Close-Up
Face fills most of the frame. Used when an emotion is doing more work than a line.
- COINED
- 1900s
- TAXONOMY
- SHOT TYPES
- RELATED
- 4
- TEMPLATES
- 0
A close-up is a choice the audience can feel. You're saying: of all the things in this scene, this face - this one second - is what matters more than anything else. Don't waste it.
The close-up is most powerful when an emotion is doing work the dialogue isn't. Look at any great reaction shot - the line that came before is rarely the point. The reaction is. Cut to the listener before they speak, and the audience writes the inner monologue for you.
Don't cut to a close-up every time someone speaks. You'll burn the move. Save closer framings for the moment where the character realizes something, decides something, or is hiding something. Then sit there. Hold it longer than feels brave. The discomfort is the point.
Emotional turn. Realization. Decision. Lying. Subtext louder than text. End-of-scene buttons.
When you haven't earned it with wider coverage first. When the actor is phoning it in - closer framings reveal everything. When you've already used three close-ups in two minutes.
Terms next to this one.
Eyes, hands, a watch face. Cut here when one detail has to land harder than the whole scene.
Subject framed from the waist up. The workhorse of dialogue scenes - close enough for performance, wide enough for gesture.
Close-up of a listener, not the speaker. Reactions are where stories live; most editors don't cut to them enough.
Two characters sharing the frame. The single best way to show a relationship without writing dialogue about it.