A shot that frames the subject roughly from the waist up. The standard go-to shot for performance videos, showing enough of the body to convey physicality while keeping the face prominent.
The medium shotA shot that frames the subject roughly from the waist up. Th… is the workhorse of music video editing. It sits between the wide and the close-upA shot tightly framed on a single detail, usually a face, a …, balancing environmental context with personal connection to the artist.
Medium shot in the real world
Most of the performance footage in Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody (1975) is medium shotA shot that frames the subject roughly from the waist up. Th…: the four members of the band framed from the waist or chest up against a dark background. DirectorThe creative lead of the music video. They develop the conce… Bruce Gowers used medium shots as the base and intercutted with close-ups and the famous layered multi-frame shots to create visual variety without any location changes.
Related terms
Wide shotA shot that captures a large area of the scene, showing the …, Close-upA shot tightly framed on a single detail, usually a face, a …, CoverageThe range of angles and shots captured for any given scene o…, Tracking shotA shot where the camera moves laterally alongside a moving s…, A-rollThe primary footage of the video, typically the main perform…