Two-Shot

Two people in one frame, and the gap between them is the content. Touching shoulders and standing a metre apart are the same shot with opposite meanings.

Holding both in one frame also refuses to cut, which makes the audience watch the listener. A reaction that would be a separate shot happens in the corner of the same picture.

Both people are readable, usually from the waist or the chest up, arranged so neither is hidden. A profile two-shot puts them face to face across the frame. A layered two-shot stacks one behind the other at different distances from the lens.

The lens sets how far apart they look. A long lens compresses the space and pulls them together. A wide lens pushes them apart even when the distance has not changed.

Use it when the relationship is the subject, when two people walk and talk, and when a scene should feel continuous rather than cut.

Move to singles when a character should feel alone, or when one face has to carry something the other must not see.

Over-the-shoulder coverage shows one face and the back of another head. A two-shot shows both faces or both figures in the same frame.

A three-shot adds a third person, and the arrangement stops being a line and starts being a shape, which changes what the composition can say.

Ingmar Bergman presses two faces into the same frame through Persona (1966) until telling them apart becomes an effort. Richard Linklater shoots most of Before Sunrise (1995) as walking two-shots, holding both people and letting the conversation run without cutting away from either.

The distance between them arrives at random. Name it: shoulders touching, an arm's length apart, at opposite ends of the bench.

The second failure is a stacked pair where the back head is a blur. Say both faces stay readable, or state on purpose which one falls soft.