Trunk Shot

The camera sits low inside an open container and looks up at the people standing over it. The audience is put at the bottom of a hole while faces ring the opening.

It reads as vulnerability with no dialogue attached. Whoever is above has the advantage, and the shape of the frame says so before anybody speaks.

The lens sits near the base of the container and tilts up. The container's edges frame the picture on all four sides, and the sky or the ceiling sits behind the heads.

The edges are what identify the shot. A hard upward angle without them is just a low angle, so the rim of the boot, the box or the grave has to be visible.

A wide lens fits several faces into the opening and pushes them slightly apart at the corners, which is where the leaning, crowded look comes from.

Use it when characters look down at something they are about to deal with, and when the audience should occupy the position of the thing being looked at.

Skip it in a scene with no container. The framing depends entirely on the hole, and without one the shot has nothing to be.

A low angle looks up from below with the world open around the subject. A trunk shot looks up from inside something, and the container's edges box the frame.

Check the corners. Hard edges on all four sides means a trunk shot. Open background means a low angle.

Quentin Tarantino uses this frame often enough that it has become a signature. Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994) both look up out of a car boot at the men standing over it, with the lid edges squaring off the picture.

Models give a plain low angle with no container in it. Say the camera is inside an open container looking up, and ask for the edges to frame all four sides.

The second failure is one face where there should be several. Name how many people look down, because the ring of heads against the opening is most of the composition.