The camera - every angle, move and abbreviation
The shorthand you must be able to read in a shot list at 8am and draw by 9. Print this one out.
12 minute read · one activity · lesson 12 of 21
A shot list will hand you 'CU - handycam - EXT stadium night'. If you have to look that up, you are not yet a professional; you are a talented person guessing. This is the whole vocabulary, as the book sets it out.
Learn it the way a musician learns notation: not to be tested on it, but so you never have to think about it again.
Shot sizes - how much of the subject is in frame
- MS - Macro shot - close enough to see the legs on a bug.
- ECU - Extreme close up - super close on the details.
- CU - Close up - close enough to fill the whole frame.
- MCU - Medium close up - wide enough to see the edges, just below neck level.
- M - Medium shot - clearly see the edges, just below the chest plate.
- CB - Cowboy shot - cut at the holster; space above the subject, framed just above the waist.
- MCW - Medium wide - lots of space around the subject, just above the knees.
- MW - Wider still - just above the ankles.
- WS - Wide shot - clearly spaced, room above the head and below the feet.
- EWS - Extreme wide shot - punched right out to see the space around the scene.
- One Shot / Two Shot / Three Shot - how many people are in frame.
Camera height and angle - where the lens is, and what that does to power
- AS - Aerial shot - tilted down on the scene from above.
- BEV - Bird's eye view - looking straight down.
- WEV - Worm's eye view - on the floor, looking up.
- KH - Knee high. WH - Waist height. EL - Eye level.
- HA - High angle - above the subject, tilted down (think CCTV).
- TD - Top down - from slightly above eye level, directly down onto the scene.
- ¾ angle - the diagonal view on a subject.
- D - Dutch - the frame itself tilted off-centre.
- P - Profile - from the side.
- POV - Point of view - what the subject sees.
- OTS - Over the shoulder.
Movement - what the camera does during the shot
- P - Pan - locked on a fixed point, following the subject horizontally.
- TL - Tilt - the camera pivots vertically from a fixed position.
- Z - Zoom - moving in or out optically.
- TR - Tracking - the camera physically travels with the subject.
Framing without the camera
Framing is a separate idea from shot size, and it is the one that makes a board look directed rather than merely drawn. You can frame a character inside an arch. You can frame them with the bodies of other passengers on a train. You can frame them with light.
The camera decides how much you see. Framing decides what surrounds it - and surrounding is meaning.
“There is no advanced language of storyboards; other than the language of storyboards.”
- Mitchell James Hughes, Storyboard Art
Board a shot list you have never read
The real test. Not 'do you know what OTS stands for' but 'can you draw from shorthand at speed'.
- Write out this shot list, or have someone write you one you have not seen: 1. EWS EXT street dawn. 2. MCW - subject walks toward camera. 3. CU - hand on a door handle. 4. OTS - subject's shoulder, door opening. 5. WEV - looking up at a figure in the doorway. 6. ECU - eyes. 7. D (Dutch) MS - two figures facing off. 8. BEV - the street, both figures small.
- Board all eight. Twelve minutes maximum per frame - this is a director-board exercise, so keep it rough.
- For each frame, ask before you draw: what does this camera height do to who has the power?
- Frames 5 and 8 are the test. If your worm's eye does not make the figure loom, and your bird's eye does not make them small and watched, the angle is only nominal - you drew the label, not the shot.
What you should have at the end
An eight-frame sequence boarded from pure shorthand, without looking anything up. When you can do that, you can take a booking.
Day 12 in one line
Learn the abbreviations until they are automatic. Then remember they are only labels - a Dutch angle that does not unsettle is not a Dutch angle, it is a tilted drawing.
This course is free and stays free. If you want to board in the suite Mitchell James Hughes built for his own work - script, shot list, storyboard, animatic, AI artist - the free tier opens every app with no card.
Start free →