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| A style of filmmaking that attempts to duplicate the look of objective reality as it's commonly perceived, with emphasis on authentic locations and details, long shots, lengthy takes, and a minimum of distorting techniques. |
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| The dividing line between the edges of the screen image and the enclosing darkness of the theater. Can also refer to a single photograph from the filmstrip. |
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| A style of filmmaking in which aesthetic forms takes precedence over the subject matter as content. Formalists are often lyrical, self-consciously heightening their style to call attention to it as a value for its own sake. |
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| A style of filmmaking that distorts time and space as ordinarily perceived in reality. Emphasis is placed on the essential characteristics of objects and people, not necessarily on their superficial appearance. Typical expressionist techniques are fragmentary editing, extreme angles and lighting effects, and the use of distorting lenses and special effects. |
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| A vague but convenient term used to designate the style of mainstream fiction films produced in American, roughly from the midteens until the late 1960's. |
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| Those images recorded continuously from the time the camera starts until the time it stops. That is, an unedited strip of film. |
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| A relatively close shot, revealing the human figure from the knees or waist up. |
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| A detailed view of a person or object, usually without much context provided. A close-up of an actor generally includes only his or her head. |
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| A lens that acts as a telescope, magnifying the size of objects at a great distance. |
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| A panoramic view of an exterior location, photographed from a great distance, often as far as a quarter-mile away. |
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| A shot that includes an area within the image that roughly corresponds to the audience's view of the area within the proscenium arch in the live theater. |
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| A type of long shot that includes the human body in full, with the head near the top of the frame and the feet near the bottom. |
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| A minutely detailed view of an object or person. |
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| A technique of photography that permits all distance planes to remain clearly in focus, from close-up ranges to infinity. |
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| Using an extreme long shot or long shot offered at the beginning of a scene, providing the viewer with the context of the subsequent close shots. |
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| A shot that usually contains two figures, one with his or her back to the camera and the other facing the camera. |
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| A lens that permits the camera to photograph a wider area than a normal lens. |
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| The camera's angle of a view relative to the subjects being photographed. A high angle shot is photographed from above; a low angle from below the subject. |
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| The placement of the camera approximately five to six feet from the ground, corresponding to the height of an observer on the scene. |
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| The positioning of the camera and lights for a specific shot. |
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| The shot taken from the special device called a crane, which resembles a huge mechanical arm. The crane carries the camera and the cinematographer and can move in virtually any direction. |
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| Any shot that is taken from the vantage point of a character in the film, showing what the character sees. |
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| The artist or technician responsible for the lighting of a shot and the quality of the photography. |
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| A variation on a specific shot. The final shot is often selected from a number of possible takes. |
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| A recognizable type of movie, characterized by certain pre-established conventions. |
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| A style of lighting emphasizing bright and even illumination, with a few conspicuous shadows. |
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| A style of lighting emphasizing harsh shafts and dramatic streaks of lights and darks. |
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| A style of lighting that emphasizes diffused shadows and atmospheric pools of light. |
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| A common technique of lighhting a scene from three different sources. Sources include a key light, fill lights, and a backlight. |
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| The main source of illumination for a shot |
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| That area of a film image that compels the viewer's most immediate attention, usually because of a prominent visual contrast. |
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| Secondary lights that are used to augment the key light--main source of illumination for a shot. Fill lights soften the harshness of the key lights revealing details that would otherwise be obscured in shadows. |
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| When the lights for a shot derive from the rear of the set, this throwing the foreground figures into semidarkness or silhouette. |
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| A ground of molded piece of glass, plastic, or other transparent material through which light rays are refracted so they converge or diverge to form the photographic image within the camera. |
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| Too much light enters the aperture of a camera lens, bleaching out the image. |
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| A visual style emphasizing soft edges, lush colors, and a radiantly illuminated environment, all producing a romantic lyricism. |
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| A visual style emphasizing sharply defined lines rather than colors or textures. Deep focus lenses are generally used to produce this hard-edged style, which tends to be objective, matter-of-fact, and anti-romantic. |
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| A french term--literally, black cinema-- referring to a kind of urban American genre that sprang up after World War II, emphasizing a fatalistic, despairing universe where there is no escape from mean city streets, loneliness and death. |
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| Pieces of glass or plastic placed in front of the camera lens that distort the quality of light entering the camera and hence the movie image. |
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| The blurring of focal planes in sequence, forcing the viewer's eyes to travel with those areas of an image that remain in sharp focus. |
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| Film stock that's highly sensitive to light and generally produces a grainy image. |
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| Film stocks that are relatively insensitive to light and produce a sharpness of detail. |
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| An elaborate machine used to create special effects in movies. |
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| The superimposition of two literally unrelated images on film. |
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| A special effect produced by the optical printer, which permits the superimposition of many images simultaneously. |
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| A film actor or actress of great popularity. |
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| A pre-visualization technique in which shots are sketched in advance and in sequence |
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| The joining of one shot with another. The shots can picture events and objects in difference places at different times. Editing is called montage in Europe. |
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| The ratio between the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the screen |
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| The arrangement of visual weights and movement within a given space. In the live theater the space is usually defined by the proscenium arch; in movies, by the frame which encloses the images. Cinematic mise en scene encompasses both the staging of the action and the way that it's photographed. |
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| A movie image that has an aspect ratio of approximately 5.3, though some widescreens possess horizontal dimensions that extend as wide as 2.5 times the vertical dimension of the screen. |
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| A technique whereby a portion of the movie image is blocked out, this temporarily altering the dimensions of the screen's aspect ratio. |
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| A masking device that blacks out portions of the screen, permitting only part of the image to be seen. |
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| A subordinated element of the film image, complementing or contrasting with the dominant contrast. |
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| An unobtrusive area of the film image that nonetheless compels our most immediate attention because of it's dramatic or contextual importance. |
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| The artist or technician who creates the mise en scene--that is, the director. |
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| Usually in close shots. The mise en scene is so carefully balanced and harmonized that the people photographed have little or no freedom of movement. |
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| Usually in longer shots. The mise en scene is so spaciously distributed within the confines of the framed image that the people photographed have considerable freedom of movement. |
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| Short for panorama, that is a revolving horizontal movement of the camera from left to right or vice versa. |
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| The spatial relationship among characters within the mise en scene, and the apparent distance of the camera from the subject photographed. |
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| Used primarily by realist filmmakers, these techniques are likely to be unobtrusive, with an emphasis on informal compositions and apparently haphazard designs. |
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| A visual style that inclines toward self-conscious designs carefully harmonized compositions. |
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| Techniques of filmmaking that depend on the element of chance. |
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| The placement of the camera in such a manner as to anticipate the movement of an action before it occurs. |
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| A shot taken with a moving camera that is often deliberately shaky to suggest documentary footagein an uncontrolled setting. |
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| The use of well known cultural symbols or complex of symbols in an artistic representation. |
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| The slow fading out of one shot and the gradual fading in of its successor, with a superimposition of images, usually at the midpoint. |
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| A shot taken from a moving vehicle. Originally tracks were laid on the set to permit a smoother movement of the camera. Today even a smooth hand held traveling shot is considered a variation of the dolly shot. |
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| Shots of a subject photographed at a faster rate tan twenty four frames per second, which when projected at the standard rate produce a dreamy, dancelike slowness of action. |
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| A stylistic exuberance and subjectivity, emphasizing the senuous beauty of the medium and producing an intense outpouring of emotion. |
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| An implied agreement between the viewer and the artist to accept certain artificalities as real in a work of art. |
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| From the french, meaning, "in the front ranks." |
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| A film genre characterized by bold and sweeping themes, usually in heroic proportions. |
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| A shot photographed by a tilted camera |
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| A lens of variable focal length that permits the cinematohrapher to change from wide-angle to telephoto shots in one continuous movement, often plunging the viewer in or out of a scene rapidly. |
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| Essentially a variation of the crane shot, though restricted to exterior locations. Usually taken from a helicopter. |
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| A horizontal movement of the camera at such a rapid rate that the subject photographed blurs on the screen |
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| Withdrawing the camera from a scene to reveal an object or character that was previously out of frame |
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| A form of filmmaking characterized by photographing inanimate objects or individual drawings frame by frame, with each frame differing minutely from its predecessor. |
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| Shots of a subject at a rate slower than twenty four fps, which when projected at the standard rate, convey motion that is jerky and slightly comical, seemingly out of control. |
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| A series of images are photographed with the film reversed. When projected normally, the effect is to suggest backward movement. |
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| A shot composed of a single frame that is reprinted a number of time on the filmstrip; when projected, it gives the illusion of a still photograph. |
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| Transparent plastic sheets that are superimposed in layers by animators to give the illusion of depth and volume to their drawings. |
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| An editing technique that suggests the interruption of the present by a shot or serious of shots representing the past. |
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