium long shot, this shot lets you showcase the body language of a character, but the closer perspective also lets the audience see some facial nuances of behavior and emotion. When they include more than one individual, medium shots can convey the dynamics of a relationship through character placement in the composition in addition to their body language. This is one reason why they are often used for two shots, group shots, and over the shoulder shots. Since medium ...