The obvious answer is......
one more than you had time and money for.

Minimal two.

The king on the other hand had a plethora of bank notes more than he needed

So if it doesn’t cost you anything shoot as much as you can get

Sometimes you can even get by with one (e.g., an exterior establishing shot).

Legend has it that John Huston, as a director, used to only shoot what he would use, as to protect himself from any executive later recutting his work. The scene only would work one way, That's brave.

To me, that is like asking how many edits in a movie is good. I have seen many good commercials with one angle. I have seen many bad ones with one angle.

The angles have to fit the topic, pacing and purpose of the final product.

Dave T2

I am just looking for a general overall view.

Why?

providing a general overview for my classes on what the industry standard would be. I know you shoot whatever you need to make the scene work but I am looking to give them a general idea of a number.

There are a number of published books on this, but I think "Hollywood camera works" is the best for the general market, link: http://www.hollywoodcamerawork.us/

There are no "industry standards" as to how many different angles
you need to shoot for any given scene. No two DP will shoot any
given scene the same way. And every editor will always want more
choicesto edit with.

Terry

Perhaps another approach would be to have your students look critically at and then discuss some films and television productions to get an idea of how "angles" are used by skilled DPs and directors, along with an idea of how many setups may be necessary in even a short scene. E.g., the nightclub scene in Hello Dolly; the first ten minutes of Talk of the Town, which is shot and cut to employ virtually every comic device used in farce; any early episode of Without a Trace; an episode of Modern Marvels (History Channel) or Made In the USA (Travel Channel) and a sporting event such as baseball, beach volley ball, hockey or lacrosse.

Jack

What you are looking for is "coverage."

A general rule of coverage is

A. Shoot the wide shot/establishing shot You may not need the whole scene this way if you are never going to cut back to the wide shot.
B. Shoot the scene again in medium shot. You probably want a few takes of the whole scene this way.
C. Shoot the closeups/Over-the-shoulder shots. You may only want these for certain moments, or you may want the whole scene this way.
D.Shoot some cutaways

A. Man and Woman sit down in a restaurant, we see the waiters and the other diners.
B. We see just the man and woman's table. We can see their bodies and their food.
C. We see their faces.
D. Other diners, the plates, the kitchen, the bar. Anything you can use in case you have to break away from your shot and you don't have anything that fits.


Hitchcock used dozens of cuts for the shower scene in Psycho and in Rope he tried to do virtually no cuts. Psycho is better.

Shooting multiple angles/multiple takes allows you to play more with timing and performance. In the famous "Do you think I'm funny scene" in Goodfellas, the tension is really ratcheted up by how that scene is cut and how it plays with time. If you look at low-budget independent movies that were shot on film, they didn't shoot too many angles, because they didn't have the money to shoot that much film, so they made it work with less coverage and did most things within the master.

How you shoot also has a giant effect on the actors. There are two stereotypes of bad new directors in the low-budget world: actor-centric directors who don't know how to use the camera and make very static movies or visual directors who shoot tons of angles but no nothing about acting and have no drama going on. You don't want to be either.