technique · 5 recipes
Single, Two-Shot & Group Shot
One principal occupies the shot; the term describes subject occupancy rather than uninterrupted duration.
Selected recipe
Single
This is the default recipe for the Principal Occupancy family.
Free short AI video prompt
A starter line you can copy. The full timed recipe, still-image and production prompts are on the shot card.
Prompt rule: Maintain the selected number of readable principals and their intended hierarchy throughout the shot; the clean-single subtype additionally excludes the partner’s body at frame edges.
Single: One principal occupies the shot; the term describes subject occupancy rather than uninterrupted duration. Keep the subject readable; motivate camera and light.
Technique guide
- When to use
- A single person waits as a soda counter clerk, two people demonstrate cooperation, three people read reactions side by side, and multiple people maintain group relationships.
- How it works
- First, count clearly the main characters that the audience needs to read simultaneously, rather than background passersby. Arrange according to the number of people with the same depth or available depth of field, contour gaps, and action priority. Rehearse all gestures to ensure that any added obstruction does not turn a main character into unreadable background.
- Common mistakes
- Accidentally adding or duplicating a main character. In a two-person shot, one person is left with only a completely blurred shoulder.
How to read this page
Single, Two-Shot & Group Shot is one technique in Framing. The definition states the single mechanism the frame has to show. The technique guide covers when to use it, the steps, the usual mistakes, how it differs from the neighbors, and what a successful take looks like.
The clip above is one reading, made with a third-party video model. Another model, or the same model on another day, can land on a different frame. It is an example, not a promise that a prompt will match it.
The free short prompt is a starter sentence. The shot card is the timed recipe: scene, start and end frames, action, light, and color. Three sample cards are free on the site. The rest are part of GrokCine Pro. A second name for the same shot keeps its own URL and points back at this definition.
When you write a prompt, keep the one mechanism in the definition, then name the subject, the motion, and why the light is there. Do not stack a neighboring technique into the same sentence. If the name or the example is wrong, send this page's URL from the contact page.
Recipe
8 seconds · single take
A 1950s roadside soda fountain as a thunderstorm gathers: a soda jerk in his twenties with a white paper cap and a bow tie waits alone behind the marble counter while his coworkers remain offscreen in the kitchen, the window behind him darkening.
Shot cards
The full recipe for Single is a shot card
The full recipe for Single is a shot card. The start and end frames, timed action, lighting and color specs, a camera parameter table, copy-ready still-image and video prompts and negatives are open to GrokCine Pro members on the web.
Related families
More in Framing
References
Sources we studied for this technique. External links; we don't embed them.
Articles & definitions
- Wikipedia: Shot (filmmaking)
Wikipedia · Web
A shot is framed by the camera; shot sizes and occupancy are named conventions.
- StudioBinder: Types of camera shot sizes
StudioBinder · Web
Shot sizes from extreme wide to extreme close-up.