Tag Archive - Stationary Camera Shots

Angle On to Single It Out

Here’s another stationary camera shot you can add to your writers’ toolbox: Angle On. This shot usually occurs in scenes taking place in large settings, and the purpose is to tell the director that the camera should be focused on one particular element in the group. For example: if your character is at a playground and is looking for her young daughter among a group of kids playing, to get from the Medium Shot, Long Shot, or Pan (as she’s scanning the playground), you’d use “ANGLE ON STRUCTURE” to suggest a new shot featuring her daughter. The camera is still shooting stationary from the same location, but the director knows to point the camera in a different direction to lock onto what’s important to be noticed. Again, it’s all about telling the viewer to pay attention to what the writer wants noticed. Continue Reading…

The Punch Is in the Details

As we examine the different stationary camera shots, we want to take a moment to look at the Insert Shot. This is a commonly used shot needed is screenplays when a continuous action is interrupted in order to focus on a detail. As mentioned in earlier posts, the main reason for using cinematic technique, and in specific choosing particular camera shots, is to make the viewer (or reader of a novel) pay attention to specific things. You, as the writer, want to reader to notice certain things in your scenes, and using the appropriate camera shot will give it the most punch. It’s said the devil is in the details, but I’ll say the punch is what’s really in the details. And an Insert shot may be just the punch you want. Continue Reading…

Series of Shots for High Tension

In our exploration of using cinematic technique in fiction writing, we began looking at a camera directive called Series of Shots. To reiterate, this is not a montage, which is a palette of images not connected immediately (or necessarily consecutively) in time. A Series of Shots does move consecutively and immediately in time, showing one thing happening quickly after another. We looked at some examples from novels showing this visual fast clip of images and saw the powerful effect this can have in a scene. Continue Reading…

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