Lesson 12 of 14 · Module 5: Story and Edit
Building a Scene From Three Shots
Shoot and individually trim three distinct shots (a wide/establishing shot, a medium shot, and a close-up/detail shot) of the same simple action, matched in orientation and light.
The ONLY 7 Cuts You Need To Tell Any Story
Recent (2025), directly demonstrates assembling wide-to-medium-to-close shots into one continuous, clear scene with edited examples.
What is Continuity Editing?
Strong continuity-editing fundamentals with film-clip demonstrations (2021). Only the opening segment is assigned since the full video runs long.
Objective
Why This Matters
Every drill so far has been one shot. A real scene is built from several, and the moment you cut between them, every inconsistency you’d let slide in a single clip becomes obvious: a light shift, a flipped orientation, a close-up of nothing related to the action. This is the first lesson where the pieces have to agree with each other.
The Technique
Three-shot coverage is the basic building block of a scene. Wide (or establishing) shows the whole space and the subject in it, sets context. Medium shows the subject roughly waist-up doing the actual action. Close-up is a detail insert: hands, face, or the specific object involved (the coffee pouring, the laces being tied, the door handle turning).
Shoot each as its own separate clip. Lock in your decisions before you start: pick one orientation (Lesson 6) and stick to it across all three, use one dominant light source (Lesson 10) for the whole scene, and trim each clip individually with proper handle (Lesson 11).
The trick that makes three separate clips read as one scene: perform the full action in every shot, not just once. If the action is pouring coffee, pour the entire cup in the wide shot, then pour the entire cup again in the medium, then again in the close-up. This gives you overlapping action to choose where to cut later, rather than three fragments that don’t line up.
Keep the direction of movement consistent across shots too. If your subject moves left to right in the wide shot, don’t have them moving right to left in the medium, that flip reads as disorienting even to a casual viewer.
Watch For This
Good
- All three shots feel like the same moment in the same space.
- Light and orientation match across all three.
- Each shot is trimmed clean per Lesson 11.
Classic Failure
- Light or color shifts between shots because too much time passed or a source changed.
- One shot is vertical and another is horizontal.
- The close-up shows something unrelated to the actual action.
- No overlapping action exists, so there’s nothing to cut on.
Your Drill
Pick one simple real action. Using a tripod if you have one, shoot it three separate times: wide, medium, close-up, performing the full action in each. Trim each per Lesson 11. Submit all three clips. Up to 2 takes per shot type, 6 total takes max.
Pass Checklist
Lesson complete
Criterion met: All three clips share the same orientation and dominant light source, each is individually trimmed clean, and watched back to back they read as one continuous scene.
Coach Note
Your close-up is a nice shot of the counter, but it’s not tied to anything happening in the wide or medium. Every close-up needs to be a detail of the same action, not just a texture shot.
Resurfaces In
Lesson 14 (Capstone).