Words set boldface within definitions are also defined in the glossary.

Aerial view:  also known as bird's-eye view; an omniscient-point-of-view shot that is taken from an aircraft or extremely high crane and implies the observer's omniscience.

Alienation effect:  also known as distancing effect; a psychological distance between audience and stage that, according to German playwright Bertolt Brecht, every aspect of a theatrical production should strive for by limiting the audience's identification with characters and events.

Ambient sound:  sound that emanates from the ambience (or background) of the setting or environment being filmed, either recorded during production or added during postproduction. While it may incorporate other types of film sound—dialogue, narration, sound effects, Foley sounds, and music—it does not include any unintentionally recorded noise made during production.

Amplitude:  the degree of motion of air (or other medium) within a sound wave. The greater the amplitude of the sound wave, the harder it strikes the eardrum, and thus the louder the sound.

Analog format:  one of the two ways of storing recorded sound, either monaurally or stereophonically (the other is the digital format). This format involves an analogous (or 1:1) relationship between the sound wave and its storage; in other words, the recorded sound wave is a copy of the original wave.

Animated films:  also known as cartoons; drawings or other graphic images placed in a series photography–like sequence to portray movement. Before computer-graphics technology, the basic type of animated film was created through drawing.

Answer print:  the first combined print, incorporating picture, sound, and special effects, from which the editor determines whether further changes are needed before creating the final print.

Antagonist:  the major character whose values or behavior are in conflict with those of the protagonist.

Antirealism:  a treatment that is against or the opposite of realism. However, realism and antirealism (like realism and fantasy) are not strictly opposed polarities.

Aperture:  the camera opening that defines the area of each frame of film exposed.

Apparent motion:  the movie projector's tricking us into perceiving separate images as one continuous image rather than a series of jerky movements; the result of such factors as the phi phenomenon and critical flicker fusion.

Aspect ratio:  the relationship between the frame's two dimensions: the width of the image to its height.

Assembly edit:  a preliminary edited version of a movie, in which selected sequences and shots are arranged in approximate relationship without further regard to rhythm or other conventions of editing.

Asynchronous sound:  sound that comes from a source apparent in the image but is not precisely matched temporally with the actions occurring in it.

Automatic Dialogue Replacement:  designated ADR; rerecording done via computer, a faster, less expensive, and more technically sophisticated process than via actors.

Automatic splicer:  a later, even more efficient version of the splicer.

Backlight:  lighting, usually positioned behind and in line with the subject and the camera, used to create highlights on the subject as a means of separating it from the background and increasing its appearance of three-dimensionality.

Balance:  see unity and balance.

Best boy:  first assistant electrician to the gaffer on a movie production set.

Bidirectional microphones:  sound-recording equipment that responds to sounds coming from the front and back but not the sides.

Bit players:  actors who hold small speaking parts.

Black Maria:  the first movie studio—a crude, hot, cramped shack in which Thomas A. Edison and his staff began making movies.

Blimp:  a soundproofed enclosure somewhat larger than a camera, in which the camera may be mounted to prevent its sounds from reaching the microphone.

Blocking:  actual physical relationships among figures and settings.

Boom:  a polelike mechanical device for holding the microphone in the air, out of camera range, and moveable in almost any direction.

Call sheets:  detailed daily records that indicate what is being shot each day and inform cast and crew members of their assignments.

Cameos:  small but significant roles often taken by famous actors.

Camera obscura (dark chamber):  a box (or a room in which a viewer stands); light entering through a tiny hole (later a lens) on one side of the box (or room) projects an image from the outside onto the opposite side or wall.

Cel:  a transparent sheet of celluloid or similar plastic on which drawings or lettering may be made for use in animation or titles; not to be confused with a gel.

Celluloid roll film:  also known as motion picture film or raw film stock; consists of long strips of perforated cellulose acetate on which a rapid succession of still photographs known as frames can be recorded. One side of the strip is layered with an emulsion consisting of light-sensitive crystals and dyes; the other side is covered with a backing that reduces reflections. Each side of the strip is perforated with sprocket holes that facilitate the movement of the stock through the sprocket wheels of the camera, the processor, and the projector.

Chiaroscuro:  the use of deep gradations and subtle variations of lights and darks within an image.

Characters:  an essential element of film narrative; the beings who play functional roles within the plot, either acting or being acted on. Characters can be flat or round; major, minor, or marginal; protagonists or antagonists.

Character roles:  actors' parts that represent distinctive character types (sometimes stereotypes): society leaders, judges, doctors, diplomats, and so on.

Cinematic conventions:  accepted systems, methods, or customs by which movies communicate; they are flexible, not "rules."

Cinematic time:  the imaginary time in which a movie's images appear or its narrative occurs; time that has been manipulated through editing; one aspect of duration (the other is real time).

Cinématographe:  a remarkably compact, portable, hand-cranked device, invented by the Lumières, that was a camera, processing plant, and projector all in one.

Clapper/loader:  the person on the camera crew responsible for slating shots with the clapperboard and loading film containers into the camera.

Clapperboard:  sometimes called clapboard or clapstick board; a device consisting of two short wooden boards, hinged together, on which essential identifying information—some of which changes with each take—is written in chalk. The person handling the device claps the boards together in front of the camera and says the number of the take. The resulting reference marks, on both the photographic film and the sound-recording tape, facilitate the rematching of sounds and images during editing.

Closed frame:  a frame of a motion picture image that, theoretically, neither characters nor objects enter or leave.

Close-up:  sometimes designated CU; a shot that often shows a part of the body filling the frame—traditionally a face, but possibly a hand, eye, or mouth.

Coherence:  logical or aesthetic consistency within a movie; the organization of all the basic elements of cinematic form into a harmonious or credible whole.

Colorization:  the use of digital technology, in a process much like hand-tinting, to "paint" colors on movies meant to be seen in black and white.

Composition:  the process of visualizing and putting visualization plans into practice; more precisely, the organization, distribution, balance, and general relationship of stationary objects and figures, as well as of light, shade, line, and color within the frame.

Compressing:  also known as companding; the process of combining sound tracks that preserves signals but reduces or eliminates noise ("hissing") on the tape.

Computer-generated effects:  one category of special effects (the others are in-camera effects and laboratory effects). This kind is created by digital technology and transferred to film.

Conforming:  see negative cutting.

Contact printer:  a machine that shoots light through the positive and prints it onto the raw film stock to make an exact positive copy.

Content:  the subject of an artwork, a subject expressed through form.

Content curve:  in terms of cinematic duration, an arc that measures information in a shot; at the curve's peak, the viewer has absorbed the information from a shot and is ready to move on to the next composition.

Continuity editing:  sometimes called classical editing, and now the dominant style of editing throughout the world (the other style is discontinuity editing). It seeks to achieve logic, smoothness, sequentiality, and the temporal and spatial orientation of viewers to what they see on the screen; ensures the flow from shot to shot; creates a rhythm based on the relationship between cinematic space and cinematic time; creates filmic unity (beginning, middle, and end); establishes and resolves a problem; in short, tells a story as clearly and coherently as possible.

Costumes:  the clothing worn by an actor in a movie (sometimes called wardrobe, a term that also designates the department in a studio in which clothing is made and stored).

Crane shot:  movement of a camera mounted on an elevating arm that, in turn, is mounted on a vehicle capable of moving on its own power. A crane may also be mounted on a vehicle that can be pushed along tracks.

Critical flicker fusion:  a phenomenon that occurs when a single light flickers on and off with such speed that the individual pulses of light fuse together to give the illusion of continuous light.

Cut:  a direct change from one shot to another; i.e., the precise point at which shot A ends and shot B begins; one result of cutting.

Cutting:  also known as splicing; the actual joining together of two shots. The editor must first cut (or splice) each shot from its respective roll of film before gluing or taping all the shots together.

Cutting continuity script:  a specialized document that not only reflects the changes made between the shooting script and the actual shooting but also includes the number, kind, and duration of shots, the kind of transitions, the exact dialogue, and the musical and sound effects.

Dailies:  also known as rushes; usually synchronized picture/sound workprints of a day's shooting that can be studied by the director, editor, and other crew members before the next day's shooting begins.

Deep-focus cinematography:  using the short-focal-length lens, this captures deep-space composition and its illusion of depth.

Deep-space composition:  a total visual composition that occupies all three planes of the frame, thus creating an illusion of depth, and usually shot with deep-focus cinematography.

Depth of field:  the distance in front of a camera and its lens in which objects are in apparent sharp focus.

Dialectical montage:  also known as intellectual montage, a form of editing (often discontinuous) pioneered by Soviet film theorist and filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, in which shots "collide" or noticeably conflict with one another. It is based on the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism, which posits the history of human society as the history of struggle between the classes.

Dialogue:  the lip-synchronous speech of characters who are either visible onscreen or speaking offscreen, say from another part of the room that is not visible or from an adjacent room.

Diegesis:  the total world of a story—the events, characters, objects, settings, and sounds that form the world in which the story occurs. Its elements are called diegetic elements (as opposed to nondiegetic elements).

Diegetic elements:  the elements—events, characters, objects, settings, sounds—that form the world in which the story occurs; see diegesis and nondiegetic elements.

Diegetic sound:  sound that originates from a source within a film's world (as opposed to nondiegetic sound).

Digital format:  one of the two ways of storing recorded sound, either monaurally or stereophonically (the other is the analog format). This format, made possible by computer technology, represents the sound wave by combinations of the numbers 0 and 1.

Direct point of view:  one of two main categories of subjective point of view (the other is indirect). It occurs when a character is in the frame and we see directly what he or she sees; this preserves time and space and creates a greater sense of verisimilitude.

Discontinuity editing:  also known as constructive or nonlinear editing; less widely used than continuity editing; often but not exclusively in experimental films. This style joins shot A and shot B to produce an effect or meaning not even hinted at by either shot alone.

Dissolve:  also known as a lap dissolve; a transitional device in which shot B, superimposed, gradually appears over shot A and begins to replace it at midpoint in the transitional process. It usually indicates the passing of time.

Distancing effect:  see alienation effect.

Documentary films:  nonfiction movies originally created to address social injustice. When they are produced by governments and carry governments' messages, they overlap with propaganda films.

Doppler effect:  the principle that the further away a sound is, the "lower" its pitch will seem and thus the less likely it is to be heard distinctly.

Double-exposure:  a special effect in which one shot is superimposed over another; may be expanded to a multiple-exposure.

Double-system recording: the standard technique of recording film sound on a medium separate from the picture; it allows both for maximum quality control of the medium and for the many aspects of manipulating sound during postproduction editing, mixing, and synchronization.

Dramatic irony:  an effect felt when the audience learns something before the characters on the screen do.

Duration:  the time a movie takes to unfold onscreen. For any movie, we can identify three specific kinds: story duration, plot duration, and screen duration. Also see real time and cinematic time.

Dutch angle:  also known as Dutch tilt or oblique angle; one of the five basic camera angles (the others are eye level, low level, high angle, and aerial view). In a Dutch-angle shot, the camera is tilted from its normal horizontal and vertical position so that it is no longer straight, giving the viewer the impression that the world in the frame is out of balance.

Ellipsis:  in filmmaking, generally an omission of time—the time that separates one shot from another—to create dramatic or comedic impact.

Establishing shot:  a shot that ordinarily begins a sequence of shots by showing the location of ensuing action. While usually a long shot, it may also be a medium shot or close-up that includes some sign or other cue to identify the location. It is also called a master or cover shot because the editor can repeat it later in the film to remind the audience of the location, thus "covering" the director by avoiding the need to reshoot.

Experimental films:  also known as avant-garde films, a term implying that they are in the vanguard, out in front of traditional films. Such films are usually about unfamiliar, unorthodox, or obscure subject matter and are ordinarily made by independent (even underground) filmmakers, not studios, often with innovative techniques that call attention to, question, and even challenge their own artifice.

Exposition:  the images, action, and dialogue necessary to give the audience the background of the characters and the nature of the situation they are in, laying the foundation for the storytelling.

External sound:  a form of diegetic sound that comes from a place within the world of the story, which we and the characters in the scene hear but do not see.

Extras:  actors who, usually, appear in nonspeaking or crowd roles and receive no screen credit.

Extreme close-up:  sometimes designated ECU; a very close shot of some detail, such as a person's eye, a ring on a finger, or a watch face.

Extreme long shot:  sometimes designated ELS; a shot that places the human figure far away from the camera, thus revealing much of the landscape.

Eye level:  one of the five basic camera angles (the others are high angle, low angle, Dutch angle, and aerial view). An eye-level shot is made from the observer's eye level and usually implies neutrality with respect to the camera's attitude toward the subject being photographed.

Eyeline-match cut:  this type of match cut joins shot A, a point-of-view shot of a person looking offscreen in one direction, and shot B, the person or object at which he or she is looking.

Factual films:  nonfiction films that usually present people, places, or processes in straightforward ways meant to entertain and instruct without unduly influencing audiences.

Fade-in and fade-out:  transitional devices in which a shot made on black-and-white film fades in from a black field (on color film, from a color field) or fades out to a black field (or to a color field). Do not confuse a fade with a dissolve.

Fantasy:  an interest in or concern for the abstract, speculative, or fantastic. Compare realism.

Fast motion:  photography that accelerates action by photographing it at a filming rate less than the normal 24 fps, then projecting it at normal speed, so it takes place cinematically at a more rapid rate.

Feed spool:  the storage area for unexposed film in the movie camera.

Fiction films:  see narrative films.

Figures:  any significant things that move on the screen—people, animals, objects.

Fill light:  lighting, positioned at the opposite side of the camera from the key light, that can fill in the shadows created by the brighter key light. Fill light may also come from a reflector board.

Film stock:  celluloid used to record movies—one type for black-and-white, the other for color. Each type is manufactured in several standard formats.

Filters:  pieces of plastic or glass placed in front of a lens to manipulate the quality of light—the level or intensity of its illumination.

Final cut:  the final edited version of the film, created by mixing the sound tracks, inserting the desired optical or special effects, fine-tuning the rhythm of the film, balancing details and the bigger picture, bringing out subtleties and masking flaws, and approving the fidelity and acoustic quality of the mixed sound; do not confuse with fine cut or final print.

Final print:  an edited version of the film that contains everything that is to appear in the release prints; do not confuse with fine cut or final cut.

Fine cut:  the result of the editor's fine-tuning the rough cut (through as many versions as necessary), usually in consultation with the director and producer.

Flashback:  a device for presenting or reawakening the memory of the camera, a character, the audience, or all three; a cut from the narrative present to a past event, which may or may not have already appeared in the movie either directly or through inference.

Flashforward:  a device for presenting the anticipation of the camera, a character, the audience, or all three; a cut from the narrative present to a future time, one in which, for example, the omniscient camera reveals directly or a character imagines, from his or her point of view, what is going to happen.

Flatbed:  one type of predigital editing machine; a table on which the footage on the reels is pulled horizontally from left to right.

Flat characters:  one of two types of characters (the other is round); these are one-dimensional, and we easily remember them because their motivations and actions are predictable. They may be major, minor, or marginal.

Floodlights:  lamps that produce soft (diffuse) light.

Focal length:  the distance from the optical center of a lens to the focal point (the film plane— foreground, middle ground, or background—that the cameraperson wants to keep in focus) when the lens is focused at infinity.

Focusable spots:  lamps that produce hard (specular) light.

Focus puller:  an assistant camera operator responsible for following and maintaining the focus during shots.

Foley sounds:  a special category of sound effects, invented in the 1930s by Jack Foley, a sound technician at Universal Studios. Technicians known as Foley artists create these sounds in specially equipped studios, where they use a variety of props and other equipment to simulate sounds such as footsteps in the mud, jingling car keys, or cutlery hitting a plate.

Form:  words in poetry, speech and action in drama, pictures and sound and so on in the movies; a means of expressing content.

Format:  the dimensions of a film stock and its perforations, and the size and shape of the image frame as seen on the screen. The format extends from Super 8mm through 70mm (and beyond into such specialized formats as IMAX), but is generally limited to three standard gauges: Super 8mm, 16mm, and 35mm.

Freeze frame:  also known as stop frame and hold frame; a still image within a movie, created by repetitive printing in the laboratory of the same frame so that it can be seen without movement for whatever length of time the filmmaker desires.

Frequency:  (1) the number of times a thing occurs, such as the number of times with which a story element recurs in a plot; (2) the speed with which a sound is produced (the number of sound waves it produces per second; the speed of sound remains fairly constant when it passes through air, but varies in different media and in the same medium at different temperatures).

Front projection:  stills or footage are projected from the same direction as the camera onto the process screen; used in process shots.

Fusil photographique:  a form of the chrono-photographic gun (see revolver photographique)—a single, portable camera capable of taking twelve continuous images.

Gaffer:  the chief electrician on a movie production set.

Gauge:  also known as format; the width of the film stock and its perforations, measured in millimeters, extending typically from Super 8mm through 70mm.

Gel:  a sheet of colored filter material placed in front of lighting instruments on a movie production set to alter the tone, color, or quality of their illumination. Not to be confused with a cel.

Genre:  the categorization of fiction films by form, content, or both. Genres include musical, comedy, biography, western, and so on.

Grip:  all-around handyperson on a movie production set, most often working with the camera crews and electrical crews.

Group point-of-view shot:  a shot which shows us what a group of characters would see, but at the group's level, not from the much higher omniscient point of view; see also single character's point-of-view shot.

Harmonic constitution:  also known as texture or color; the characteristic that distinguishes one sound from other sounds of the same pitch and loudness.

High angle:  one of the five basic camera angles (the others are eye level, low angle, Dutch angle, and aerial view). A high-angle shot (or downward-angle shot) is made with the camera above the action and typically implies the observer's sense of superiority to the subject being photographed.

High-key lighting:  lighting that produces an image with very little contrast between the darks and the lights. Its even, flat illumination expresses opinions about the subject being photographed. Its opposite is low-key lighting.

Hubs:  major events in a plot; branching points in the plot structure that force characters to choose between or among alternate paths.

Improvisation:  (1) actors' extemporization—that is, delivering lines based only loosely on the written script or without the preparation that comes with studying a script before rehearsing it; (2) "playing through" a moment, making up lines to keep scenes going when actors forget their written lines, stumble on lines, or have some other mishap.

In-camera effects:  one category of special effects (the others are laboratory effects and computer-generated effects). This kind is created in the production camera (the regular camera used for shooting the rest of the film) on the original negative and includes such effects as montage and split screen.

Indirect point of view:  one of two main categories of subjective point of view (the other is direct). It affords us the opportunity to see and hear what a character does, but as the result of at least two consecutive shots.

Instructional films:  nonfiction movies that seek to educate viewers about common interests rather than persuading them with particular ideas.

Interior monologue:  one variation on the mental, subjective point of view of an individual character (see point of view), which allows us to see a character and hear that character's thoughts (in his or her own voice, even though the character's lips don't move).

Internal sound:  a form of diegetic sound that occurs whenever we hear the thoughts of a character we see onscreen and assume that other characters cannot hear them.

Intertitles:  brief texts that appear onscreen within the body of a film.

Iris:  a circular cutout made with a mask that creates a frame within the frame.

Iris-in and iris-out:  optical wipe effects in which the wipe line is a circle; named after the iris diaphragm, which controls the amount of light passing through a camera lens. The iris-in begins with a small circle, which expands to a partial or full image; the iris-out is the reverse.

Jump cut:  the removal of a portion of a film, resulting in an instantaneous advance in the action—a sudden, perhaps illogical, often disorienting ellipsis between two shots.

Key light:  also known as the main or source light; the brightest light falling on a subject.

Kinetograph:  the first motion picture camera.

Kinetophone:  an early motion picture device that allowed viewers to look through the peephole viewer of the Kinetoscope and listen to phonograph recordings through earphones.

Kinetoscope:  a peephole viewer, an early motion picture device.

Laboratory effects:  one category of special effects (the others are in-camera effects and computer-generated effects). This kind, created on a fresh piece of film stock, includes more complicated procedures, such as contact printing and bi-pack.

Length:  the number of feet (or meters) of film stock or the number of reels being used in a particular film.

Lens:  the piece of transparent material that focuses the image on the film being exposed.

Linear editing:  a transitional step between the old upright machines (see Moviola) and flatbeds and today's nonlinear digital editing. The linear system records footage on videotape in a straight line, each shot occupying an amount of space equal to its length in time; thus editing any shot means reediting everything after it on that "line."

Lined script:  a copy of the script on which, during production, the script supervisor records all details of continuity from shot to shot, ascertaining that costumes, positioning and orientation of objects, placement and movement of actors are consistent in each successive shot and, indeed, in all parts of the film.

Locked print:  the crucial stage in editing after which no further changes are made; the editor cuts the original negative to conform to this print.

Long-focal-length lens:  also known as the telephoto lens, and one of the four major types of lenses (the others are the short-focal-length lens, the middle-focal-length lens, and the zoom lens). It flattens the space and depth of the image and thus distorts perspective relations.

Long shot:  sometimes designated LS; a shot that shows the full human body, usually filling the frame, and some of its surroundings.

Long take:  sometimes called a sequence shot;a shot that can run anywhere from one minute to ten minutes. The average shot runs ten seconds.

Loudness:  the volume or intensity of a sound, which depends on its amplitude.

Low angle:  also known as upward angle; one of the five basic camera angles (the others are eye level, high angle, Dutch angle, and aerial view). A low-angle shot is made with the camera below the action and typically places the observer in a position of inferiority.

Low-key lighting:  lighting that creates strong contrasts; sharp, dark shadows; and an overall gloomy atmosphere. Its contrasts between light and dark often imply ethical judgments. Its opposite is high-key lighting.

Magic lantern:  an early movie projector.

Magnetic recording:  one of two ways of recording and storing sound in the analog format (the other is optical recording), and for years the most popular medium and the one most commonly found in professional production; in this method, signals are stored on magnetic recording tape of various sizes and formats (open reels, cassettes, etc.).

Major characters:  the main characters in a movie; they make the most things happen or have the most things happen to them.

Major roles:  also known as main, featured, or lead roles; principal agents in helping move the plot forward. Whether movie stars or newcomers, actors playing major roles appear in many scenes and—ordinarily, but not always—receive screen credit "above the title."

Marginal characters:  minor characters that lack both definition and screen time.

Mask:  an opaque sheet of metal, paper, or plastic (with, for example, a circular cutout, known as an iris) that is placed in front of the camera and admits light through that circle to a specific area of the frame—to create a frame within the frame.

Match cut:  a joining together that preserves continuity between two shots. Several kinds exist, including the match-on-action cut and the
eyeline-match cut.

Match-on-action cut:  a type of match cut in which the action continues seamlessly from one shot to the next or from one camera angle to the next.

Mediation:  an agent, structure, or other formal element, whether human or technological, that transfers something, such as information in the case of movies, from one place to another.

Medium long shot:  sometimes designated MLS; also known as the American shot and the plan américain; a shot that is taken from the knees up and includes most of a person's body.

Medium shot:  often designated MS; a shot showing the human body, usually from the waist up.

Method acting:  also known as the method; a naturalistic acting style, loosely adapted from the ideas of Russian director Konstantin Stanislavsky by American directors Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg, that encourages actors to speak, move, and gesture not in a traditional stage manner but in the same way they would in their own lives. Thus it is an ideal technique for representing convincing human behavior on the stage and on the screen.

Middle-focal-length lens:  or the "normal" lens, and one of the four major types of lenses (the others are the short-focal-length lens, the long-focal-length lens, and the zoom lens). It does not distort perspectival relations.

Minor characters:  the supporting characters in a movie, they have fewer traits than major characters, and thus we know less about them. They may be so lacking in definition and screen time that we can consider them marginal characters.

Minor roles:  also known as supporting roles; second in the hierarchy after major roles. They also help move the plot forward (and thus may be as important as major roles), but the actors playing them generally do not appear in as many scenes as the featured players.

Montage:  (1) in France, the word for editing, from the verb monter, "to assemble or put together"; (2) in the former Soviet Union in the 1920s, the various forms of editing that expressed ideas developed by theorists and filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein; (3) in Hollywood, beginning in the 1930s, a sequence of shots, often with superimpositions and optical effects, showing a condensed series of events.

Motion picture film:  see celluloid roll film.

Movie star:  a phenomenon, generally associated with Hollywood, comprising the actor and the characters he or she has played, an image created by the studio to coincide with the kind of roles associated with the actor, and a reflection of the social and cultural history of the period in which that image was created.

Moving frame:  the result of the dynamic functions of the frame around a motion picture image, which can frame moving action but can also move and thus change its viewpoint.

Moviola:  for years the most familiar and popular upright editing machine; a portable device, operated by foot pedals and leaving the editor's hands free, it is based on the same technical principle as the movie projector and contains a built-in viewing screen.

Multiple-exposure:  see double-exposure.

Narration:  the commentary spoken by either offscreen or onscreen voices, frequently used in narrative films, where it may emanate from
an omniscient voice (and thus not one of the characters) or from a character in the movie.

Narrative:  the overall connection of events within the world of a movie; see story and plot.

Narrative films:  also known as fiction films; movies that tell stories—with characters, places, and events—conceived in the minds of the films' creators. These stories may be wholly imaginary or based on true occurrences, realistic or unrealistic or both.

Negative:  a negative photographic image on transparent material, which makes possible the reproduction of the image.

Negative cut:  the penultimate stage of editing, in which the editor cuts the original negative to conform to the locked print, resulting in the final print.

Nondiegetic elements:  the things we see and hear on the screen that come from outside the world of the story (including background music, titles and credits, or voiceover comment from an omniscient narrator). See diegesis.

Nondiegetic sound:  sound that originates from a source outside a film's world (as opposed to diegetic sound).

Nondirectional microphones: sound-recording equipment that tends to pick up more sound from the shooting environment than desired; improved on by unidirectional, bidirectional, and omnidirectional microphones.

Nonfiction films:  factual, instructional, documentary, and propaganda films, traditionally produced by governments, foundations, charity organizations, and independents. "Nonfiction" and "documentary" are often used synonymously, but while all documentaries are nonfiction films, not all nonfiction films are documentaries.

Nonlinear digital editing:  editing with computerized equipment, storing images (shots, scenes, sequences) on the computer's internal disk, from which they can be accessed easily as the computer responds to the editor's commands. Compare linear editing.

Offscreen sound:  a form of sound, either diegetic or nondiegetic, that derives from a source we do not see. When diegetic, it consists of sound effects, music, or vocals that emanate from the world of the story. When nondiegetic, it takes the form of a musical score or narration by someone who is not a character in the story.

Offscreen space:  space outside the frame; one of two kinds of cinematic space (the other is onscreen space).

Omnidirectional microphones:  sound-recoding equipment that responds to sound coming from all directions.

Omniscient point of view:  the most basic and most common point of view. Omniscient means that the camera has complete or unlimited perception of what the cinematographer chooses for it to see and hear; this POV shows what that camera sees, typically from a high angle.

180-degree system:  also known as the 180-degree rule, the axis of action, and the center line; the fundamental means by which filmmakers maintain consistent screen direction, orienting the viewer and ensuring a sense of the cinematic space in which the action occurs. The system assumes three things: the action within a scene will always advance along a straight line, either from left to right or right to left of the frame; the camera will remain consistently on one side of that action; and everyone on the production set will understand and adhere to this system.

Onscreen sound:  a form of diegetic sound that emanates from a source we see as well as hear. It may be internal or external.

Onscreen space:  space inside the frame; one of two kinds of cinematic space (the other is offscreen space).

Open frame:  a frame around a motion picture image that, theoretically, people and things can enter and leave.

Optical recording:  one of two ways of recording and storing sound in the analog format (the other is magnetic recording), and until the 1950s the standard method; the conversion of sound waves into light, which is recorded photographically onto 16 or 35mm film stock.

Option contract:  during the classic Hollywood period, an actor's standard seven-year contract, reviewed every six months: if the actor had made progress in being assigned roles and demonstrating box-office appeal, the studio picked up the option to employ that actor for the next six months and gave the actor a raise; if not, the studio dropped the option and the actor was out of a job.

Order:  the arrangement of plot events into a logical sequence or hierarchy. Across an entire narrative or in a brief section of it, any film can use one or more methods to arrange its plot: chronological order, cause-and-effect order, logical order, and so on.

Outtakes:  material not used in either the rough cut or the final cut, cataloged and saved.

Pan shot:  the horizontal movement of a camera mounted on the gyroscopic head of a stationary tripod; like the tilt shot, a simple movement with dynamic possibilities for creating meaning.

Parallel editing:  also called cross-cutting; the intercutting of two or more lines of action that occur simultaneously, a very familiar convention in chase or rescue sequences.

Persistence of vision:  the process by which the human brain retains an image for a fraction of a second longer than the eye records it.

Phi phenomenon:  the illusion of movement created by events that succeed each other rapidly, as when two adjacent lights flash on and off alternately and we seem to see a single light shifting back and forth.

Photography:  literally, "writing with light"; technically, the static representation or reproduction of light.

Pitch:  the level of a sound, defined by its frequency.

Planes:  the three theoretical horizontal planes—foreground, middle ground, and background—or areas within the frame; see rule of thirds.

Plot:  a structure for presenting everything we see and hear in a film, with an emphasis on causality, consisting of two factors: (1) the arrangement of the diegetic events in a certain order or structure and (2) added nondiegetic material. See diegesis and nondiegetic elements.

Plot duration:  the elapsed time of those events within a story that a film chooses to tell; one of three parts of a film's overall duration (the other two are story duration and screen duration).

Point of view:  abbreviated as POV; the position from which a film presents the actions of the story; not only the relation of the narrator(s) to the story but also the camera's act of seeing and hearing. The two fundamental types of cinematic point of view are omniscient and subjective (or restricted), which can be either direct or indirect.

Point-of-view editing:  the joining together of a point-of-view shot with a match cut (specifically, a match-on-action cut) to show, in the first shot, a character looking and, in the second, what he or she is looking at.

Postproduction:  the third stage of the production process, consisting of editing, preparing the final print, and bringing the film to the public (marketing and distribution).

Postproduction sounds:  those synchronous and asynchronous sounds created during the postproduction stage.

Postsynchronization:  the printing of image and sound on separate pieces of film that can be manipulated independently.

Preproduction:  the initial, planning-and-preparation stage of the production process.

Process shot:  live shooting against a background that is front- or rear-projected on a translucent screen.

Processing:  the second stage of creating motion pictures, in which a laboratory technician washes exposed film (which contains a negative image) with processing chemicals.

Production:  the second stage of the production process, the actual shooting.

Production sounds:  those synchronous sounds recorded during production (most of which, including dialogue, are changed, cleaned up, or rerecorded during postproduction).

Production values:  the amount of human and physical resources devoted to the image, including the style of its lighting; helps determine the overall style of a film.

Progression:  the process by which we move from the beginning, through the middle, to the end of a temporal work of art (poetry, fiction, music, theater, film).

Projecting:  the third stage of creating motion pictures, in which edited film is run through a projector, which shoots through the film a beam of light intense enough to reverse the initial process and to project a large image on the movie theater screen.

Propaganda:  nonfiction films that systematically disseminate deceptive or distorted information; compare documentary films.

Protagonist:  the major character who serves as the "hero" and who "wins" the conflict.

Pull-down claw:  within the movie camera, the mechanism that controls the intermittent cycle of shooting individual frames and advances the film frame by frame.

Quality:  also known as timbre; the characteristic of a sound that results from its harmonic constitution.

Raw film stock:  see celluloid roll film.

Realism:  an interest in or concern for the actual or real; a tendency to view or represent things as they really are. Compare antirealism and fantasy.

Real time:  time that is continuous, as in life; one aspect of duration (the other is cinematic time). Many directors use real time within films to create uninterrupted "reality" on the screen—denoted by a direct correspondence of screen duration to story duration—but they rarely use it for entire films. See also stretch relationship and summary relationship.

Rear projection:  the projection of stills or footage onto a translucent screen, to provide a background for live shooting; used in process shots.

Reflector board:  a piece of lighting equipment, but not really a lighting instrument, because it does not rely on bulbs to produce illumination. Essentially, it is a double-sided board that pivots in a U-shaped holder. One side is a hard, smooth surface that reflects hard light; the other is a soft, textured surface that provides softer fill light.

Release print:  the version of the final print used by the filmmakers to create hundreds, even thousands of costly prints for distribution.

Rerecording:  sometimes called looping or dubbing; the replacing of dialogue, which can be done manually (i.e., with the actors watching the footage, synchronizing their lips with it, and rereading the lines) or, more likely today, through Automatic Dialogue Replacement (ADR). (Dubbing also refers to the process of replacing dialogue in a foreign language with En­glish, or the reverse, throughout a film.)

Reshoot:  to make additional photography as supplemental material for production photography.

Restricted point of view:  also known as subjective point of view.

Revolver photographique:  also known as chrono-photographic gun; a cylinder-shaped camera that creates exposures automatically, at short intervals, on different segments of a revolving plate.

Rough cut:  a further refinement of the assembly edit—close enough to the final cut to give a sense of the finished movie.

Rough draft screenplay:  also known as scenario; the next step after a treatment, it results from discussions, development, and transformation of an outline in sessions known as story conferences.

Round characters:  one of two types of characters (the other is flat); these are three-dimensional, unpredictable, complex, and capable of surprising us in a convincing way. They may be major or minor characters.

Rule of thirds:  a compositional principle that enables filmmakers to maximize the potential of the image, put its elements into balance, and create the illusion of depth. A grid pattern, when superimposed on the image, divides it into ho­rizontal thirds representing the foreground, middle ground, and background planes and vertical thirds that break up those planes into further elements.

Rushes:  see dailies.

Satellites:  minor plot events in the diegesis, or world, of the narrative but detachable from it (though they may be removed at some cost to the overall texture of the narrative).

Scale:  the size and placement of a particular object or a part of a scene in relation to the rest, a relationship determined by the type of shot used and the placement of the camera.

Scenario:  see rough draft screenplay.

Scene:  a complete unit of plot action incorporating one or more shots; the setting of that action.

Scope:  the overall range of a story.

Screen duration:  a film's running time; one of three parts of a film's overall duration (the other two are story duration and plot duration).

Screen test:  a filming undertaken by an actor to try out for a particular role.

Self-reflexivity:  the quality of a form that reflects, mirrors, and even critiques its own content.

Separation editing:  a series of cuts between two or more characters involved in simultaneous action in the same place. The characters are divided less by space than by their goals, cultural identities, or moral positions.

Sequence:  a series of edited shots characterized by inherent unity of theme and purpose.

Series photography:  the use of a series of still photographs to record the phases of an action, though the actions within the images do not move.

Set:  not reality but a fragment of reality created as the setting for a particular shot in a movie; must be constructed both to look authentic and to photograph well.

Setting:  the time and space in which a story takes place.

Setup:  one camera position and everything associated with it. While the shot is the basic building block of the film, the setup is the basic component of the film's production.

Shooting:  the recording of images on previously unexposed film as it moves through the camera.

Shooting angle:  the level and height of the camera in relation to the subject being photographed. The five basic camera angles are eye level, high angle, low angle, Dutch angle, and aerial view.

Shooting script:  a guide and reference point for all members of the production unit, in which the details of each shot are listed and can thus be followed during filming.

Short-focal-length lens:  also known as the short-focus or wide-angle lens, and one of the four major types of lenses (the others are the middle-focal-length lens, the long-focal-length lens, and the zoom lens). It creates the illusion of depth within the frame, albeit with some distortion at the edges of the frame.

Shot:  one uninterrupted run of the camera. It can be as short or as long as the director wants, but it cannot exceed the length of the film stock in the camera.

Shot/reverse shot:  one of the most prevalent and familiar of all editing patterns, which parallel edits (cross-cuts) between shots of different characters, usually in a conversation or confrontation. When used in continuity editing, the shots are typically framed over each character's shoulder to preserve screen direction.

Shutter:  a device that shields the film from light at the aperture during the film-movement portion of the intermittent cycle of shooting.

Single character's point-of-view shot:  a shot made with the camera close to the line of sight of a character (or animal or surveillance camera), showing what that person would be seeing of the action; see also omniscient point-of-view shot and group point-of-view shot.

Slow disclosure:  an edited succession of images that lead from A to B to C as they gradually reveal the elements of a scene. Each image sheds light on the one before, thereby changing its significance with new information.

Slow motion:  photography that decelerates action by photographing it at a rate greater than the normal 24 fps, so that it takes place in cinematic time at a rate less rapid than the rate of real action that took place before the camera.

Sound bridge:  also known as a sound transition; sound carried from a first shot over to the next before the sound of that second shot begins.

Sound design:  a state-of-the-art concept given its name by film editor Walter Murch, combining the crafts of editing and mixing and, like them, involving both theoretical and practical issues. In essence, it represents advocacy for movie sound (to counter some people's tendency to favor the movie image).

Sound effects:  all sounds artificially created for the sound track that have a definite function in telling the story.

Soundstage:  a windowless, soundproofed, professional shooting environment, which is usually several stories high and can cover an acre or more of floor space.

Sound track:  a separate recording tape, occupied by each type of sound recorded for a movie (one track for vocals, one for sound effects, one for music, etc.).

Speed:  the rate at which film must move through the camera to correctly capture an image; very fast film requires little light to capture and fix the image, while very slow film requires a lot of light.

Splicer:  an editing device with an edge for cutting film evenly on a frame line and a bed on which to align and tape together cuts that will be invisible to the audience.

Splicing:  see cutting.

Split-screen:  a method, which may be created in the camera or during the editing process, of telling two stories at the same time. Unlike parallel editing, however, which cuts back and forth between shots for contrast, the split-screen can tell multiple stories within the same frame.

Sprocketed rollers:  devices that control the speed of unexposed film as it moves through the camera.

Stand-ins:  actors who look reasonably like movie stars (or at least actors playing major roles) in height, weight, coloring, and so on, and who substitute for them during the tedious process of preparing setups or taking light readings.

Stanislavsky system:  A system of acting developed by Russian theater director Konstantin Stanislavsky in the late nineteenth century, which encourages students to strive for realism, both social and psychological, and to bring their past experiences and emotions to their roles. It influenced the development of method acting in the United States.

Steadicam:  a camera actually worn by the cameraman, so it is not "handheld"; it removes jumpiness, and it is now much used for smooth, fast, and intimate camera movement.

Stock:  see film stock.

Story:  in a movie, (1) all the events we see or hear on the screen; and (2) all the events that are implicit or that we infer to have happened but that are not explicitly presented. See diegesis.

Storyboard:  a scene-by-scene (sometimes a shot-by-shot) breakdown that combines sketches or photographs of how each shot is to look along with written descriptions of the other elements that are to go with each shot, including dialogue, sound, and music.

Story conferences:  sessions during which the treatment is discussed, developed, and transformed from an outline into what is known as a rough draft screenplay or scenario.

Story duration:  the amount of time that the implied story takes to occur; one of three parts of a film's overall duration (the other two are plot duration and screen duration).

Stream of consciousness:  a literary style that gained prominence in the 1920s in the hands of such writers as Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and Dorothy Richardson and that attempted to capture the unedited flow of experience through the mind.

Stretch relationship:  one in which screen duration is longer than story duration. See also real time and summary relationship.

Stunt persons:  performers who double for other actors in scenes requiring special skills or involving hazardous actions, such as crashing cars, jumping from high places, swimming, and riding (or falling off) horses.

Subjective point of view:  also known as restricted point of view. Point of view that shows us a shot or scene as viewed by a character—major, minor, or marginal.

Summary relationship:  one in which screen duration is shorter than story duration. See also real time and stretch relationship.

Surprise:  a taking unawares, potentially shocking.

Suspense:  the anxiety brought on by a partial uncertainty—the end is certain, but the means is uncertain.

Swish pan:  a horizontal camera movement so fast that it blurs the photographic image.

Synchronous sound:  the type of film sound we are most familiar with, which comes from and matches a source apparent in the image, as when dialogue matches characters' lip movements or we hear the sound of shifting gears as we watch an automobile gather speed (as opposed to asynchronous sound).

Synopsis:  see treatment.

Take:  an indication of the number of times a particular shot is taken (e.g., shot 14, take 7).

Take-up spool:  a device that winds the film inside the movie camera after it has been exposed.

Tilt shot:  the vertical movement of a camera mounted on the gyroscopic head of a stationary tripod. Like the pan shot, it is a simple movement with dynamic possibilities for creating meaning.

Tracking shot:  smooth camera movement, with the action (alongside, above, beneath, behind, or ahead of it), when the camera is mounted on a set of tracks, a dolly, a crane, or an aerial device, such as an airplane, helicopter, or balloon.

Treatment:  also known as synopsis; an outline of the action that briefly describes the essential ideas and structure for a film.

Two-shot:  a shot in which two characters appear; ordinarily a medium shot or medium long shot.

Typecasting:  the casting of actors because of their looks or "type" rather than for their acting talent or experience.

Unidirectional microphones:  sound-recording equipment that responds, and has great sensitivity, to sound coming from one direction.

Unity and balance:  related to coherence and progression and two of the oldest and most universally recognized criteria in analyzing a work of art. Unity, sometimes called organic unity, means that the basic elements of cinematic form are organized within and give structure to the larger system of the film. When the elements work in complementary ways, the movie as a whole seems unified and balanced.

Verisimilitude:  a convincing appearance of truth; movies are verisimilar when they convince you that the things on the screen—people, places, what have you, no matter how fantastic or antirealistic—are "really there."

Video assist camera:  a tiny device, mounted in the viewing system of the film camera, that enables a script supervisor to view a scene (and thus compare its details with those of surrounding scenes, to ensure visual continuity) before the film is sent to the laboratory for processing.

Viewfinder:  on a camera, the little window you look through when taking a picture; its frame indicates the boundaries of the camera's point of view.

Walk-ons:  roles even smaller than cameos, reserved for highly recognizable actors or personalities.

Wipe:  a transitional device in which shot B wipes across shot A, either vertically or horizontally, to replace it. Although (or because) the device reminds us of early eras in filmmaking, directors continue to use it.

Workprint:  any positive print (either print or sound or both, but not yet timed or color-corrected) intended for use in the initial trial cuttings of the editing process.

Zoom lens:  one of the four major types of lenses (the others are the short-focal-length lens, the middle-focal-length lens, and the long-focal-length lens). It is moved toward and away from the subject being photographed, has a continuously variable focal length, and helps reframe a shot within the take.

Zoopraxiscope:  an early device for exhibiting moving pictures—a revolving disk with photographs arranged around the center.

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