10. Defining a "Money Shot"

In my earlier blog posts, I occasionally spoke of “pulling the audience out of the story”. I usually said this in a disparaging light: pulling the audience out of the story was achieved through clumsy camera movement, obvious lighting, or perhaps low quality audio. However, I want to go back to this notion of taking the viewer out of the story – and back into the context of watching a film – to define my interpretation of a “money shot”.

To me, a money shot does not possess any specific properties of light or composition. It merely has to be so striking in any facet of a shot that its beauty in the context of the piece “pulls the audience out of the story” to appreciate it. Keep in mind that beauty does not have to mean looking perfectly balanced and pretty – in a film trying to convey horror a money shot could be absolutely grotesque. A true money shot intertwines the form of a shot with the meaning of the piece it’s a part of so well that it earns distinction. Essentially, when I’m watching a film and I see a money shot, I know – because I am pulled out of the storyline’s grasp and cannot help but appreciate… or ponder… or stare at the individual shot.

A fantastic example of a money shot is from the miniseries Band of Brothers (incidentally the best thing I have ever seen broadcast on television). In the episode Crossroads, we follow Captain Winters as he types up a battle report and struggles with the memory of killing a young German soldier in his recollections. The shot in question is at 0:28 in the video. After a staccato sequence of Winters running, we see the killing that so plagues his thoughts. The shot is short, brutal, and to the point. Winters suddenly becomes a small silhouette in the background of the shot boy, reflecting how he has distanced his identity from himself and questions who he even is anymore. The stark simplicity of the shot, with distinct framing of the two characters on the left and on the right, with minimal color and a washed out sky serves to further impress the fact that this is realm there is no gray area for Winters, no maybes. He killed someone and feels guilty, and this is reflected in the sudden still moment of the shot. It is not an action sequence but a portrait. When we speak of form and meaning becoming one, this shot is a quintessential example.

The moment I saw the shot, it distinguished itself as a money shot because I immediately, involuntarily took a mental step back and saw how perfectly it fit the story. I believe finding money shots is not about analysis, and it is not a science. Simply put, you know them as soon as you see them – which is why, after all, they are money shots.