Establishing shots introduce the location of filming from a high angle to show the surrounding area. Medium close ups show a person from the chest up to frame interview subjects or on-screen narrators. Medium shots frame subjects from the knees up, often to show objects being held or worn. Close ups nearly fill the frame with a person's head and neck to capture facial expressions. Extreme long shots show people or objects from a distance to provide context of the surrounding environment. These various shot types were studied and used in a documentary to follow conventions and appear professional.

1. As part of codes and conventions
By Thomas Cave

2. An Establishing shot is a shot showing the surroundings in and around the area
showing the location that the film crew will be filming in. This sort of shot is
normally used to introduce the the film by showing the location with either music
or narration overlaying the shot. This type of shot is also used to introduce a
new scene within the film giving the viewer a shot insight into where the film
crew is or where they are going. These shots are usually framed as a high
angle shot looking down at the area so the viewer can see the vast surrounding
area in that particular location. However these shots can also include a person
such as the shot below.

3. Medium close ups are shots where the object or person in view fills up a large
portion of the screen. This shot only shows a person from the chest up. This sort
of shot would commonly be seen in a documentary when someone is being
interviewed. This sort of shot is also used when there is an on screen narrator
speaking to the camera.

4. In this sort of shot the person or object is normally framed a four or five feet
high. The shot is generally framed so that the people in the shot can only be
seen from just above the knee. This sort of shot is normally used if the person
in shot is carrying or wearing something of significance. This sort of shot would
be used in a documentary to show two people speaking to each other in maybe
the style of an interview.

5. This type of shot would normally fill up almost if not all of the screen. This type
of shot shows the persons neck and head in the shot and is normally used to
capture someone’s facial expressions. In the case of our documentary we are
hoping to use this sort of shot for the video diary we will be filming to document
the challenge we are thinking of doing which involves an individual going
without technology for a month.

6. This sort of shot shows a far away view of a person or an object. This sort of
shot is normally used in order to show the scale of an object or a place the
object is in. This particular type of shot like the establishing shot would be used
to show the viewer where the person in the shot is normally with off screen
narration applied to describe the location.

7. We decided to use these particular shots in our media production for both our
interviews and the scenes with on screen narration involved as we want our
documentary to look as professional as possible meaning that we needed to
study the different shot types in order to create a professional documentary
which follows the
Codes and conventions of other documentaries. After studying these shot
types we had a better understanding of the ways in which professional film
makers make a documentary.