Published: June 24, 2024 | Last Updated: July 3, 2024
An establishing shot informs the audience about the location, time, characters, props, and key details and often sets the upcoming action’s mood, tone, and pacing. Establishing shots can be a single shot or a sequence of shots. They are sometimes used to foreshadow events later in the film.
Establishing shots are often wide, crane, or aerial shots that capture the scene’s geography.
But in reality, any shot can be an establishing shot. For example, a medium close-up shot of the protagonist can simultaneously reveal the main character and the setting, and an extreme long shot can show a lonesome cowboy on the vast plains of the Wild West.
First, here’s a supercut of establishing shots from various movies showing many examples of how they can be done. I’ll analyze a few more later in the article:
Establishing shots can occur in the opening scene or when we switch to a new location in the movie. As such, they have multiple purposes, although all of these are related:
Set the Scene in Time and Space
The primary function of an establishing shot is to set the scene and inform the audience where and when the movie takes place.
For example, are we in a desert, a bustling modern metropolis, a small rural town, a serene countryside, or an eerie forest? And are we in ancient Greece, The Middle Ages during the plague, the Victorian Era, the Industrial Era, World War II, the 1960s, the 1980s, the present day, or maybe even the future? You get the point.
Example: Below, you can see some of the establishing shots of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from the Harry Potter film series. Notice how the weather, time of day, and overall mood changes depending on the plot.
Set the Mood and Tone
By setting the scene, you often also set the tone or mood of a scene – or, if it’s the first shot – the entire movie. Establishing shots can emphasize the emotional tone using specific lighting – such as dramatic low-key lighting, weather conditions, or angles.
Example: In the opening shot of Lost In Translation (2003) below, we see Bob trying to catch some sleep in a cab after flying from the US to Tokyo. We see the blurred buildings outside as he travels through and wakes up to the neon-lit streets set to the lullaby-like song Girls by Death in Vegas.
This effectively sets the mood and tone of the film, forewarns of his trouble sleeping in a city that never sleeps (which leads to his meeting with Charlotte), and highlights the cultural dislocation experienced by the protagonists.
Reveal Relationships
Establishing shots show the spatial relationships between characters and their environment, helping to ground the viewer in the story world. For example, a wide shot of a big mountain with a tiny mountain climber will automatically signal the fight of a small human to conquer the massive forces of nature.
Example: The establishing shots of No Country for Old Men (2007) show the desolate rural landscape and jurisdiction of Sherif Ed Tom Bell. The vastness and emptiness of the plains make you feel small, alone, and helpless if things get ugly. It reminds you of the plains and conflicts of the Wild West you see in Western movies.
Set the Pacing
Establishing shots can help set the pacing of the scene about to unfold. This can be done through the length of the shot and the amount of camera movement or action.
However, sometimes the director might trick you – for example, by showing a seemingly quiet scene where things are about to go down.
See the difference in the pacing in the three examples below.
Pacing Example 1: Blade Runner (1982) opens with slow aerial wide shots of a fictive future Los Angeles with flying cars (the where and when). The slow camera movement, set to the Vangelis synth theme, helps emphasize the vastness of the cyberpunk metropolis and immerse us in the hypnotic dreamscape. The pacing is consistent throughout the movie and illustrates the slowly unraveling neo-noir detective plot.
Of course, there’s something to be said about the pacing of films from the 1980s, which is generally slower than today. But Blade Runner 2049 (2017) uses the same slow pacing to unravel the plot – a trademark of director Denis Villeneuve – as also seen in the Dune series and Arrival (2016).
Pacing Example 2: Now see the dynamics of Top Gun: Maverick (2022). Although slow, a lot more movement is happening – from the navy crew working on the hangar ship (the where) to the moving planes.
Also, the camera moves much more dynamically, and the cuts are faster. It gives you the impression of a busy, dynamic environment, where everything happens according to a tight schedule and rehearsed drills to ensure the pilots can take off and land safely from the air missions where the real action happens.
Pacing Example 3: Apocalypse Now (1979) opens with a seemingly serene shot of a line of palm trees at the jungle’s edge. But as a helicopter passes through a cloud of haze, we are forewarned that this might not be a beautiful nature documentary. Instead, it’s the calm before the storm, soon confirmed as napalm rains down on the line of palm trees.
Passage of Time
Establishing shots can also indicate the passage of time, using visual cues like time-lapses of changing seasons or the progression from day to night.
Example: The TV series Breaking Bad (2008-2013) extensively used time-lapses to show the transition of time – for example, in establishing shots transitioning from night to day:
Summing Up
Establishing shots helps us quickly identify the who, where, when, what, and why a scene occurs.
Good filmmakers use establishing shots also to set the mood and tone and provide hints about how the scene is about to unfold or forewarn about later events in a movie.
Establishing shots are used at the movie’s beginning and every time the location changes in the narrative. They can be any type of shot, from extreme close-ups to wide-angle shots. Likewise, they can be shot using different methods – from static shots on a tripod to handheld or aerial shots.
Up Next: What is Blocking in Film?
