Language of the Screen

LANGUAGE OF THE SCREEN

Today's task required us to unearth the meaning behind the following terms: 'ECU', 'WS', and 'MS'. As a past film and television student in high school, I immediately recognized the abbreviations. After heading to google and using key words that were something along the lines of 'ECU' + 'MS' + 'WS' + 'film', i was rewarded with the exact result I was after at the website Film Directing and Film Making Tips. This handy site told me everything I needed to know about these three terms.

To further research on this topic, I also headed to Ken Stone's Final Cut Pro Website

BIBLIOGRAPHY:


Ken Stone's Final Cut Pro Web Site, The language of film by Michael Wohl, viewed 14 August 2009 <http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/language_of_film.html>


Film Directing and Film Making Tips for the Independent Filmmaker, Understanding camera techniques - shot size, viewed 12 August 2009 <http://filmdirectingtips.com/archives/165>

ECU - Extreme Close Up: For example, this focus in on the eye

MS - Medium Shot: The body from the waist up

WS - Wide Shot: This figure is shown in relationship to their surroundings

MLS - Medium Long Shot

MS - Mid Shot


MCU - Medium Close Up

CU - Close Up

BCU - Big Close Up

I also set out to find an example of a film that uses one of these types of shots. I went with the extreme close up because it is my favourite. Below is a scene from one of my favourite films Requiem for a Dream, which uses the ECU quite a bit...