Film Grammar

The grammar of film, is "Conventions governing the techniques of film and how they are used to tell a story. Film techniques include cinematography, mise-en-scène, and editing (see close-up; continuity editing; long-shot; mid-shot) and the way in which these conventions are used by practitioners of the medium to signify certain meanings (see cutaway; establishing shot; point-of-view shot; shot/reverse-shot)". This splits a scene into various sub-sections, these are the angle, the type of close up and the composition.

Angles: With regards to the angles, these again can split up into 5 separate angles. These are the Bird's eye, the high angle, eye level, low angle and worm eye view. These of course, are all employed in films to imply something in a given scene.

An example of a Bird's eye angle (or an aerial shot) is the following:

This shot, from the opening of Jurassic Park (1993) is a very good example of this technique as its use here awes the audience and is also a very good indicator of the majesty of the island, being that there are dinosaurs there. Furthermore, the fact that the helicopter is below the camera and so tiny in comparison to the rest of its surroundings shows that the people on the helicopter are insignificant in comparison to the environment around them, as shown later in the film.

An example of a high angle shot:

Here we can see an excellent example of a high angle shot. This scene from the Fellowship of the Ring (2001) shows Frodo with a desperate look on his face, below the ring. This ring (in the film) contains great power and is very manipulative of its users, and therefore we can see Frodo's immense struggle and powerlessness in fighting the ring.

An example of an eye level shot:

On the other hand, eye level shots are very common and often used as they are the simplest. In addition to this, since they are usually at around eye level, they seem to mimic the viewpoint a normal person would have in real life and are therefore used in scenes where it is necessary to connect with the character, as a high shot would make them look weak and a low shot would give them an aura of power. In the shot above, we can see Forrest Gump, from the film with the same name (1994) sitting down, yet we see him at eye level. Since he is talking in this scene, we feel as he is talking directly to us, the audience.

An example of a low-angle shot:

In the case of a low angle shot, the reasoning behind this is to empower the person or object behind shown. We associate height with power and therefore, the taller something is, the stronger we assume it is. Here we can see a shot from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001) where Hagrid (the man bursting in through the door) in not only shown from a very low angle, but in complete black, with us only being able to see his outline. This is very useful in introducing us to his character, as he is a very large man, who is found to be very intimidating by multiple characters.