I am storyboarding a project that I want to shoot like the movie High and Low (1963), where the movie is shot in almost all mastershots. Some scenes are all mastershots, with no close ups or medium shots at all.

However, I watched this film riot video where they talk about how you should always get the medium and close up shots, just in case, at 4:39 into the video:

Perfect your Film with Cinematic Motion - YouTube

But if you plan on having a scene be intercutting between 2 or more master shots, and no other types of shots, do you really need the mediums and close ups?

In my personal experience I've often had to cut to a coverage shot I wasn't planning on using but still got it just as back up. But that doesn't mean it has to be like this all the time. Perhaps if I do more takes of just the masters, then I don't need the others, because I have more master takes to choose from.

So in the video, is the 3+3 method he talks about, necessary? For example, in High and Low, in those scenes that are all mastershots, did the director, still get mediums and close ups of all those scenes, just in case he needed them but then ended up throwing them on the cutting room for, once he saw that the masters worked?

Oh boy, a chance to be a first responder to what is going to be a typical really long thread and a chance for nostalgia. Short answer, yes, shoot long, medium and close for every scene, good practice and why not? We're largely talking shooting ratios. Back in the day you did everything you could to save film, roll film was the last thing you did before "action" call, and (in Australia) you crashed your budget if you went over 7:1, I think film and processing was cheaper in Hollywood. Nowadays, it doesn't matter. I guess part of this thread will devolve into how much should you storyboard/animate: everyone always shoots more, just make sure you log all your shots, Now get out and shoot.

Oh okay, but the extra shots still cost money though, in the sense that everyone is working longer and you still may have to pay for more location as well.

When it comes to a medium shot though, how many actors can be in a medium shot for it to count as a medium? Two actors for example, or more? And I am getting the close shot, they talk about in the video is just a close of one actor only and cannot be more than one?

Ryan, It depends but I don't think it really matters. The idea is to get the vision in your head on film. Maybe get some basics - just grab a camera, pick a topic or subject, any topic (e.g. my dog).learn what's involved by doing and how close you can come to doing it.


"the only way to learn how to make films is to make films. You don't have to go to film school to learn how to make films, but you do make films if you go to film school".

AGAIN, there is a film riot video where the director literally made the film all by himself (occasional DP in some shots but you could avoid this). Shot it himself, acted in it himself etc.

No one understands why you dont just do this...get some wigs, play all the characters, make a few short films that literally require no one else to make them happen. Test out all your ideas. Write the script/story around available locations/resources, no matter how dull, write so you have scenes that include examples of all the many many things youve been asking about for two years.

You have time and the perfect excuse (no “real” production can happen cause of COVID). Theres no reason not to do this, and it doesnt matter how bad they turn out cause youre just practicing filmmaking. Do it and post them here and people can tell you what does/doesnt work.

It's a broken record. Everyone keeps telling him to film and discover the answers for himself instead of asking us. If it's possible, the most important thing for you at this stage is to practice, until visual story telling is second nature and you don't have these questions. Then and only then will it be worth thinking of producing a budgeted film.

I know. I've chimed in a lot less since one occasion when I wrote reams and reams and was kind of blown off, and realized it was kind of pointless to try, but sometimes it gets to be too much and I just gotta "let one rip."

I do the same. I only respond to get things off my chest or to give myself something to do when I have too much free time on my hands.

Honestly don't think anything we say will have any effect.

Most anyone would have done something similar to what you suggested. After a year of it, you'd have a fair sense if you're good enough for this type of work or just realize the over whelming time, money, equipment, people, and risk isn't worth it.

I have been on this forum for a good while and I have seen Ryan ask a lot of questions and I sometime thing he not taking in what been said.

I have videoed a good few shows and sometimes I would even setup a 2nd maybe a 3rd camera but these would be fixed. The main idea would be see what that angle from that camera looks like and it would also give me ideas for again.

Ryan.. you should try some fixed cameras at different angles to see a shot from another angle would be any good to you. This could save you time.

I had to video a play back in March this year just as we went in to lockdown. I did have friend lined up to do it as I was doing lighting else where for a school musical but it was called off and the one that my friend was to video was as well. The one my friend was to video was back on but to a small crowed of 50 people and I only got asked 12 hours before hand if I could still video it. Well I could do it myself and as only had one chance at recording it, I desided to use to cameras and both where side by side one was set wide and the one manned was the main one. I had a back up from the wide one just in case I missed something when doing a close-up with the main one. In the end I did not need any footage from the one set wide.

My point you can never have to much footage and angles as you may use them and maybe not. Its all about trying things out and if you like you will know to try it again.

Oh well I don't like to play multiple characters in my own because it's really difficult for me to do a good job if there is no one behind the camera or operating the boom. If I do it all myself it's totally unwatchable.

I have done this before and it's just much more competent when there are other people to help.

As for learning what shots to use for a scene, I know what shots I want but if I want all masters in just wonder if mediums and close ups are still necessary therefore.

I do appreciate all the help! I don't mean to blow anyone off. It's just doing an entire movie with just me and no one behind the camera is not going to work. I've tried it before.

Thats just it. No one needs to watch it except you and maybe us if you feel like sharing. Put the boom on a stand, or do something that has no dialogue. Youre just experimenting with these, trying out techniques and trying to grow as a filmmaker. Theres really no excuse not to do this stuff given your level of uncertainty about seemingly everything.

Yeah that's true, but I find it difficult to gauge what shots I need if I am the only one in them compared to multiple people. Unless I am suppose to have more than one of me in the same sho

For example the master shots I have planed have four characters in.

Then work on the many other things you've asked about that don't involve multiple people in the same shot? There are like 16000 other things you could explore.

Oh ok well I am working on other things as well at the moment. I just wanted to learn more about how many shots are necessary for working with more than a couple of actors. But I'm working in there things as well.

Well, when it comes to coverage , I have that problem where the subjects are too much of the same distance in the mastershots as they intercut, but us there a term for that issue?

I meant using yourself as an actor in anything, regarding all your many questions, that DOESN'T involve multiple people in the same shot. The master thing is only one of the things you've worried about.

Regarding masters, if it were me, and I were limited by no actors willing to help out with these experiments (not to mention the pandemic), I would use stuffed animals, GI Joes, dolls, whatever. Get a dollhouse for a location so the scale matches, build something out of cardboard, really, who cares? As long as it allows you to test concepts/ideas.

I remember reading George Lucas (or whoever directed that particular movie) used toys and a fake miniature forest and a cheap camcorder to shoot a mockup version of the speedbike chase through the forest, so he could see how to shoot/edit it for real.

When you ask "how do these directors know....", THIS is the kinda stuff they do.

Oh well right now I'm doing the documentary project I was doing before so I can still find myself shooting real people

Just when it comes to my own projects I am not sure how to use stuffed animals since they don't move but I guess I can move them with my hands on camera if course.

If it's done properly, these things are not even noticed. They often surface on YouTube and we kick ourselves we missed it. If they notice first screening it wasn't done right.

These questions seem to endlessly repeat.

You can have quite a lot of the action in longer lasting shots. Note I said longer lasting shots, not wide shots.Steven Spielberg is a master of these; the closer shots are all in a single shot provided by camera moves interacting with the actor's performance. So, he also has the closer shots within that single shot. just no cuts It doesn't appear slow because everything is dynamic. He also uses the static shots as required, that may or may not be singles. because Spielberg often composes in depth.

However, for this to work, you need actors who have good sense of timing and a camera crew who can operate and move the camera to match the actor's performance. You may require a number of takes for everything to work precisely.

Regarding coverage, you need enough to tell the story. If your actors don;t have that sense of timing, you'll need use the edit to create that. Sometimes the politics on a production requires the director to over cover the scenes to give the producer options in the edit. Note that on some TV dramas the director may not be that involved in the editing.

Again, you're endlessly looking for rules. It's what's appropriate for a particular scene within the context of the story as a whole. How you'd shoot a scene in a soap opera will probably differ to a similar scene in a feature film with the same type of location.

Oh ok. Well when it comes to Spielberg's moving shots, those type of shots do create more risk of continuity errors, so I assume Spielberg gets a static master of everything as back of then, every time he chooses to do that type of shot?

Why should he do that?

He's got a continuity person, keeping aye on things and noting it. Also, these day,s there's video assist being recorded from the film camera. They can play the video back if needed,

The master shot doesn't need to be a wide shot, just last the length of the scene. Spielberg's shots can vary, depending on the content, so it could be wide and at some point end up on a CU or a MS, then move on to a wide angle high view, before sweeping into a close view of something being put in someone's pocket.

Oh okay I thought the idea of a master was to capture everything and if during the master, the camera moves and leaves a character, that's not capturing everything. but as long as I can do that and it's still safe

Why waste time doing that? It costs ,money for something you won't need, all you require is something that allows everyone to know where they're going, even if they're out of the shot. If they need a simple wide shot they'll shoot it.

Often a master shot on TV drama is an excuse for rehearsal time and it may not get used at all, At most, it's a safety shot.

It takes time to set up Spielberg's shots, so why waste time doing a static wide shot if you've got something that dramatically evolves and provides all the information that everyone needs.

Oh ok but there was one time where there was a problem with one of the close up shots and I did need the master to back to. So I thought it is good to get just in case since it turned out I needed to cut back to it once. Unless I am looking at it the wrong way?

I don't think you're working at the same level as Steven Spielberg is!

If you're shooting with CUs, for most scenes there will usually be wider shots, otherwise you've just left with talking heads. Whether or not they could called a master shot is another matter. they could be two shots or a variety of other sizes, Sometimes, a cutaway to the other actor might work better, especially if their reaction is more telling than what the actor was saying.

Oh ok. Are you saying that I shouldn't have a static master of everything for safety if I don't intend to use, and should only shoot what I intend to use for sure, and that will be enough coverage?

Shoot a wide master if you want to. It gets the DP thinking about the overall lighting of a scene, but the master doesn't need to be just a wide static shot. It can be lot ,ore more interesting and possibly the only shot needed. It depends on the scene.

Although, as I mentioned, it's good for rehearsing the actors and lets everyone see what's going on.

Half of this scene is a single shot:

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) - Hushabye Mountain Scene (3/12) | Movieclips - YouTube

Oh okay, do you think that that scene still used the 3+3 method that the film riot video I posted before talked about, just for back up coverage, in case they needed it?

I doubt it, they probably planned for the song to be a single shot. Doing it in a single shot would allow them to stay on or ahead of schedule. If you know what you're doing you don't need back up coverage,

A number of directors don't shot master shots that won't get used. It's something you learn from shooting on film at film school, knowing what you want and you only shoot that (with some overlaps), so keeping the shooting ratio down.

Oh okay thanks. It's just for one my projects for example, there was an OTS shot, that was slightly out of focus. So I couldn't use it and was forced to cut back to the master whenever I wanted to show that character. So that is one example, where I had to cut back to a master. I just thought that if I have one shot only of an entire scene, with no other shots to cut too, it may seem risky, in case something goes wrong with that one shot.

If you're using less experienced camera people having a safety wide should make sense, However, there is often more than one shot option, apart from the wide shot, in some respects the OTS is a wide shot. In some film scenes it might be the only one.

The answer is probably to get a reasonably sized monitor, so that soft shots can be more easily spotted.

Every time he asks a question or wants to do something, it inevitably leads back to him trying cover up something done poorly.

This goes back to your obsession with compression and telephoto lenses. Concentrating on getting the basics right. If your actor is out of focus none of the other stuff you spent time over thinking matters. If you can't handle a shallow dof, unable to pull focus, don't use super telephotos lens, use a smaller sensor camera or smaller aperture. Like Brian said a large field monitor, it's like the first thing you learn. This is freshman film school stuff. Awful!

Having a decent sized monitor on the set and using it religiously for playback after each shot can greatly cut down on the number of surprises in the editing room. Even better if you can recruit someone to watch for you while shooting and call out errors before the camera ever rolls. This doesn't require fancy equipment - I use a 22" Samsung consumer TV that I think I paid $139 for - but it's good enough to see focus errors, blown highlights, boom shadows, microphone intrusions, lens flares and the like. I wouldn't trust it for judging subtle color settings, but it can tell me if I've forgotten to white balance or something. And it doesn't take a highly trained professional to be a quality control assistant in real time, just somebody with a reasonable eye for details and assertive enough to bring up what they see with the director.

It may appear at first that this will take extra time on the set, but it saves a lot of uncertainty, frustration and retakes in the long run.

Oh okay thanks, I can get someone like to help look for errors or get a large monitor, or perhaps even both. Thanks.

And as for coverage, what I could do is just shoot the shots I see in the script only. However, there is one thing that may be important. I was told by one filmmaker that I cannot cut back and forth between a medium shot and a CU shot, because the shots have to match if you cut back and forth constantly. Is that true, or no?

You can if there's a dramatic reason for doing so, however, it sounds like you were cutting back and forth inappropriately.

Although, not the same shot sizes, "The Caine Mutiny" uses a two frame size leap. In this case between a BCU and MCUs. In this case it's used for a dramatic effect. .

Oh okay. I was told it was a rule that if you cut constantly between two shots, that the shots have to match. And so many movies choose to do this that I wasn't able to find any examples that deviated from that.

What about a scene like this... Was there a mastershot where they let it run for the entire scene, for safety do you think, or is it shot for the edit exactly, with no extra coverage, other than what we see in edit here? It's the scene at 0:48 into the clip. Thanks.

big heat clip example - YouTube

Where did that rule come from?

It's nonsense, there are plenty of films where they cut between different shot sizes, they change the sizes as the dramatic points are made.

The Caine Mutiny (1954) - Paranoid Breakdown Scene (8/9) | Movieclips - YouTube

Oh okay, thanks for showing me that.

The rule, or method, was discussed here on film riot at 4:37 into the video:

Perfect your Film with Cinematic Motion - YouTube

He talks about how you have to wide, medium, and close up shots, and then do reverses of them all, or the editor is going to have a hard time cutting back and forth, if they do not have those matching shots. If there is some relevance to what he is saying?

That is just the starting point, it's the shot use being described in a basic way. Similar to saying that feature film script has 3 acts.

The basics are built on when things start becoming more complex as the dynamics and power play between characters is revealed through the editing of shots. It might''t be as symmetrical as 3 + 3, it might be 3 + 4 or 2 +3

It seems like you're still trying to find the basic rules, when you should at the stage (when trying to make a feature film) where they should be starting to become instinctive.

"Film Directing Shot by Shot" by Steven Karz might be worth reading. It goes into more depth than a short video.

Oh okay, I didn't realize he meant it as a starting off point. He said that it bit him in the butt time and time again, if he did not follow the formula. He didn't say that it was a good starting off point, and that he learned anything new or instinctive as a result.

He also used Blade Runner as a example of the 3+3 rule, and what's a movie like Blade Runner, doing, using starting off point formulas, when it is more advanced of course...

You can use these rules, but how you use them will vary. I don't think Ridley Scott was consciously thinking about the 3 + 3 rule when shooting Blade Runner or any other of his other films. It's more a way of teaching, the way scenes generally get covered. Of, course, there will be directors who don't work in that way, since all rules are there to be broken. He mentions one exception being horror films.

Oh okay thanks. What I could do is throw rules out the window and just use whatever shot I think is emotionally appropriate at that particular moment in the scene, no matter what any rules, say, if that's best? I am just worried that it would be seen as possibly too avante guarde or drawing too much attention to itself, if give myself complete free rein though.

Have a look at this, since it about getting material for the edit and how you're going to tell the story,

Why Does an Edit Feel Right? (According to Science) - YouTube

Brian interesting video thx for sharing

I think Ryan needs to change his "also known as" to az állandó kérdező (Hungarian)

Thanks. I saw the video before, but it refreshed my memory to see it again now. Thank you very much. I felt that my editing so far is better than my shot decisions, perhaps.

There is so much teaching material online, I don't know why you aren't picking up on all the information out there and using it.

It used to tough to find anything, now it's so easy to find the stuff a filmmaker needs to learn in order to make really good films.

All that is required is applying it, Don;t rush, trying to shoot scenes as fast as possible, if you;re not getting performances go again, attempting to draw things out of the actors. You're not shooting on film, so the costs are minimal.

The only way you'll get better is by practice, not asking endless questions. Experienced crews are those that have already made most of the mistakes and learnt not to make them again. The really good ones will made a mistake or go too far, but you don't notice because it's in a detail..

Soft shots can happen to the best focus pullers, they just happen more rarely and they usually call them out at the time, even if that annoys the director.

Oh okay thanks. Well the only reason I have to keep to not take too long shooting is everyone's time and availability. Lately I've been trying to known out a page of dialogue per 30 minutes on average, so I don't go overtime in people's schedules. But is that too fast?

But there are other filmmakers that can get a whole feature length movie shot in a week, which is even faster than I am shooting it seems.

What I could do, is just shoot a scene I am planning in only two mastershots, and cut back and forth between those two. Is that enough coverage, or do I need more in case of any continuity flaws? Or is two masters enough?

I think Ryan needs to change his "also known as" to az állandó kérdező (Hungarian) Is that good or bad? How many questions are too much?

Well what I could do is shoot a scene in just two shots only and hope for the best. Perhaps that is all I need for a scene of a few minute scene is just one master, and a revers master.

But there are other filmmakers that can get a whole feature length movie shot in a week, which is even faster than I am shooting it seems.

But are they worth watching? Are they cinematic or are they just talking heads?

If that's the standard of performance you're getting in 30 minutes a page, you're going too fast. You need really good actors to work fast, something you don't have.