How to Use establishing shot in a Sentence

establishing shot

noun
  • Or your friend hires you to take an establishing shot for his short film.
    — Veronica Ramirez, USA TODAY, 16 Oct. 2017
  • One establishing shot lingers on a raven cawing on a tree branch.
    — Scott Phillips, Forbes, 3 Jan. 2023
  • So, no, the establishing shot of the lot isn’t meant as a jab at cinema.
    — David Sims, The Atlantic, 4 Dec. 2020
  • Those establishing shots and blink-and-you-miss-it background details?
    — Lauren Schuster, Miami Herald, 10 Mar. 2026
  • After the last establishing shot of Baldwin was in the can, lunch was called.
    — Meg James, Amy Kaufman and Julia Wick, Anchorage Daily News, 2 Nov. 2021
  • This was mostly about changing or adding a couple of establishing shots.
    — Lane Brown, Vulture, 17 Dec. 2025
  • Rohmer doesn’t film a lot of big establishing shots or give the viewer a tour of Biarritz in montage.
    — Christine Smallwood, New York Times, 14 May 2018
  • Then there are establishing shots of police tape and evidence markers on the beach.
    — Kathryn Vanarendonk, Vulture, 5 Sep. 2024
  • Fade in on an establishing shot of Gare du Nord in Paris (which is in France).
    — John Kenney, New Yorker, 23 Feb. 2026
  • Even the big establishing shots hit harder, once they’re woven into that context.
    — Sarah Shachat, IndieWire, 24 June 2026
  • Glimpses of moths landing on the light sheets are just as arresting as establishing shots of the environment.
    — Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter, 18 Oct. 2024
  • The episode featured an establishing shot of Big Ben with the joke thrown in of it now having a digital face.
    — Mike Bloom, The Hollywood Reporter, 16 Nov. 2022
  • Over this establishing shot a girl is heard whispering a strange incantation.
    — Maria Garcia, latimes.com, 25 June 2019
  • The clip starts with an establishing shot of a home, then the camera closes in on the kitchen window, where a young woman is washing dishes at the sink.
    — Laila Lalami, Harper's Magazine, 19 Feb. 2025
  • Even the establishing shots start to evoke those time-lapse interstitials on reality shows.
    — Anna Gaca, Pitchfork, 30 Jan. 2026
  • Second unit directors lead a crew to capture additional footage, such as establishing shots and stunts.
    — Aaron Couch, The Hollywood Reporter, 17 Apr. 2018
  • While keeping the plot vague, the trailer provides a sense of the show's epic scope, with one impressive establishing shot after another.
    — Brendan Morrow, The Week, 14 July 2022
  • Meanwhile, images of the real-life Studio City house were simply used for establishing shots.
    — Martha Ross, Mercury News, 5 Mar. 2026
  • However, the exterior of the building and its rooftop, sans the helipad, were used for establishing shots.
    — Wendy Bowman, Robb Report, 19 Feb. 2025
  • Gaillard has no need for an establishing shot; the monument is shown only as a detail, as a kind of landscape in miniature, without visitors.
    — Kito Nedo, Artforum, 1 Sep. 2024
  • Between the dramatic reenactments and the slick-looking establishing shots, Bagans plays and replays any scrap of footage that seems provocative or freaky.
    — Noel Murray, latimes.com, 15 Mar. 2018
  • By minute three, the show’s deployed a bloody naked guy in a ball gag, a woman’s bare breast, an establishing shot of a frigid mountain, and a Fleetwood Mac needle drop.
    — Kathryn Vanarendonk, Vulture, 16 Jan. 2024
  • That opening montage of establishing shots, all desolate prairies and lonely roads, offers a hushed tour of the community's more scenic rural stretches.
    — A.a. Dowd, Chron, 10 Mar. 2023
  • Much of the filming in Rhode Island was of iconic sights as establishing shots to anchors the story in Rhode Island.
    — Paul Edward Parker, The Providence Journal, 6 Jan. 2026
  • His miniatures were essential for adding detail to the sets, plus the various external and establishing shots like the Nostromo gliding through space.
    — Sezin Devi Koehler, EW.com, 25 May 2024
  • Often classroom scenes are blocked so that children aren’t needed for more than an establishing shot, and those classrooms are designed to resemble real classrooms as closely as possible.
    — Alexis Soloski, New York Times, 26 Feb. 2024
  • In Aniq’s rom-com version of the event, a majority of the action is shot inside the vehicle, with a minimal establishing shot of the car leaving the driveway.
    — Wilson Chapman, Variety, 3 Mar. 2022
  • Like the palace itself, the actual pavilion, which used to stand in the surrounding park, is only seen in the film’s establishing shots, while its interior was recreated on a soundstage.
    — John Russell, People.com, 16 Dec. 2024
  • An astonishing establishing shot of the prairie at sunset is particularly Zhaoesque.
    — Jeva Lange, The Week, 5 Nov. 2021
  • There are establishing shots galore of Tokyo’s streets and public spaces — the Ozu influence is strong with this one — that are matched by the toilet cleaner moving through them with the greatest of ease.
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 7 Feb. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'establishing shot.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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