Wide Shot

A broad shot that frames a person together with their surroundings. The whole body is visible and much more of the space comes in, telling the viewer where the person is and what is going on. In this dictionary, when the body takes up about 1/5 to 1/2 of the frame’s height it is a wide shot, and anything smaller is an extreme wide shot.

Camera position seen from the side. It stays at eye level and steps far back to take in the street.

Camera view. The person shrinks to about a third of the frame’s height, and the street around them shows too.

How it feels

Sense of space
Context
Solitude
Scale
Openness

When to use it

Showing where a character is at the start of a scene
An establishing shot that introduces a place
A person alone in a large space
The first shot in a scene made of several shots

In the movies

Lawrence of Arabia (1962) · Source: Movieclips (YouTube) · Original video

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) · Source: SearchlightPictures (YouTube) · Original video

Not to be confused with

Full Shot: The body nearly fills the frame’s height. In a wide shot the person is small and there is more of the surroundings.
Establishing Shot: A name for the role of showing the location. A wide shot is a name for size, and it is often used as an establishing shot.
Wide Lens: A wide lens is a type of lens. Shot size is set by how big the person looks on screen.

Prompt

Keyword

wide shot

Descriptive

Wide shot. The subject stands small in the middle of the street, full body visible, with plenty of the surroundings around it.

Try these combinations

Wide shot + high angle: loneliness on an empty street
Wide shot of a lone figure standing in an empty snowy street at night, high angle, cold street lights
Wide shot + pan: introducing a square at dawn
Wide shot, slow pan across a quiet town square at dawn, a small figure near the fountain