Every standard shot size as a frame around the same person, what each is called, what it is for, and roughly where the camera stands.
Also: XCU, big close-up
Part of a face: the eyes, a mouth, a hand on an object.
Detail the audience must not miss, or a feeling too big for a whole face. Use it sparingly, because it removes all context and the viewer cannot tell where anyone is.
35mm on full frame: about 0.2 m away
Also: head shot
The head and a little shoulder. The top of the head may be cut.
The default for performance. If a line matters, it usually lands here. A longer lens keeps the background soft so nothing competes with the face.
35mm on full frame: about 0.5 m away
Also: chest-up, chest shot
Head to mid-chest. Also called a chest-up framing.
The interview size and the workhorse of dialogue coverage. Enough shoulder to read body language, close enough to stay intimate.
35mm on full frame: about 0.9 m away
Also: mid shot, waist shot
Waist up.
Two people can share the frame and both stay readable. Where a scene usually sits before it starts pushing in.
35mm on full frame: about 1.5 m away
Also: cowboy shot, American shot, three-quarter shot
Mid-thigh or knees up. The cowboy shot was framed to include the holster.
Movement within a room. The body is legible and the space still matters.
35mm on full frame: about 2.1 m away
Also: full body shot, long shot
The whole figure, head to feet, with a little room above and below.
Costume, posture and the whole performance of a body: dance, fights, a character's first entrance.
35mm on full frame: about 3.5 m away
Also: long shot, establishing shot
The figure is clear but small, with the space around them.
Geography: who is where, and how far apart. Establishes a scene and re-establishes it after a run of close coverage.
35mm on full frame: about 6.9 m away
Also: XWS, extreme long shot
The person is a speck in a much larger space.
Scale, isolation, arrival. The landscape is the subject and the person is the measure of it.
35mm on full frame: about 20.7 m away
Naming sizes precisely is not an artistic nicety. A shot list that says MCU gets built the same way by a gaffer, an AD and a focus puller who have never worked together.
But a close-up on a 24mm and a close-up on a 100mm are the same size and two different shots. Size says how much of the subject is in frame; the lens says what the space around them does. A shot list that records only the size leaves the most consequential decision to whoever is nearest the camera on the day. The field of view calculator tells you where the camera stands for each size on any lens.
A conventional dialogue scene is a wide to establish, a matched pair of mediums or medium close-ups for the exchange, and closer singles for whatever the scene is actually about. Cutting between two sizes that are too similar reads as a mistake rather than a cut, so leave a clear step: wide to medium close-up, not medium to cowboy.
Decide before the day which shot the scene is for. Everything else is there to make that one land, and knowing which it is tells you where the time goes when you lose an hour to weather.
A size column on every shot, numbered for you.
Frames with a box for the size under each.
Where to stand for each size on your lens.
From closest to widest: extreme close-up, close-up, medium close-up, medium shot, medium long shot (cowboy), full shot, wide shot and extreme wide shot. They are a continuum, and productions draw the lines in slightly different places; what matters is being consistent within one.
Another name for a medium close-up: the head down to the middle of the chest. It is the standard interview framing and the workhorse of dialogue coverage.
A medium long shot framed from about mid-thigh up. The name comes from westerns, where it was framed to include the gun on the hip.
The size is the same, the shot is not. A close-up on a wide lens from close by bends the face and keeps the room sharp; on a long lens from further back it flattens the features and blurs the background. That is why a shot list records the lens as well as the size.
It depends on the lens and sensor. On full frame with a 35mm lens, roughly 0.5 m for a close-up, 1.5 m for a medium shot and 3.5 m for a full shot. The field of view calculator works it out for any lens.
In Frameboard a reference becomes a shot with a size, a lens and a movement, and the shot list and storyboard are written from it.