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4. Writing About Movies Assignments
5. Shot Analysis

Prompt

According to the description provided in Writing About Movies, on pages 28–30, prepare a shot analysis of the first twelve shots in a sequence from one (1) film listed in one of the following Letterboxd lists:

• If you want to write about a film from the Germany and Mise-en-scène module: use one of these films
• If you want to write about a film from the French Film and Cinematography module: use one of these films
• If you want to write about a film from the Soviet Montage module: use one of these films
• If you want to write about a film from the 1930s Hollywood and the Studio System module: use one of these films

Write about only one (1) film for this assignment.

Parts of a Shot Analysis

1. Identify the film, director, nation, and year of release.
2. Write a description of the sequence to orient the reader. Do not use timecode; instead describe where in the film your sequence appears and write a summary of the sequence.
3. Write a shot analysis of the first twelve shots. Include (at least) these four elements for each shot:
   1. the shot number in this sequence
   2. the camera distance of the shot
   3. a description of the shot
   4. duration in seconds

You can use either the table option or the paragraph option as shown in the linked examples.

Camera Distance

Because you will need to describe the camera distance for each shot, refer to the following terms to describe the distance of the camera in a shot.

Camera Distance	Description
extreme long shot	camera is far away to make subject appear small in the frame
long shot	the whole figure fills the frame
medium long shot	cuts off the figure at the shins or knees
medium shot	cuts off the figure at the waist
medium close-up	cuts off the figure at the chest
close-up	shows just the face of the figure
extreme close-up	shows only a part of the face or a small object

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Example

Here is the example I did using the film Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933).

Write your own shot analysis using one of the following options:

• table option
• paragraph option