Shot Types and Angles. How They Create Meaning

How shot types and angles create meaning

The way an audience interprets what they see onscreen relies on many factors. However when talking about shot types there is a lot of emphasis placed on how much an audience is affected by the way what is on screen is shown. I will go through some examples of shot types as well as how they affect an audience.

Close up:

Close ups are very important when establishing deeper meaning in a film. They can be used to make a certain characters actions stand out or to focus on the faces of actors during dialogue. A great example of a close up is from the iconic shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho".

In this famous scene a close up of the face of the actress (Janet Leigh) is used to distress the audience with the image of her face screaming in terror as she's murdered.

Wide Shot:

Wide shots are used to show scenery and to give context to the location in which the film is taking place. They have been used consistently in western (cowboy) films (both new and old) to illustrate the barren and deserted nature of the wild west. A good example of this is this wide shot of a graveyard from The good, the bad and the ugly.

This shows the vast amount of death in the wild west. These wide shots are also common in modern westerns such as the recent Westworld TV series.

This wide shot of the train and dusty american desert sets up the idea of this being much like an old style western (despite the fact that it isn't).

Low Angle:

Low angle shots are used to make either the audience feel weak or to make the audience see a certain character as weak. The idea of being looked down upon puts whatever is above the camera in a position of power.

This image of The Joker from The Dark Knight is at a low angle because at this point in the film he is in a position of power and so by using this shot the audience sees that the joker is powerful and perhaps winning.

Overall shot types and angles affect the way an audience perceives what they see on screen. If everything was seen in the same shot type then a film would be confusing and would struggle to be in any way meaningful to an audience.