Extreme Wide Shots for Impactful Storytelling – With Film Examples

MZed Education

by Mascha Deikova3 days ago

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Do you know this existential feeling, when you lie on the ground and gaze into the night sky? Isn’t this a wonderful and simultaneously sad realization, how enormous the universe is and how small and meaningless we are in the scale of things? One way to craft a similar sensation in a film is to introduce extreme wide shots into your camera language. Vast landscapes and vistas… They do have a mighty visceral effect on us. And yet, they are a rare gem in modern films and series. Let’s revisit some impactful examples of extreme wide shots and analyze what stories they help to tell.

There are different ways filmmakers use camera distance to shape meaning, and some are really punchy ones. We’ve already talked about extreme close-ups and their narrative craft (head over here to read about it). Now, it’s time to dive into the opposite. By shrinking the characters and objects to tiny dots on the screen, extreme wide shots shift our attention away from individual gestures and toward environments, events, and forces beyond human control. But it doesn’t stop there!

What are extreme wide shots?

So what’s the difference from a ‘normal’ wide shot, where the subject is also shown at full size? It comes down to scale and relationships. An extreme wide shot (also often called an extreme long shot) frames the subject as a tiny element within the image, surrounded and dominated by its environment. The character might still be visible, but only barely.

There is a student-made animated short I really like called “Pakan.” It has almost no dialogue and depicts the concept of the Hero’s Journey quite literally. How? Mostly through the deliberate visual choices. A lot of those are extreme wide shots:

Compare these two frames:

The first one (wide shot) focuses on the protagonist’s state. His posture, his movements, and the way he drags the bag instantly communicate his exhaustion to us. How long and tiresome his journey must have been to this point! In the second film still (extreme wide), we don’t see him clearly anymore. The character is reduced to a mere dot on the bottom of the frame, because the emphasis shifts from him to the huge sand storm, an incredible challenge that awaits ahead. Hits differently, doesn’t it?

Space, scale, and distance in extreme wide shots

The most obvious reason to use extreme wide shots is to present the audience with a sense of scale and distance, or the size of something. For instance, let’s take this scene from “Dune: Part Two,” where the protagonist Paul attempts to ride the sandworm for the first time and encounters one far larger than expected:

What are extreme wide shots here for? To emphasize the scale of the worm, compared to the tiny figure of Timothée Chalamet’s character. In the story, it’s a test of survival and belonging in a world that does not care who you are. The desert dominates the frame, and just like in the example of “Pakan” above, it dominates Paul’s destiny. His journey feels long, dangerous, and unavoidable.

Not to mention that the switch between emotional close-ups of the character’s faces to extreme wides creates a stronger contrast in this scene, and makes sure that its intensity stays high.

Oppression and overwhelming feeling

Most likely, the textbook example of the extreme wide shot comes from “Lawrence of Arabia,” another story set in a desert. The visual storytelling here also follows the idea that the world is bigger than the character. When you watch shots like these, how does it make you feel?

The film plays so much with distance in the vast, overwhelming environment of the desert world that it is almost impossible to watch on a small screen.

To demonstrate an example with a different location, here is a scene from Denis Villeneuve’s “Sicario.” Particularly interesting is a long take from 05:08:

The director Denis Villeneuve said in one conversation that he liked this extreme wide shot so much that he deliberately decided not to go for coverage. Why? Because the surroundings visibly oppress Emily Blunt’s character, and the way she moves in them expresses her vulnerability much better than any close-up could.  

Air and freedom in extreme wide shots

In “Nomadland,” extreme wide shots often show Fern as a tiny figure moving through vast landscapes. In my opinion, they come the closest to the feeling that I described at the beginning of this text. Compared to our previous examples, the environment doesn’t feel oppressive in this picturesque piece. On the contrary, the extreme wide shots here are full of air and light. They are open and liberating. At the same time, they emphasize the protagonist’s solitude.

Freedom and loneliness co-exist in the same frame. The world is wide open, but there is no clear place to belong. After all, as they say, we’re just renting this planet for a while. Chloé Zhao’s cinematographic choices in this Oscar-winning piece are no coincidence, and if you want to read more about it, head over here.

Extreme wide shots as establishing shots

Extreme wide shots have often been used as establishing shots, especially in 1990s-2000s TV sitcoms. What is an establishing shot? Here is a definition from the “Fundamentals of Directing” course on MZed:

As a filmmaker and educator, Kyle Wilamowski adds that, typically, establishing shots are on screen for only a very short time. Yet they suck us in really quickly and give us a lot of information and context about the story’s setting. Sometimes, an establishing shot has a character walking into the location. Other times, the location itself takes precedence, as in a shot of a city seen from afar.

The long journey ahead

So, yes, the context! That’s another thing that an extreme wide shot can give us really quickly. Remember Rey’s introductory scene from “Star Wars: The Force Awakens?” After lots of close-ups, we finally get a glimpse at her surroundings:

Take a closer look at these two frames again. What does it tell us within seconds?

She is alone, and she is tiny. Only the crushed cosmic ships remain. That introduction is not accidental. Rey starts the story as someone who has been left behind, forgotten by the world. By framing her this way, the film sets up her arc. The journey that follows is not just about discovering power, but also about growing in narrative weight and importance.

Do you use extreme wide shots in your films?

We could stay on this topic much longer and discover more and more impactful examples of extreme wide shots in films. Yet I have the feeling we already touched on the most important effects that they can create on the audience. They can express majestic scale or emphasize insignificance, freedom, destiny, isolation, loneliness, or imbalance. By pushing distance to its limit, filmmakers allow us to see the bigger picture. Sometimes literally. Sometimes emotionally. Without a single line of dialogue.

And what is your opinion about extreme wide shots? Do you use them in your projects to craft a specific impact? Or is it something you rarely include in the shot list? Let’s talk a little more in the comments below!

Full disclosure: MZed is owned by CineD.

Feature image: film stills from “Dune: Part Two” by Denis Villeneuve, 2024; “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” by J.J. Abrams, 2015; and “Nomadland” by Chloé Zhao, 2020.