movie still

Catch the subject mid-gesture. A movie still reads when someone sits off-centre and between actions, as if the camera kept rolling — a posed, centred portrait turns into a headshot instead.

Motivate the light. Let a window, streetlight or screen inside the scene explain the lighting; studio-soft light breaks the illusion of a frame lifted from footage. Not to be confused with "cinematic photo", which can be a still, deliberately posed portrait — a movie still implies motion cut short.