Cinematography Basics: High/Low Angle Shots

The idea of a high and low angle shot is mainly used to allow the audience to have different perspectives of a specific subject or character. High angle shots place the camera above the eye-level, and shows a frame that looks down on the character:

Here's a quite extreme high angle shot example. As an audience member, the shot could suggest that the 'looking down' gives the other character and/or the audience more power/strength - like shots of children in this frame, reflects their parents authority within the shot. It's something to more consider in drama works, as in our documentary, we don't want this approach, however it was fun to research once again into different styles of shots.

The low angle shot seems to have the opposite effect. After these shots, I researched and found that it is best to just keep minor adjustments when it comes to high and low angles, because it can become distracting, for example my first shot, your eyes could be distracted by what's around her, whereas if it was a little less steep, we'd be able to focus more on the character. Whereas the low angle isn't as steep, and therefore keeps your focus much better than my high angle example.