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Establishing shots are a common part of the classical cinema's lexicon and are the wide shots that are often used to establish a sequence's locale. They are expected to appear at the beginning of a sequence, and may be an exterior of a building, countryside, but can also be simply a wide shot of a room within a building. Traditionally, establishing shots have been utilised to set a sphere of action for the sequence, and in terms of classical narration have been interpreted as the image that provides the cognitive map of the locale so that the viewer can orientate themselves when the film then cuts to a closer view of a person or object within whatever the establishing shot has established.
That the scale of the shot is irrelevant (a building, a room, even part of a room) demonstrates one of Metz's contentions about the weakness of the paradigmatic in cinema, and it is also common to find examples of films where what would be understood to be the establishing shot is in fact not provided, or is provided after it ought to appear. Indeed, it is also common to begin a sequence with a fragment of the location and then to gradually reveal the context of the location, so while this is, technically, an establishing shot it certainly does not follow the normative rule.
Finally, the presence of an establishing shot is not necessary to cinematic narration, while its use is traditional its presence is a creative rather than a necessary decision.
Establishing shots are used in conjunction with the 180 degree rule, so that where the establishing shot is taken from generally establishes the axis of action that informs the 180 degree rule.
In Written on the Wind the relatively long shot of the office becomes an establishing shot, establishing a 180 degree line that is not crossed. However this sequence starts with a closeup of the desk, then moves out to the establishing shot, showing how variable such rules are.
In hypertext a homepage can be thought of as much like an establishing shot, and the use of frames in some designs to discourage deep linking is in many ways an attempt to preserve a context that the establishing shot, and its associated 'rules' are designed to achieve. This is ideological and has nothing to do with readability or intelligibility.
Adrian Miles: Hypertext syntagmas: cinematic narration with links
A performative hypertext presented by Journal of Digital Information