From the course: Creating a Short Film: 07 Cinematography

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Getting coverage

Getting coverage

From the course: Creating a Short Film: 07 Cinematography

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Getting coverage

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- Throughout these short film courses, we've talked a bit about getting coverage. Coverage refers to the amount of footage shot for a particular scene. Note that coverage refers to both the quantity and the diversity of your footage. So if you had a dialog scene and you just had two camera angles, your editor might have a difficult time editing that because there isn't much coverage. The exact number of shots that a scene needs to have enough coverage really depends on the scene. For most dialog scenes, you usually want at least a master shot and a reverse on each character. A master shot is one that shows us the whole world so that we get a since of the space and then we go in for reverses. A reverse is when we film one character in a conversation. An external reverse is when we shoot the reverse over the shoulder from behind the other character. An internal reverse is more intimate. It is filmed without the other character in the frame. As if the camera were in between the two…

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