What Is an Establishing Shot? 10 Examples That Set the Scene
What is an establishing shot? It is the shot, usually at the start of a scene, that tells the audience where they are before the characters speak. It is often a wide view of a building, a city or open country, and it can also show when the scene happens and what kind of story this is.
Psycho opens on the Phoenix skyline with the city, the date and the time written on screen. Blade Runner opens on a burning Los Angeles of 2019. Before a line of dialogue, you know where you are. This guide covers what an establishing shot has to do, the types, how it differs from a master shot, and 10 establishing shot examples that count down to Hitchcock.
TL;DR: What an Establishing Shot Has to Tell You
An establishing shot tells the audience where a scene takes place, and often when and in what mood. It is usually a wide or aerial shot at the start of a scene, a few seconds long. The best ones, like Psycho’s Phoenix skyline, also plant a question the scene will answer.
What Does an Establishing Shot Establish?
An establishing shot can do four jobs. The good ones do more than one at once.
- Place. Where are we? A city skyline, a house, a spaceship.
- Time. When are we? Day or night, a season, a year on screen.
- Tone. What kind of story is this? A sunny suburb and a fog-bound castle promise different films.
- State of mind. How does the main character feel? An establishing shot can show the world the way they see it.
The shot also sets the geography of the scene. Once the audience has seen the whole room, the closer shots that follow make sense.
Types of Establishing Shot
- Aerial shot. A view from above, from a helicopter or drone, like the opening drive to the Overlook in The Shining.
- Extreme wide shot. A view so wide the characters are tiny or absent.
- Landmark shot. A famous building or skyline that names the city without a caption.
- Time-passing shot. The same place shown in a new season or time of day to show time moving on.
- Interior or detail shot. A room, an object or a sign that sets the scene from the inside.
- Sound-first shot. The audience hears the place before it sees it.
- Reestablishing shot. A return to the wide view partway through a scene, after a character moves or the audience might have lost track.
What is another name for an establishing shot? Crews sometimes call it the “exterior” or the “wide”, and in a screenplay it usually appears as a scene heading, the slug line, which names the place and the time of day. Our guide to the slug line explains how to write one.
Establishing Shot vs Master Shot vs Wide Shot
These three get mixed up all the time.
| Establishing shot | Master shot | Wide shot | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A shot that shows where the scene is | A shot that covers the whole scene from start to finish | Any shot that shows the full body and surroundings |
| Length | A few seconds | As long as the scene | Any length |
| Characters | Often absent or tiny | Everyone in the scene | Usually present |
| Job | Place, time, tone | A safety net for the editor | Show action and space |
A full shot, sometimes asked about as “establishing shot vs full shot”, frames one character from head to toe. It shows a person, not a place. See how these fit together in our guide to film coverage.
10 Establishing Shot Examples in Film
These 10 establishing shot examples count down to the most copied opening in film. Each names where it was shot, what it establishes and one thing you can steal.
10) Lost in Translation (2003)
Lost in Translation establishes a place and a state of mind in one taxi ride.
- Director: Sofia Coppola
- Cinematographer: Lance Acord
- Where it was shot: Shinjuku and the Park Hyatt Tokyo
- What it establishes: Place, and a man who feels out of place
- What to steal: Shoot the world through your character’s window
Bob Harris (Bill Murray) rides from the airport through Shinjuku at night. Neon slides across the taxi window, and he passes a giant billboard of himself selling Suntory whisky.
The shot tells you where you are, and it tells you how Bob feels about it: tired, far from home and slightly absurd. It ends at the Park Hyatt, which Coppola chose because it is so quiet above the city. More in our list of Sofia Coppola movies to watch.
9) Midsommar (2019)
Midsommar turns its establishing shot upside down.
- Director: Ari Aster
- Cinematographer: Pawel Pogorzelski
- Where it was shot: Near Budapest, Hungary, standing in for Sweden
- What it establishes: Place, and a warning that the world is about to flip
- What to steal: Let a camera move carry the story’s idea
As the friends drive into the countryside toward Hårga, a drone carrying an Alexa Mini flies from the front of the car to the back while the camera rotates. By the end, the road is upside down.
It is an aerial establishing shot with a twist. It shows the audience the rolling fields and tells them, before anything happens, that this place will turn their world over.
8) Jurassic Park (1993)
Jurassic Park establishes an island before it shows a single dinosaur.
- Director: Steven Spielberg
- Cinematographer: Dean Cundey
- Where it was shot: Kauai, Hawaii, including Manawaiopuna Falls
- What it establishes: Place and scale: remote, huge and beautiful
- What to steal: Make the audience travel to get there
The helicopter carrying John Hammond and his guests flies along cliffs and waterfalls and lands beside a falls on Isla Nublar. The waterfall is Manawaiopuna Falls on Kauai, now nicknamed “Jurassic Falls”.
The arrival makes the island feel far away and wild, which matters when things go wrong. Hurricane Iniki hit Kauai on 11 September 1992, the last scheduled day of the shoot there. More in where Jurassic Park was filmed.
7) Die Hard (1988)
Die Hard establishes the one building the whole film happens in.
- Director: John McTiernan
- Cinematographer: Jan de Bont
- Where it was shot: Fox Plaza, 2121 Avenue of the Stars, Century City
- What it establishes: Place: a tall, gleaming, nearly empty tower
- What to steal: Show the audience the whole playing field before the game starts
Nakatomi Plaza is Fox Plaza in Century City, Los Angeles. It was newly built and still partly under construction when the film was shot, with many floors still empty.
The early wide views of the tower do real work. Once you have seen how tall it is and how alone John McClane is inside it, every climb up a lift shaft means something. The building is the arena.
6) Apocalypse Now (1979)
Apocalypse Now establishes a mind before it establishes a place.
- Director: Francis Ford Coppola
- Cinematographer: Vittorio Storaro, who won the Oscar
- Where it was shot: The Philippines
- What it establishes: State of mind: Willard is still at war
- What to steal: Let sound set the scene before the picture does
The film opens on a jungle tree line. Helicopters drift through the frame, napalm bursts, and The Doors’ “The End” plays. Then the image dissolves to Captain Willard lying in a Saigon hotel room.
The helicopter sound keeps going, and it turns into the ceiling fan above him. Sound designer Walter Murch put helicopter sound over that fan. It is the sound-first establishing shot: you learn where Willard’s mind is before you learn where his body is.
5) The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
The Fellowship of the Ring establishes the home the heroes will fight for.
- Director: Peter Jackson
- Cinematographer: Andrew Lesnie, who won the Oscar for the film
- Where it was shot: The Alexander family farm near Matamata, New Zealand
- What it establishes: Place and tone: green, safe and small
- What to steal: Make the first place beautiful so losing it hurts
Gandalf’s cart rolls into Hobbiton past round doors, gardens and rolling hills. It is an establishing shot that also sets the stakes.
Jackson’s scouts found the farm on an aerial search in 1998, and the Hobbiton set was built from March 1999. The Shire had to look like somewhere worth saving, because the rest of the trilogy is about leaving it. More in where The Lord of the Rings was filmed.
4) Blade Runner (1982)
Blade Runner builds a whole future in one opening view.
- Director: Ridley Scott
- Cinematographer: Jordan Cronenweth
- Where it was shot: A miniature, built by the effects team
- What it establishes: Place and time: Los Angeles, November 2019
- What to steal: Put the date on screen when the world is unfamiliar
After the caption “Los Angeles, November 2019”, the camera looks across a vast night city of towers, lights and fire. Industrial chimneys blast flames into the sky. The shot is known as “Hades”.
It is a forced-perspective miniature: detailed models in front, flat silhouettes behind, lit by thousands of tiny lights. The flames were shot separately and added in. Effects supervisors Douglas Trumbull, Richard Yuricich and David Dryer built a city nobody had seen, and plenty of science fiction cities since have borrowed from it.
The cheapest production value you can buy is thirty seconds of a building.
A short film set in two rooms feels bigger the moment you show the outside of the place first. The audience fills in the rest.
Shoot it at the right time of day. Golden hour or a lit window at night does more than any lens.
Then hold it a beat longer than feels right. Blade Runner’s opening works because it lets you look.
3) Citizen Kane (1941)
Citizen Kane opens on a sign that says keep out.
- Director: Orson Welles
- Cinematographer: Gregg Toland
- Where it was shot: RKO studio sets and matte paintings
- What it establishes: Place and tone: a lonely, forbidding estate
- What to steal: Move closer in steps to build mystery
The film begins on a “No Trespassing” sign at the gates of Xanadu. Then a series of slow dissolves moves past fences and gates, over matte paintings of the estate, toward one lit window high up in the castle. Criterion’s essay on the film describes the opening.
Inside that window, Charles Foster Kane dies saying “Rosebud”. The establishing shot has done its job three ways: it shows a place, it tells you the man inside kept the world out, and it hands you the mystery the film spends two hours solving.
2) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Prisoner of Azkaban uses one tree as a calendar.
- Director: Alfonso Cuarón
- Cinematographer: Michael Seresin
- Where it was shot: Digital effects, with Scottish Highland scenery
- What it establishes: Time: the seasons passing at Hogwarts
- What to steal: Return to the same place to show time moving
Three times in the film, Cuarón cuts to the Whomping Willow on the grounds of Hogwarts to show a new season. In one it swats a bird. In another it shakes off melting snow.
It is the time-passing establishing shot done with wit. The same frame, changed each time, tells the audience a term has gone by without a caption. The Willow in those shots is digital, created by the effects houses MPC and Cinesite. More in where the Harry Potter films were shot.
1) Psycho (1960)
Psycho’s opening is the establishing shot every film student learns first.
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Cinematographer: John L. Russell, Oscar nominated for the film
- Where it was shot: Aerial footage of Phoenix, finished in the studio
- What it establishes: Place, date and time, and a secret
- What to steal: End your establishing shot on the door your story walks through
The camera flies over Phoenix, Arizona. The captions read “Phoenix, Arizona”, “Friday, December the Eleventh” and “Two Forty-Three P.M.”. Then it drifts toward one hotel window with the blind half down, and into the room where Marion Crane and Sam Loomis are meeting in secret on their lunch break.
It moves from a whole city to one room and one secret in a single move. The helicopter footage was too shaky to go all the way in, so the move into the window was finished in the studio. Hitchcock added the date because Christmas decorations were visible in the city footage.
How to Shoot an Establishing Shot on a Budget
- Pick the job. Place, time, tone or state of mind. Choose one before you choose a location.
- Shoot at the right hour. Golden hour, blue hour and lit windows at night all make a plain building look like a film set.
- Check the law before you fly a drone. Most countries restrict drones over people, roads and cities. Stock footage is often cheaper than a permit.
- Lay a sound bed. Traffic, birds or rain under the shot make it feel real.
- Hold it long enough to read. Three to five seconds is a common starting point. Longer if the frame has detail.
- Plan it on your shot list. Establishing shots are easy to forget on a busy day. Put them on the shot list first.
Framing matters as much as location. Our guide to shot composition covers the rule of thirds, leading lines and headroom.
FAQs About Establishing Shots
How long should an establishing shot be?
Most run between two and six seconds, long enough for the audience to read the place. A grand or detailed view can hold longer, like the opening of Blade Runner. A quick cut to a building exterior in a sitcom can be under two seconds.
Can an establishing shot include the main characters?
Yes. Many do, as long as the place is still the point. Gandalf’s cart rolling into Hobbiton and Bob Harris in his taxi both include the main character. What makes it an establishing shot is that it tells you where you are.
Do you need an establishing shot for every scene?
No. If the audience already knows where they are, cutting straight into the action can be stronger. Many directors skip them on purpose to disorient the viewer, then give the wide view later as a reestablishing shot.
The Final Cut on Establishing Shots
An establishing shot answers one question before the audience can ask it: where are we? The best ones also tell you when, what kind of story this is and how the main character feels.
The 10 establishing shot examples above cover every kind, from a taxi window in Tokyo to Psycho’s slow drift into one hotel room.
Here is a habit worth building. Put one establishing shot on your shot list for every new location, and shoot it first, before the light changes.
Then learn the other two in this set: panning in film and the 180 degree rule, which tells you how to keep the audience oriented once you cut in closer. For more on the basics, see our cinematography guide.
Jay Neill
Jay Neill is the founder and managing editor of iFILMthings and believes everyone should have access to the film resources they need to plan their filmmaking project, which is why he’s dedicated iFILMthings to helping all filmmakers.
Ashleigh, I found the selection of films for establishing shot examples both intriguing and well-rounded. Including movies like ‘Midsommar’ and ‘Blade Runner’ showcases a wide range of atmospheres, from dystopian futures to eerie daylight horror, highlighting the versatility and narrative power of establishing shots. It would be interesting to see further analysis on how these shots influence the viewer’s emotional state as the story unfolds.
Hey, got a question. How do you think establishing shots have evolved with the advent of drones and aerial shots? Has it changed the game?
Max, great point! Drone shots have definitely added a new layer, allowing for vast landscapes to be captured in ways we couldn’t even imagine before. It’s all about giving context nowadays in the most dramatic way.
While the examples cited provide a rich overview of establishing shots in a variety of contexts, we must ask if relying heavily on iconic scenes skews our understanding of their utility. Not every film requires the grandiosity of ‘Lord of the Rings’ to convey its setting. Sometimes, subtlety serves the narrative more effectively, suggesting a need to diversify our analysis beyond Hollywood blockbusters.