Coverage

Coverage:

o   Principle of design and production

o   Most students design films as a chorological shot by shot – you design one shot at a time and think about what shot comes next. THIS IS BAD

o   COVERAGE – starts with the action, moment, story beat and then looks at HOW the camera can ‘cover’ those actions/ emotions. The camera shoots the same scene with different shots of coverage, to ‘cover’ what happens in the scene.

o   This gives you better opinions when editing – stops you wasting time doing re-shoots

Types of coverage:

Mater shot:

o   The master shot covers the whole scene/action/moment in to show the established a location, context, distance and pacing – the bigger and more open you want an action or a moment to feel, the more you will use master shots.

o   E.g Avengers Endgame: master shots are used to show size and scale of the final battle – which makes the audience understand just how massive and epic the fight is.

Single:

o   A single is a shot of a single actor on camera – this is used to show the audience how a character talks – how they feel after hearing new information or focuses the audience on a characters perspective

o   E.g Introducing Spiderman in Captain America Civil war, Cap’s face as he catches Mjolnir.

2 shot:

o   2 people in the same shot – shots like these directly show the relationship between characters and allow the audience to see a conversation or moment play out between characters

o   E.g Showing 2 characters arguing in same shot feels more natural than cutting between singles of each person arguing

Insert:

o   Inserts are shots of objects/details that the audience needs to see to understand the scene – they are then ‘inserted’ into a cut to fill in the audience understanding. After the Masters and Singles are shot – most film makers come back to do all the inserts at once

o   E.g – Captain America catches Thor’s hammer – we see an insert on the hammer rising off the ground BEFORE anything happens – it sets up the moment and makes is more awesome

Cutaway:

o   Cutaway are shots used to ‘cut away’ form the main action, controlling the pacing and mood of the scene

o   E.g - Cutting away from a conversation a clock on the wall so the scene feels more tense.