ABSTRACT
The long shot includes one or multiple characters from head to toe in the frame, along with a significant portion of the environment. The long shot’s inability to showcase specific emotions can be exploited to add tension and mystery to a scene; for instance, by using it instead of a medium close-up or a close-up to purposely conceal a character’s reaction or identity at a key moment. Like extreme long shots, long shots are often used as establishing shots, and are typically placed right before an interior scene to identify the setting where subsequent action is supposed to take place. One of the ways the long shot visualizes relationships between a character and a location is by manipulating the actual or apparent distances between them in the frame.
