In film, a medium shot is a camera angle shot from a medium distance. The dividing line between "long shot" and "medium shot" is fuzzy, as is the line between "medium shot" and "close-up". In some standard texts and professional references, a full-length view of a human subject is called a medium shot; in this terminology, a shot of the person from the knees up or the waist up is a close-up shot. In other texts, these partial views are called medium shots. (For example, in Europe a medium shot is framed from the waist up). It is mainly used for a scene when you can see what kind of expressions they are using.
There is no evident reason for this variation. It is not a distinction caused by, for example, a difference between TV and film language or 1930s and 1980s language.
Medium shots are relatively good in showing facial expressions but work well to show body language.
The Doctor from Doctor Who is usually included in these shots. The TARDIS is also hidden somewhere in the background, or else it is not considered a Medium Shot.
Famous quotes containing the words medium and/or shot:
“In the one instance, the dreamer ... loses sight of this object in a wilderness of deductions and suggestions ... until ... he finds the incitamentum, or first cause of his musings,... forgotten. In my case, the primary object was invariably frivolous, although assuming, through the medium of my distempered vision, a refracted and unreal importance.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“Too timid to talk back, I shot my adversary.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)