| Term | Definition |
| Mise-en-Scene | whatever is within the frame/scene; the composition (sound is questionable) |
| Conventions**** | Implied agreement between viewer and artist; the way of doing things/traidtions |
| Actualities | really short films shot in a single take that capture live events |
| Verisimilitude | How close something matches reality |
| Intertitle | words that appear on screen to tell you where you are, what time it is...etc |
| Treatment | an extended version of what is going to happen, ex. other marketing ideas, casting |
| Shot | normally a single image of what the camera is looking at |
| Scene | has a beginning and end, involves many shots |
| Sequence | involves a lot of scenes |
| Classical Paradigm | basic story that follows a rising action, climax, and resolution |
| Voice Over | an off screen narrator tells you what's going on |
| Plotting Points | points in the story that accelerate the story and develop nit to get to the confrontation |
| B Plot | secondary characters that mimic the action of the primary characters |
| Plot Arc | inciting incident, major plot points, crisis, climax, resolution |
| diagetic | sound that can be heard logicallyby the characters within the film |
| Rule of Thirds | attention needs to be drawn to points inside the frame so that our eye moves around |
| Rack Focus | extreme control over audiences attention, adjust camera to focus from front character to behind |
| Depth of Field | the area in front of the camera where everything looks sharp and in focus; tells audience what is important |
| Pan | usually used to show the vastness of an area |
| Tilt | camera pivoting vertically while attached to a base to suggest imbalance or instability |
| Cant/Dutch/Oblique | when you set the camera on the tri-pod and tilt it one way or another |
| Birds Eye/Aerial | usually avoided because they're expensive, looking down at subject |
| Crane Shot | taken from a dolly or electronic device that allows the camera to move fluidly |
| Key Light | primary source of light. provides dominant illumination and casts the strongest shadows. most directional lighting and corresponds to the motivating light source in setting |
| Fill Light | balances key light, gets rid of the shadow on the other objects half; usually brighter and gives dimension |
| Backlight | usually higher and off camera unless it's part of the motivated lighting |
| Eye Light | normally attached to the camera(little) and you point it at the character so they have a sparkle in their eye |
| Motivated Light | lighting on the set that is natural and wouldn't be questioned but serves a function |
| 3 Point Lighting | Key, Fill, and Backlight |
| High Key Lighting | Light all around, used to work with things like comedies & musicals...expresses optimism , few shadows |
| Low Key Lighting | pessimistic, ambiguous, film noir, lots of shadows and high contrast |
| Barn Doors | metal flaps that are on the light, adjustable |
| Butterfly | term used to describe any reflection device; usually on a clamp |
| Cuckaloris/cookie | used to get certain effects with lighting, placed in front of the light source |
| Scrim | screen used to allow various amount of light through |
| Reflector Board | huge white board that reflects natural light outside |
| Avant Garde | a group active in the invention of new techniques in a given field, especially in the arts |
| Archetype | a prototype or original model |
| Cinema Verite | a movie that shows ordinary people in actual activities without being controlled by a director |
| Realism | attempt to reproduce the surface of reality with limited distortion |
| Formalistic | deliberately stylize and distort their raw materials so that no one would mistake a manipulated thing for the real thing |
| Cinematographer | responsible for arranging and controlling the lighting of a film and the quality |
| Proxemic Patterns | the relationship of organisms within a given space |
| logline | 1-3 sentences to summarize the plot |
| Extreme WIde Angle | Distortion near the edges of the frame, lines become curved |
| Wide Angle Lens | Good to widen things in small spaces, exaggerates depth, movements seem faster than normal, camera jiggles less noticible (good for handheld) |
| axis of action | The imaginary line through the action which passes through the main actors, and dividing the scene into two 180 degree sections. |
| 180 degree rule | A rule used to avoid confusing screen direction errors. When a line of action is determined, only use camera angles that are from ONE SIDE of the line. |
| Match Cut | A cut over which an action appears to continue seamlessly. |
| continuity | story follows along in a seamless editing style |
| Flashing | taking your film and dipping your film in chemicals to get a hazy or foggy look |
| Narrative Ellipses | Any time period within the story or film that isn't shown or taken care of, assumed; a time that is missing |
| dominant contrast | area of an image that immediately attracts our attention because of a conspicuous and compelling contrast |
| subsidiary contrasts | act as counter balancing devices to the dominant |
| intrinsic interest | the audience, through the context of the story, knows that an object is more important dramatically than it appears to be visually |
| aleatory | only partially controlled situations |
| anticipatory setups | tend to imply fatality or determinism; the camera seems to know what will happen even before it occurs |
| lyrical | movements that we respond to more for their beauty rather than their function |
| kinetic symbolism | used to suggest other ideas and emotions...ex. movement |
| reaction shot | movement of camera away from the certral action to capture the reaction of listener |
| fast motion | achieved by having events photographed at a slower rate than 24 fps |
| auteur theory | stressed the dominance of the director in film art |
| mimesis | events "tell themselves" |
| diegesis | story is told by a narrator who is sometimes reliable, sometimes not |
| Aspect Ratio | ratio between the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the screen |
| soft focus | A cinematographic strategy whereby all objects appear soft because none are perfectly in focus. Often used for romantic effect. |
| tightly framed | close shots making the photographed figures appear more confined; |
| loosely framed | longer shots that tend to suggest freedom |
| push in | going in towards a subject |
| push out | pulling out, best done by moving the camera, not a lense |
| backstory | details of character's past that emerge as film unfolds |
| head room | the distance between the top of a subjects head and the upper edge of the frame |
| nose room | The space left in front of a person looking toward the edge of the screen. |
| negative space | empty spaces surrounding shapes and forms |
| filters | intensify or suppress qualities |