Medium Close-UpMCU

Chest up is close enough to read a face on a phone and wide enough that the shoulders stay in the picture. That makes it the working size for anyone talking to camera.

It keeps a trace of the body. A shrug lands, a lean forward lands, and the person still looks like they are somewhere instead of pasted onto a background.

The bottom of the frame crosses the chest, roughly at the armpit or a little below. The top clears the head with modest headroom.

A moderate long lens, somewhere near 50mm to 85mm, is the usual pick. Backgrounds soften a little without disappearing, which is what keeps the sense of a place.

Use it for interviews, talking-head ads, presenters, and the middle of a dialogue scene before it tightens.

Move tighter when the line turns on a small change in the face. Move wider when the hands are doing the work.

A medium shot starts at the waist and keeps the hands. A close-up drops the chest entirely and gives you the head with a little shoulder.

Medium close-up sits between them, and the reliable check is the shoulders. Both shoulders fully in frame with chest below them is an MCU. Head and the top of the shoulders only is a close-up.

The name is soft, so models split the difference badly and return either a medium shot or a close-up. Give the crop point in words: from the chest up.

The second failure is a floating head on a blurred wall. Ask for enough background to read as a room, or the frame stops saying where the person is.