Flikipedia A branching dictionary of the moving image

shot

noun

The basic unit of a film: a single uninterrupted run of the camera from the start to the stop of recording, and, in the finished work, an unbroken strip of images bounded by two cuts.

Origin From the general sense of shot as a single discharge or act of aiming, applied to photography and then to motion pictures, where "to shoot" came to mean recording an image with a camera.

  1. Production In production, a single continuous operation of the camera between the moment recording begins and the moment it stops. The scene was covered in four shots from different angles.

  2. Editing In the finished film, an uninterrupted run of frames lying between two cuts; the smallest continuous segment the editor joins to others.

  3. Framing A framing considered by its scale or subject, described by terms such as wide shot, medium shot, or close-up.

The unit of film

A shot is the basic building block from which a film is assembled. It has two closely related meanings. During filming, a shot is a single continuous run of the camera: everything recorded from the moment the operator starts the camera until it is stopped. In the finished motion picture, a shot is the uninterrupted strip of images that lies between two edit points, or cuts. What was recorded as one continuous action may be shortened in editing, so a shot in the final film is often only a portion of the material originally captured.

A single recorded attempt at a shot is called a take; a scene may be shot in several takes, of which one is chosen. Shots combine into a scene (action unified in place and time) and scenes into larger structures, but the shot remains the smallest continuous segment.

Shot size

Shots are classified by scale — how much of the subject and surroundings the frame contains. Common gradations, from widest to closest, include the wide (or long) shot, which places a figure within a broad setting; the medium shot, framing a person roughly from the waist up; and the close-up, which isolates a face or small detail. Intermediate terms such as medium long shot and medium close-up mark points along the same continuum. The naming is descriptive rather than fixed, and conventions vary between practitioners and traditions.

The shot and editing

The shot is the unit that film editing joins. Because a film is built by placing shots in sequence, the shot defines both the boundaries the editor works with and the continuity within each segment. A shot may hold a fixed framing or change through camera movement, and its duration ranges from a fraction of a second to several minutes. The transition from one shot to the next — most often a cut — is the point at which two separately framed views are joined into a continuous account of the action.

See also

  • motion picture— A work made of many still images shown in rapid succession, producing the impression of continuous movement.
  • scene— A unit of dramatic action unified by continuity of time and place, built from one or more shots. In the structure of a film it is the intermediate level between the individual shot and the larger sequence.
  • film editing— The selection, arrangement, and joining of individual shots into a continuous finished film; also the profession and craft of the editor who performs this work.
  • camera movement— The displacement or rotation of the camera during a shot, and the supports and stabilizers that make such motion possible; distinct from the apparent magnification change of an optical zoom.

Sources

  1. Bordwell & Thompson, "Film Art: An Introduction"
  2. Oxford English Dictionary, "shot, n."

Last revised: September 18, 2026