Shot size
How tightly the subject is framed, from a wide shot that shows the whole setting to an extreme close-up filled by one detail.
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What it is
Shot size names how much of the subject fills the frame. The usual ladder runs from extreme wide and wide, through full shot, medium shot, and medium close-up, to close-up and extreme close-up. A wide establishes place; a medium keeps gesture and context; a close-up makes expression or detail carry the frame.
Reach for the vocabulary in shot lists, storyboards, portrait briefs, and product sequences. Sergio Leone's westerns are a durable anchor for the extreme close-up: eyes and tiny facial movements become the whole event. Moving between sizes also gives an edit a readable rhythm from context to action to reaction.
Gotcha: shot size is not lens type. A wide shot can be made with a telephoto lens from far away, and a close-up can be made with a wide lens from uncomfortably near, but their perspective will look very different. Name both the framing and the focal length when face shape or spatial relationships matter.
Ask AI for it
Create a seven-frame shot-size contact sheet of the same actor and location: extreme wide shot, wide shot, full shot, medium shot, medium close-up, close-up, and extreme close-up. Label each frame with standard film shot-size terminology, keep wardrobe and lighting identical, and use an 85mm full-frame-equivalent lens for the close frames to avoid facial distortion.