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Film and Television Terms
Film and Television Terms
Submitted by
Vaishali.A.Shah
0808148
TELEVISION MEDIA
Ad Hoc Network
A group of stations that is formed for a special purpose, such as the showing
of a one-time TV program or series. Ad hoc is Latin for "for this."
Adjacency
A commercial or program that immediately follows or precedes another on
the same TV station.
Affidavit
A notarized statement from a television station that confirms the commercial
actually ran at the time shown on the station's invoice.
Affiliate
A TV station, not owned by a network, that grants a network use of specific
time periods for network programs and advertising, for compensation.
Remainder of broadcast day is programmed locally.
Audience Composition
The distribution of a station's audiences by demographic group.
Audience Duplication
The extent to which the audience of one station is exposed to that of
another.
Audience Flow
A measure of the change in audience during and between programs.
Audience flow shows the percentages of people or households who turn on or
off a program, switch to or from another channel, or remain on the same
channel as the previous program.
FILM MEDIA
Story - refers to all aspects of the narrative that we do not see on screen; these
aspects may include events before, during, or even after the plot of the
film. In Jaws, for instance, Chief Brody had been a police officer in the city prior
to the film’s beginning; this information is part of the story but not part of the
plot.
Diegesis - refers to the narrative that we see on screen. This term is much
more specific to film, however, and refers to the world that the characters inhabit
as much as the plot of the film
Point of view - Most people assume film always has a third-person perspective,
but even when it does not use a POV shot , film often has a more subjective
perspective through the use of camera placement, voiceover, and other cinema
techniques.
Setting - like the literary term, this word refers to the time and place of the
film. The setting for The Usual Suspects, for instance, is New York and Los
Angeles at a time contemporary with the film’s year of release (in this case,
1995).
Set - This term refers to the actual construction in which the actors are filmed.
Sets are usually built for a film, as opposed to shooting on location, where a
scene is shot in the actual place in which it occurs in the film. Set is also used
generally, however, as a designation for the place where a film is being shot. (So
even in location shooting, the director would be “on the set” of his or her film
every time he or she went to the place where the crew was shooting for that
day.)
Climax: The ‘height’ of the story; what everything has been building up to.
Denouement: Occurs after the climax, the concluding scenes of the film.
Prop - another term borrowed from theater. A prop is generally any object on a
set, though clearly the objects that characters will touch become more
important.
Costumes - what the characters are wearing. Bear in mind that even if a
character is wearing contemporary clothing (in some cases, the actors’ own
clothing), that clothing is still considered a costume.
Lighting - This term refers to the way in which lights are used for a given
film. Lighting, in conjunction with the camera, sets the visual look for a
film. The key light is the main light used for a scene; back light refers to a
secondary source, usually placed behind the actors; and fill refers to a light
placed to the side of the actors. This system is called three-point lighting and
was very common in classical Hollywood films. You may also run across the
term low-key lighting, which means that the film was shot often using only the
key light at a very low setting. This low level of lighting creates dark shadows on
the faces of actors and is particularly moody when used with black-and-white
film. It is most often associated with film noir but is not exclusive to that genre.
Trailer: These are also known as the Previews (Coming Attractions). They are
called Trailers because they used to be shown at the end of the Newsreels,
Cartoons and other shorts that would play before a movie.
Legs: A movie is said to have ‘Legs’ if it continues to have great box-office for a
long period of time.
Bonus Fact: A film runs through a projector at a rate of 24 frames per second
(fps). The human eye can only capture images 18-20 times a second, so to
facilitate the appearance of motion, film runs through a camera at 24fps.
Blue Screen (Green Screen): You often hear actors talk about working in front
of a Blue Screen. It is just what the name says, a giant Blue (or sometimes
Green) background that the actors work in front of. In the finished film, various
images will be super-imposed over the screen in such a seamless manner that it
will appear as if the actor was actually performing in that situation.
Angle: The position from which camera photographs action. Camera point of
view. High, low.
Beat: A smaller dramatic unit within a scene; a scene within a scene; a change
in direction of scene content.
Shot (and close-up v. long shot) - generally, the smallest unit of unbroken
film. The camera can move within a shot, but the second that the film makes a
transition (see below) to another shot, the previous shot has
ended. Alternatively, when used with certain adjectives, shot also refers to the
distance from the camera to the subject, almost always the actor. In a long
shot, one can see the entire body of the actor; in a medium shot, one can see
the actor from the waist up; in a close-up, one can see only the actor’s face
(there is no such term as the “short shot”). You might also see an extreme
close-up in a film, where you can only see part of the actor’s face (just the eyes,
for example).
Pan - the movement of a stationary camera on a horizontal axis. A camera on a
tripod that moves from left to right (following a parade, for instance), would be
panning.
Tracking Shot: Where the camera moves in a parallel path with the object
being filmed. (Most common when the camera moves along with an actor as
they walk down the street.)
Dolly Shot: The camera moves forward or back on a truck or cart. This is
different from a Zoom Shot. With a Dolly, the positions and size of the objects on
screen do not remain consistent.
Handheld shot - refers to a shot where the camera is held by the camera
operator. Hand-held shots are often associated with a certain look, which is
shaky, and most people associate the hand-held shot with a kind of documentary
realism.
Crane shot - A shot taken from a crane. You often see these shots at the
beginning of a scene (using it as an establishing shot) or the end of a scene. The
end of a movie, in fact, often uses a crane shot (though sometimes is even more
extreme).
Point of view (POV) shot A subjective camera angle that becomes the
perspective of a character. We look at the world through his or her eyes.
Aerial Shot: A shot taken from a crane, plane, or helicopter. Not necessarily a
moving shot.
Take (and short v. long take) - generally, a take refers to the time a shot is
begun to the time it stops. On a film set, a director might have to go through
several takes before settling on the shot he or she wants.
Frame – Literally, a frame of film refers to the smallest unit of film possible. Film
frames appear on a film strip, which, when projected, creates the illusion of
motion. Film is shown at 24 frames per second (or f.p.s., a common
abbreviation).
Screen - often used with on or off to refer to what we see within the frame. On-
screen action, for instance, is something we can see, whereas off-screen action
might be something we hear but which takes place outside the frame. Screen
also refers to the actual physical screen on which we project a film.
Shallow/soft focus - refers to how much of the shot is in focus. With shallow or
soft focus, generally we can only see the actor’s face in focus. The background
appears blurry. Shallow focus is achieved with a long lens (this can be confusing,
since one would assume a shallow focus would require a short lens).
Rack focus - Shifting the focus from one object to another within a single
shot. Sometimes, directors will use a rack focus when two characters are on
screen at once but are positioned at different distances from the camera.
Editing - refers to the way that individual shots are connected to one another to
make the film.
Montage - this word has two meanings. First, montage can simply be another
word for editing, which is often the way you will see it in film theory or when we
study the Soviet filmmakers of the early twentieth century. Second, and more
commonly in contemporary usage, montage refers to a series of shots edited
together to show a longer activity evolving in a shorter amount of time or to
show a series of related activities
Transition - refers to the way a shot moves from one to the next. Films use
several different kinds of transitions, including:
• Dissolve: Images of one shot are slowly replaced with the images of the
next shot.
• Fade: A smooth move in to an image from black or out of an image into
black.
• Cut: A move from one shot to the next.
• Jump Cut: A cut that involves an abrupt change of time and place.
• Montage: A collection of shots edited together to create a specific look
and feel.
• Eyeline match - The directions that actors look affect the way we
perceive their spatial relationships to one another. Eyeline matches are
important for establishing who a character is talking to or what a character
is looking at. For instance, if a character is talking to two people on either
side of him or her, then the character will look to the left of the camera to
connote that he or she is talking to the person in that direction.
• The 180-degree rule - This term refers to the rule that once a spatial
relationship has been confirmed with the establishing shot, no close-up
will cross the imaginary line drawn between those two actors until a new
line (or axis) has been established, usually through another establishing
shot.
Zoom-in, Zoom-out - using certain lenses, the camera can move more closely
into a subject (the zoom-in) or pull back (the zoom-out). The zoom-in is
sometimes called a push-in, and the zoom-out is sometimes called the pull-back.
Music - any music that comes from the audio track. Music might be diegetic (a
song on the radio of a car a character is driving) or nondiegetic (scary music
when a villain appears on screen).
Diegetic sound - sound that other characters would be able to hear. A song on
a radio, for instance, as a character drives down the highway, would be a
diegetic sound, as would someone coughing audibly during a scene. It is
important to note that diegetic sound is a sound that characters could hear, even
if they are not present when that sound occurs. The sound of a radio playing in
an apartment, for instance, is a diegetic sound, even if no character is present in
the apartment during the scene.
Nondiegetic sound - sound that characters cannot hear. The two most
common types of nondiegetic sound are voiceovers, which is a character’s
narration that plays over any given scene, and nondiegetic music, which is music
used to inflect the mood of a given scene
Ambient sound - This term generally refers to any sounds that are used to
establish location. The ambient sound of a scene in a park, for instance, might
include birds chirping, children laughing, or a dog barking.
The Credits: Something interesting to watch when you see a film are the
credits. Often part of an actor or actress' contract is how they will receive credit
for the film, or what their ‘Billing’ will be. If they have Top Billing, you will see
their name (alone) before the title (it is even negotiated out as to how big the
type will be on the movie poster and how long their name will appear onscreen).
If there is more than one major star in a picture, then there will usually be Equal
Billing agreed to. This places both stars names above the title. If one star is
‘larger’ than the other, their name may appear first onscreen and they will be
given the top left position on the poster. If the stars are of equal stature, the
positioning of their names may change throughout regions of the country (With
equal billing Star A may get the top billed position West of the Mississippi River
while Star B will receive the top billed position in all points east.) Although it may
sound extreme, this is just one of the many concession that a studio will offer to
an actor to get them to choose one of their movies next.
Coverage: The camera angles a director needs for dramatizing values in a scene
and for effective editing. For example, a full shot, over-shoulder shots, closeups.
Cutaway: A cut to a person or action that is not the central focus of attention,
perhaps to a spectator. Sometimes used by editors to delete unwanted footage.
Reaction Shot: A shot that shows a character "reacting" rather than acting. The
reaction shot is usually a close-up of the emotional reaction registered on the
face of the person most affected by the dialogue or action.
Sequence: The sum of several scenes (or shots) that compose an organic
whole.
Action match cut Cut made between two different angels of the same action
using the subject's movement as the transition.
Aspect ratio The size of a screen format expressed as the ratio of the width in
relation to the height. Films made for television are photographed at a ratio of
1.33:1.
CS Close shot.
CU Closeup.
DP Director of photography.
Dissolve The gradual merging of the end of one shot with the beginning of the
next, produced by superimposing a fade-out onto a fade-in of equal length or by
imposing one scene over another.
Ext. Exterior.
FG Foreground.
Final cut A film in its finished form. A guarantee of final cut assures the
filmmaker of producer that the film will not be tampered with after they approve
it.
FO Fade out.
Int. Interior.
Line of tension Invisible dramatic axis, or line of awareness, that can be drawn
between protagonists and important elements in a scene.
Master shot Shot that shows most or all of the scene and most or all of the
characters.
MS Medium shot.
Overlap cut Any cut in which picture and sound transitions are staggered
instead of level-cut.
Rising action The plot developments, including complication and conflict, that
lead to a plot's climax.
Scene axis The invisible line in a scene representing the scene's dramatic
polarization. Coverage is shot from one side of this line to preserve consistent
screen directions for all participants. Complex scenes involving multiple
characters and physical regrouping may have more than one axis (Crossing the
line).
Scene breakdown A crossplot that displays the locations, characters, and script
pages necessary to each scene.
Shooting ratio The ratio of material shot for a scene in relation to its eventual
edited length. 8:1 is a not unusual ratio for dramatic film.
Slow Motion The effect of slowed action created by exposing frames in the
camera at greater-than-normal speed and then projecting that footage at normal
speed (twenty-four frames per second).
Split page format A script format that places action on the left hand side of the
page and its accompanying sound on the right.
Storyboard Series of key images sketched to suggest what a series of shots will
look like.
WA Wide angle.
Zoom ratio The ratio of the longest to the widest focal lengths. (A 10 to 100 mm
zoom would be a 10:1 zoom).
Director: The director is responsible for the storytelling (with the writer),
creative decisions and acting of the film.
Casting Director: The casting director finds actors to fill the parts in the script.
This normally requires that actors audition.
Location Manager: The location manager finds and manages film locations.
Most pictures are shot in the controllable environment of a studio sound
stage but occasionally, outdoor sequences call for filming on location.
Production Manager: The production manager manages the production
budget and production schedule. They also report, on behalf of the production
office, to the studio executives or financiers of the film.
Production Sound Mixer: The production sound mixer is the head of the sound
department during the production stage of filmmaking. They record and mix the
audio on set - dialogue, presence and sound effects in mono and ambience in
stereo [3][4]. They work with the boom operator, Director, DoA, DoP, and First AD
.
Sound Designer: The sound designer creates the aural conception of the film[5],
working with the supervising sound editor. On some productions the sound
designer plays the role of a director of audiography.
Composer: The composer creates new music for the film (usually not until post-
production).
Production Designer: The production designer creates the visual conception of
the film, working with the art director.
Art Director: The art director manages the art department, which
makes production sets.
Costume Designer: The costume designer creates the clothing for the
characters in the film working closely with the actors, as well as other
departments. The make up and hair designer works closely with the costume
designer in addition to create a certain look for a character.
Storyboard Artist: The storyboard artist creates visual images to help the
director and production designer communicate their ideas to the production
team.