Camera sits at the subject’s eye height — the most natural, neutral framing that creates audience identification and equal power dynamics.

Lens is positioned below subject eye level, tilted upward. Instills dominance, heroism, or menace — the subject looms large against the sky.

Camera looks down on the subject, shrinking them within the frame. Conveys vulnerability, weakness, or surveillance.

Extreme top-down shot at 90°. Removes spatial context, disorients, or renders subjects as abstract graphic elements — a powerful god-perspective.

Placed at or near ground level, angled steeply upward. Maximises the imposing scale of subject — a staple of villain reveals and epic architecture.

Establishes vast environment — subject is tiny or absent. Used to open sequences, define geography, and overwhelm with scale.

Full-body framing with head and feet visible. Grounds subject in their environment while still centering human action.

Frames subject from the waist up. The workhorse of dialogue scenes — intimate enough for expression, wide enough for gesture.

Face fills the frame from chin to forehead. Exposes micro-expressions and forces the audience into emotional proximity with the subject.

Isolates a single feature — an eye, a hand, a trigger finger. Maximises tension or fetishises detail to drive symbolic meaning.

Camera is rolled on its axis, creating a tilted horizon. Signals psychological disturbance, villainy, or moral ambiguity — a visual syntax of unease.

Camera sits just behind and to the side of one subject, facing another. Creates intimacy, spatial relationship, and realistic eye-line in dialogue.

Camera literally replaces a character’s eyes. The viewer inhabits that subjectivity completely — used for suspense, revelation, and empathy.

Cuts away from the action to show how a character reacts. The audience reads the event through the character’s emotional register.

Two characters share the frame simultaneously. Encodes their spatial and emotional relationship — proximity, tension, or harmony — in a single image.

Camera physically moves parallel to subject on a dolly or slider. Maintains consistent framing while conveying real-world momentum.

Camera dollies backward while the lens simultaneously zooms in. Subject stays the same size but the background warps — Hitchcock’s signature of dread.

Camera is mounted on a boom arm and sweeps vertically or in arcs. Delivers epic reveals, god-like ascents, or intimate descents into a scene.

Camera is operated without mechanical stabilisation. The resulting tremor reads as documentary truth, urgency, or visceral chaos.

Camera floats on a gyroscopic rig worn by the operator. Produces fluid, ghost-like movement that can follow subjects anywhere with dream-like smoothness.

A cut-in to a specific object or action detail. Plants narrative information — the letter, the weapon, the ring — before the wider scene continues.

A brief cut to something outside the main action — a clock, a crowd, nature. Provides spatial context, implies elapsed time, or builds tension by delaying resolution.

Focus shifts mid-shot between foreground and background subjects. Redirects attention and reveals new information without a cut.

Unmanned aerial camera that provides sweeping establishing shots, reveals scale, or produces dramatic descents into a scene from altitude.