Definition of
General plane
On the ground of the television and the cinematographythe notion of flat is used to refer to fragment of a film that is shot in a single take. According to the characteristics, it is possible to differentiate between different types of planes.
He general plane is one that presents a around or a landscape of large dimensions. This scenario is positioned as the most important motive of the plot.
- Wide Plan Features
- An example
- Differences between the long shot and the big long shot
- Related Topics Tree
Wide Plan Features
On a general plane (and even more on a big general shot), the individual is lost in the immensity or among the crew, or does not even appear. It usually aims to demonstrate the subject insignificance or seek to highlight your loneliness. This is possible thanks to the emphasis placed on the context over the figures.
beyond the eventual dramatics that it can transmit, the general shot usually has a purpose descriptive. It also makes it possible to display landscapes, highlighting their aesthetic component.
With a general plan, in short, the person goes unnoticed. For this reason, this plan is not appropriate if you intend to carry out a portrait or show someone’s physiognomy in detail, for example.
It can help you: Descriptive geometry
An example
Suppose that, in the first scene of a moviea filmmaker wants to show where the protagonist of the story is: in an isolated and difficult to access place.
To achieve this effect, he makes a large general shot where several mountain peaks can be seen and, paying attention, it is possible to detect a small construction on a summit. In the next scene, the director already introduces the protagonist inside the shelter: the audience, from the previous general shot, understands that his location is remote.
See also: Scene
Differences between the long shot and the big long shot
It is important to differentiate between two concepts that are often confused since their names are practically the same: the great General shot is one in which the scene in which the action will take place is shown. action, something that is described in the previous paragraph, since the character or characters can be completely absent or go unnoticed in pursuit of the terrain; in the general shot, on the other hand, the characters usually occupy approximately a third of the image, so it is not common to leave them out.
Between these two concepts one can distinguish certain more subtle differences than the mere percentage of space that the figure of the subject occupies on screen. For example, one of the most important objectives of the large general shot is the description of the environment, the accentuation of the smallness of the subject in front of it and, therefore, the relevance of its context. On the general level, on the other hand, even if the character is not in the center, the aim is to describe him taking into account his environment as a source of information to understand his personality or the reasons for the conflict in which he is caught up.
This shows us that the plane is much more than the result of focusing the camera in a certain way. On the contrary, we must take several points into account before deciding what type of shot is best for each scene, but never neglecting a very important factor: the type of audience. Culture plays an essential role in the making of a work such as a film, because certain elements are only understood in one context and can be absurd or offensive in another. If we look at the types of shots most used in films from Argentina, the United States, France and Japan, for example, we will notice that they are not the same, but that there are well-marked trends.
The wide shot is among the “universals”, in that it is common and easy to understand in series and films around the world, precisely because the placement of the characters in a context is the basis for the creation of stories.
Continue on: Job Descriptions