Film+Terms



The following are Film & Video terms added by Aaron Stenton

1. Lighting Direction: The path of light from its source to an object.

2. Front Lighting: Light source pointed directly at the subject, leaving few shadows, thereby flattening the surface.

3. Side Lighting: Light source to one side of the subject, leaving a shadow on the opposite side.

4.Back Lighting: Light source opposite the camera and behind the subject which appears as a silhouette.

5.Under Lighting: Light source below the subject, leaving shadows above.

6. Top Lighting: Light source above the subject, leaving shadows below, creating a shimmery effect.

7. Key Light: The strong, primary light source which casts the dominant shadows.

8. Fill Light: A weak light, used to fill in, soften, or eliminate shadows cast by the key light.

9. Angel Light: A light which rounds off a composition, creating a slight shimmer.

10.Three Point Lighting: Use of at least three lights (Key, Fill and Back) on a subject. Usually, a forth, less intense light is directed at the objects and figures behind the central subject.

11. high-Key Lighting: Ratio of key light to fill light is small, creating brilliant illumination, few shadows and a minimum of contrast. The minimal variation between key and fill means everything is equally illuminated.

12. Low-Key Lighting: Opposite of high-Key Lighting.

13. High Angle: The camera is positioned above the subject and shoots down at it.

14. Straight-On: The camera is located at normal eye level in relation to the subject.

15. Low Angle: The camera is positioned below the subject.

16. Level Framing: The horizontal edges of the frame are parallel to the horizon.

17. Dutch Angle: the frame is canted so that the frame is not parallel to the horizon. (The camera looks askew at the subject)

18. Extreme Long Shot: Frequently an establishing shot of landscape, cities and other extreme entities. Figures barely visible.

19. Long Shot: Frequently an establishing shot of interiors. Figures more prominent, but background still dominates.

20. Medium Long Shot: Frames the human body from the knees up.

21. Medium Shot: Frames the human body from the waist up.

22. Close-Up: Traditionally, the shot that stresses facial expression, the details of a gesture, or significant object.

23. Extreme Close-Up Singles out a portion of the face, isolates a detail, magnifies the minute.

24. Pan: The camera rotates from a fixed position along a horizontal plane. With a flash, or blur pan, the camera moves very rapidly along the horizontal plane so that the action appears blurred.

25. Tilt: The camera moves up or down from a fixed position along a vertical plane.

26. Tracking/Dolly Shot: Camera as a whole changes position, traveling in any direction along the ground. A variation of the tracking shot is the trucking shot which permits the camera to travel at high speed.

27. Crane: The camera leaves the ground and can travel not only forward and backward, in and out, but also up and down. Variations of the crane shot are aerial shots.

28. Camera Speed: The rate at which a film travels through a camera. For 16mm and 35mm sound filming, the standard sound speed is 24 frames per second. For silent speed, the standard rate in 8mm, 16mm, and 35mm is 18 fames per second.

29. Slow Motion: Objects are filmed at high camera speeds but projected at regular speed.

30. Fast Motion: Objects are filmed at slow camera speeds but projected at regular speed. Time-lapse cinematography which can show a flower opening in a few seconds, is an extreme form of fast motion cinematography.

31. Camera Lens: An optical system which concentrates disperses, or changes the direction of light rays to form an image. The chief variable among lenses is the focal length. In technical terms, the focal length is the distance from the center of the lens to the point where the light rays converge to a point of focus. Focal length affects perspective in several ways: It alters the perceived magnification, depth, and scale of things in the image. We usually distinguish lenses on the basis of their effects on perspective.

32. Wide Angle Lens: A lens which gives a wide field of view and exaggerates depth. This lens tends to distort straight lines towards the edges of the screen, bulging them outward. It provides greatest depth of field.

33. Normal Lens: A medium-focal length lens which minimizes perspective distortion.

34. Telephoto lens: Any lens of greater than normal length. Generally the space of the shot is flattened: depth is reduced and the planes seem foreshortened, squashed together.

35. Zoom Lens: A lens optically designed to permit the continuous varying of focal length.

36. Depth of Field: The range of distances before the lens within which objects can be photographed in sharp focus. Thus, a lens with a depth of field of ten feet to infinity will render any object in that range clearly, but sharpness will decrease when the object moves closer to the lens. A wide-angle lens has a relatively greater depth of field than a telephoto lens.

37. Deep Focus: A focus in which all objects from close foreground to distant background are seen in sharp definition.

38. Follow Focus: A moving shot in which a person or object is kept in focus by continually adjusting the focus of the lens.

39. Rack Focus: A shot in which focus changes, bring certain objects into focus and making others blur.

40. Soft Focus: The blurred or hazy effect achieved by shooting slightly out of focus or through gauze, vaseline, or a similar medium.

41. Sequence Shot: A single shot that last for the duration of an entire scene or sequence.

42. Editing: Any means used to connect shots. Editing may be employed to create graphic, rhythmic, spatial, and temporal relationships among shots.

43. Cut: The most immediate transition from shot to shot. It is effected by splicing one shot on another.

44. Dissolve: The end of one shot merges slowly into the next. As the second shot becomes distinct, the first slowly disappears.

45. Eyeline Match: An editing technique whereby characters separated into different shots appear to look at each other because of the direction of their glances.

46. Fade-In: A shot that begins in darkness and gradually assumes full brightness.

47. Fade-Out: The opposite of fade-in.

48. Glance-Object Cut: A transition from a character looking off-screen to a shot of what the character sees.

49. Graphic Match: Any juxtaposition of graphically similar images.

50. Iris-In: A shot that opens from darkness in an expanding circle of light.

51. Iris-Out: The opposite of Fade-In.

52. Jumpcut: A break or jump in a shot's continuity of time, caused by removing a section of a shot then splicing together what remains of it. On screen the result is often abrupt and jerky.

53. Match on action: A juxtaposition of shots that carries a movement across the break between two shots.

54.Superimposition: The printing of two different shots on the same strip of film. On screen one shot becomes visible through the other.

55. Wipe: A transition from one shot to another in which the second shot peels off the first one, an effect comparable to that of a windshield wiper.

56. 180 Rule: A principle of spatial continuity designed to assure a smooth flow between two shots in a single scene. The axis of action is formed along an imaginary line and, according to the rule, the camera position must be kept on a single of that line.

57. Reverse Angle: Shot taken from the opposite point of view to the preceding one; often, a reaction shot in a dialogue sequence.

58. Rhythmic Match: Any juxtaposition of images with actions moving at similar rates of speed.

59. Continuity Editing: The use of various editing techniques to conceal the disruptive nature of cuts, thereby creating an apparently seamless procession of images.


 * ** Sara's **