" SIX AND THE CITY" is a three day spatial design and film workshop.
CHELSEA TRIANGLE SPACE
November 18th, 19th, 20th 2010
This practical workshop is aimed to develop practical experience related to the ISD FILM PLATFORM concerns. It is designed to give the students a chance to work collaboratively and become familiar with possibilities and potential relationships between spatial design and filmic process.
The Triangle Space will be used as a studio, stage, site and set where all tasks will be carried out.
WORKSHOP ACTIVITIES:
1. Large Group Activity
The City at Night / Design and construct a model city from found objects. Light the model and then construct a series of spatial narratives through film about the space you have constructed.
2. Small Group Activity
Experimental Performance / Consider and design a spatial choreography, rehearse it, perform it and film it.
3. Personal Activity
Use what you have made or construct new elements within the space to test and expand the personal concerns that you are developing through studio activity to date.
4. Reflective Activity
Both individually and in groups record the activities you undertake, through a range of media.
FILM TERMS GLOSSARY AND CONSIDERATIONS
An optical printer is a device consisting of one or more film projectors mechanically linked to a movie camera. It allows filmmakers to re-photograph one or more strips of film. The optical printer is used for making special effectsfor motion pictures, or for copying and restoring old film material.
Common optical effects include fade outs and fade ins, dissolves, slow motion, fast motion, and matte work. More complicated work can involve dozens of elements, all combined into a single scene.
An optical printer with two projector heads, used in producing movie special effects. Starting from the left, you can see light shining from the lamp house, then at A is the first projector's film gate, at B a lens that projects the film in A onto the second projector's gate C. At D is the lens of the camera, the camera's finder is at E and the adjustable shutter control at F. In the heavy base G all the electronics needed for controlling the printer are located.
| refers to a camera shot in which the camera remains immobile, while something happens off-screen (e.g., an off-screen death) - a technique to create suspense | ||
| a short, introductory summary of a film, usually found on the first page of the screenplay, to be read by executives, judges, agents, producers and script-readers; all screenwriters use loglines to sell their scripts; also known as premise; see alsohigh concept hook |  Example: The logline of Some Like It Hot (1959) - two broke male musicians who accidentally witness the St. Valentines' Day massacre must elude the mobsters who pursue them; they dress in drag and join an all-girl band traveling to Florida. Complications arise when one of them falls for a sexy singer and poses as a rich playboy so he can woo her; he convinces his partner to dodge the amorous advances of the elderly millionaire he is impersonating. Love conquers all -- till the mobsters show up at the same beachside resort for a convention. | |
(LS) | a camera view of an object or character from a considerable distance so that it appears relatively small in the frame, e.g., a person standing in a crowd of people or a horse in a vast landscape; variations are the medium long-shot (or mid-shot) (MS) and the extreme long-shot (ELS or XLS); also called a wide shot; a long shot often serves as anestablishing shot; contrast to close-up (CU); a full-shot is a type of long shot that includes a subject's entire body (head to feet). |  Example: an extreme long-shot, Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) arriving on horseback, in John Ford's The Searchers (1958) |
(or lengthy take) | a shot of lengthy duration; see also mise-en-scene | Example: Hitchcock's Rope (1948), composed of a series of continuous, 8-minute takes; or the opening of Robert Altman'sThe Player (1992) |
| refers to the process in which dialogue is re-recorded by actors in the studio during post-production, matching the actor's voice to lip movements on screen; aka ADR(Automated Dialogue Replacement); contrast with dubbing;loop refers to a length of film joined from beginning to end for repeated continuous running | ||
| a shot in which the subject is filmed directly from below and the camera tilts up at the action or character, to make the subject appear larger than life, more formidable, taller and more menacing; contrast to a high-angle shot |
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| a fast-paced, wild, and reckless humorous work, usually with plenty of slapstick humor, goofy and farcical action, and crazy characters; also see screwball comedy |  Examples: Cannonball Run (1981), It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), The Nutty Professor (1963) (pictured), All of Me (1985). | |
| short for movies filmed or made-for-television, often mid-way in style between a short drama and a cinematic release | ||
| the optimum time for filming romantic or magical scenes due to 'warm' and 'soft' lighting conditions, characterized by a golden-orange hue color; occurs for about 30 minutes around the time of sunset and sunrise; aka golden hour | Example: Nestor Almendros' cinematography in Terence Malick's Days of Heaven (1978); and Phil Alden Robinson'sField of Dreams (1989) | |
| a Hollywood-made film with major stars, big budgets, and bighype; compare to independents; its extreme opposite is termed counter-cinema (forms of alternative cinema, such asavant-garde, art films, Third World cinema, etc.) | ||
| refers to the major Hollywood motion picture producer/distributor studios at the present time (i.e., DreamWorks SKG, MGM/UA, Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Sony (Columbia/TriStar), Warner Bros, Universal, and Disney); contrast to the smaller, mini-majorproduction-distribution companies (i.e., Miramax, New Line Cinema, and Polygram) that compete directly with the bigger studios |  20th Century Fox logo | |
| refers to the materials that are used to prepare the performer for his/her respective role(s) before the camera, anywhere from facial pancake to elaborate costuming, latex masks, and other ghastly transformations; the makeup department is headed by a makeup artist |  Example: from Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) | |
| a specialized documentary that focuses on the production of a specific film; most "making of..." documentaries are extended promotional advertisements before the release of the film, and almost all of them are shot while the film is in production; some specialized documentaries of classic films (called retrospectives), made years after the film was released, gather interviews and behind the scenes clips, etc. |  Examples: Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991) used Francis Ford Coppola's wife Eleanor's "home movie" footage shot during the torturous 34 weeks shoot of Apocalypse Now (1979) in the Philippines, and also included more recent interviews; Shadowing the Third Man (2004)was an astounding retrospective of the making of Carol Reed's The Third Man (1949) | |
| (1) the name for the clapping of the sticks to sync up the sound and the picture; and (2) something on the ground (tape, a stick, chalk, etc.) that lets the talent know where they should be for the shot | ||
(or blackout) | refers to covering up or blocking out a portion of the frame with blackness or opaqueness; most masks are black, but they could be white or some other color |  Example: in Chinatown (1974), the scene in which detective J.J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson) uses binoculars to trace the activities of Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling); also used for the effect of looking through a keyhole |
| a continuous shot or long take that shows the main action or setting of an entire scene (most scenes are shot with one or two master angles and then broken up into a series of smaller or tighter angles during editing (such as one-shots, two-shots, close-ups, and reaction shots)); a master refers to a positive print made especially for duplication purposes | ||
| a transitional technique, in which there's a cut between two shots (outgoing and incoming) that are joined, matched, or linked by visual, aural, or metaphorical parallelism or similarities; there can be audio matches, segues (a seguerefers to a smooth, uninterrupted transition), and visualmatch-cuts of various kinds; see also audio bridge andbridging shot |  Examples: North by Northwest (1959), Cary Grant pulls Eva Marie Saint up the cliff of Mt. Rushmore -- then a match cut to Grant pulling her up to a bunk in a train | |
| the optical process of combining (or compositing) separately-photographed shots (usually actors in the foreground and the setting in the background) onto one print through a double exposure that does not meld two images on top of each other, but masks off (or makes opaque and blank) part of the frame area for one exposure and the opposite area for another exposure; the second image is printed in the masked-off area; it is a photographic technique whereby a matte painting or artwork from a matte artist - usually painted on glass - is combined with live action footage to provide a convincing setting for the action; also sometimes known as split-screen. |  Example: In Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958), this complicated shot combined a real roof and a matted belfry in the background with an added silhouette in the foreground. Also used to combine a cartoon character with a human actor (e.g., Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)); the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz (1939) | |
(or MacGuffin) | Alfred Hitchcock's term for the device or plot element (an item, object, goal, event, or piece of knowledge) that catches the viewer's attention or drives the logic or action of the plot and appears extremely important to the film characters, but often turns out to be insignificant or is to be ignored after it has served its purpose; its derivation is Scottish, meaning a "lion trap" for trapping lions in the lion-less Scottish Highlands (i.e., a trap that means nothing, since it is for an animal where there is no such animal). |  Examples: 'mistaken identity' at the beginning of North by Northwest (1959)and the 'government secrets', the uranium ore in Notorious (1946) (seen here), or the stolen money - $40,000 inPsycho (1960); also the 'black bird' inThe Maltese Falcon (1941) served as a McGuffin - before it was termed |
| refers to a conventional camera shot filmed from a medium distance; although it is difficult to precisely define, it usually refers to a human figure from the waist (or knees) up; between a close shot and a long shot; abbreviated as m.s. |  Example: a medium shot of Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando from A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) | |
(multiplex) | both refer to movie chains (i.e., Loews, AMC Theatres) with movie theatres that screen more than one film at a time, as opposed to single-screen theatres. A multiplex has from 2 up to 16 screens, a megaplex has 16 or more screens; plex is the abbreviation for a multiplex theatre. |  Example: A typical AMC multiplex 7-screen theatre in the greater Los Angeles area. |
| originally referred to "a drama accompanied by music"; a film characterized by expressive plots with strong and intensified emotion, often with elements of pathos, illness and hardship; called 'women's films' or 'weepies' (tearjerkers) during the 1940s; aka meller; sometimes used disparagingly to describe films that are manipulative and crudely appeal to emotions; see also 'chick flicks' |  Examples: prominent "weepies" includeLetter From an Unknown Woman (1948)(shown above) and Mildred Pierce (1945), and any of director Douglas Sirk's lurid melodramas of the 50s, such as Magnificent Obsession (1954),All That Heaven Allows (1956), Imitation of Life (1959), andWritten on the Wind (1956). | |
| a filmic device in which a scene, character, object, and/or action may be associated, identified, or interpreted as an implied representation of something else (that is unrelated) |  Example: Hitchcock's use of the image of a train tunnel at the conclusion of North by Northwest (1959) to metaphorically signify sex, or the rain-drenched (like tears falling) sad farewell letter from Ilsa to Rick inCasablanca (1942) | |
| a style of acting first expounded by Konstantine Stanislavsky in the early 1900s, and popularized by Lee Strasberg (1899-1982) in the US in his Actors Studio; refers to actors who gave realistic performances based upon and drawn from their own personal experiences and emotions; refers to not emoting in the traditional manner of stage conventions, but to speak and gesture in a manner used in private life. |  Example: Marlon Brando was known as one of the main practitioners of method acting, seen here in the famous taxicab scene in On the Waterfront (1954); other proponents of method acting included James Dean and Montgomery Clift. | |
| offbeat, often independent (non-Hollywood) counter-culturalcult films exhibited at theatres for late-night shows - sometimes involving audience participation; appealed to various small segments of niche audiences with different tastes; these films (originally sexual thrillers, slasher flicks, etc.) were often box-office bombs upon initial release, but then gained a faithful following; the phenomenon began in the early 70s, then mostly disappeared in the 80s, but has recently been revived. | Examples: Freaks (1932), Reefer Madness (1936), Night of the Living Dead (1968), Mondo Trasho (1969), Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), El Topo (1970), Harold and Maude (1971), The Harder They Come (1972), Pink Flamingos (1972), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), the long-running The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Eraserhead (1977), and recently The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), Office Space (1999) and Donnie Darko (2001) | |
(or pantomime) | acting without words, emphasizing facial expressions, body movements, and gestures; common during the silent film era. |  Example: the films of Charlie Chaplin; or Janet Gaynor's Oscar-winning performance in F.W. Murnau's classicSunrise (1927) (shown here). |
| small-scale models photographed to give the illusion that they are full-scale objects; also known as model or miniature shots. |  Examples: the space craft in Star Wars (1977) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) | |
| refers to an actor/actress who is completely wrong, untalented, or unbelievable for the role he or she has been cast in. | Examples: John Wayne as Temujin (Genghis Khan) in The Conqueror (1956), Barbra Steisand as Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly! (1969) | |
a French term for "staging," or "putting into the scene or shot"; in film theory, it refers to all the elements placed (by the director) before the camera and within the frame of the film -- including their visual arrangement and composition; elements include settings, decor, props, actors, costumes, makeup, lighting, performances, and character movements and positioning; lengthy, un-cut, unedited and uninterrupted sequences shot in real-time are often cited as examples ofmise-en-scene; contrast to montage |  Examples: the harsh lighting or expressionistic angles used in classic film noirs (such as in Fritz Lang's work), in F.W. Murnau'sSunrise (1927) with the striking contrast between the marsh, rural life and the city; or in angular set designs of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919);  or in the visual magnificence of the sets in David Lean's epic films, such as the frozen dacha in Doctor Zhivago (1965) (pictured) or the searing desert in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), or in the claustrophobic feel on-board the Orca searching for the Great White in Spielberg's Jaws (1975) | |
| the electrical combination of different sounds, dialogue, music, and sound effects from microphones, tape, and other sources onto the film's master soundtrack during post-production; dubbing (or re-recording) refers to the mixing of all soundtracks into a single composite track; the soundtrack is blended by a mixer (chief sound recording technician) | ||
| a fictional, farcical film that has the style, 'look and feel' of a documentary, with irreverent humor, parody, or slapstick, that is deliberately designed to 'mock' the documentary or subject that it features; related to docudrama (a film that depicts real people and actual events in their lives) |  Examples: This is Spinal Tap (1984) (pictured), Best in Show (2000), Zelig (1983), Husbands and Wives (1991), Bob Roberts (1992), Waiting for Guffman (1996), Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999) | |
(or modern-day) classic | a popular, critically-acclaimed film in recent years destined (possibly?) to ultimately become an all-time classic | Examples: Saving Private Ryan (1998), or Groundhog Day (1993) |
| refers to a domineering, autocratic head of a major film studio; most commonly used when the studio systemdominated film-making; now popularly called a studio chief | Example: Louis B. Mayer of MGM | |
| aka payoff shot; a term originally borrowed from the pornographic film industry; referring to a scene, image, revelation, or climactic moment that gives the audience "their money's worth," may have cost the most money to produce - and may be the key to the movie's success |  Examples: the transformation scene in classic horror films in which the character grows hair and fangs; Darth Vader cutting off Luke Skywalker's hand in The Empire Strikes Back (1980), the attack and bomb 'POV' (point-of-view) shot in Pearl Harbor (2001)(above), the first sight of Gilda in Gilda (1946), or Halle Berry's toplessness revealed behind a book in Swordfish (2001) | |
| refers to a small television screen hooked up to the camera and/or recording device that allows crew other than the camera operator to check the quality of a scene as it is being shot or to check and see if it needs to be reshot | ||
| a scene or a portion of a script in which an actor gives a lengthy, unbroken speech without interruption by another character; see also soliloquy. See Best Film Speeches and Monologues |  Example: Keyes' (Edward G. Robinson) long speech about suicide statistics in Double Indemnity (1944), or Romeo's last embrace and death scene inRomeo and Juliet (1968) | |
a French word literally meaning "editing", "putting together" or "assembling shots"; refers to a filming technique, editing style, or form of movie collage consisting of a series of short shots or images that are rapidly put together into a coherent sequence to create a composite picture, or to suggest meaning or a larger idea; in simple terms, the structure of editing within a film; a montage is usually not accompanied with dialogue; dissolves, cuts, fades, super-impositions, and wipes are often used to link the images in a montage sequence; an accelerated montage is composed of shots of increasingly-shorter lengths; contrast to mise-en-scene |  Examples: the famous 'breakfast' montage scene in Citizen Kane (1941) - that dramatized the deterioration of Kane's first marriage; the ambush scene inBonnie and Clyde (1967), the 45 second shower scene in Psycho (1960) - with between 71-78 camera set-ups for the shooting of the scene and 50 splices (where two pieces of film are joined); or the 'Odessa Steps' montage in Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1925) including three successive shots of stone lions in various positions - filmed to look as though they were one lion rising to its feet and roaring in fury and anger at the massacre | |
| the term for a child, or pre-teen child actor |  Examples: Elizabeth Taylor inNational Velvet (1944) (pictured), Shirley Temple, or Mickey Rooney. | |
| a literary term mostly, but used also to refer to a film (often heavy-handed and obvious in tone) that presents a judgment on the goodness/badness of human behavior and character, and emphasizes the struggle between good and evil | Examples: Intolerance (1916), Quiz Show (1994), The Lord of the Rings trilogy | |
| the transformation of one digital image into another with computer animation. |  Examples: The Mask (1994) (shown above), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Stargate (1994), andInterview with the Vampire (1994). | |
| refers to a recurrent thematic element in a film that is repeated in a significant way or pattern; examples of motifs - a symbol, stylistic device, image, object, word, spoken phrase, line, or sentence within a film that points to a theme. |  Examples: Keys in Hitchcock's Notorious (1946), seen in the poster design for the film; the word 'Rosebud' in Citizen Kane (1941); and the visual use of the X-symbol in the gangster film Scarface (1932) signifying male violence | |
(movies, pic(s), pix, or "moving pictures") | a length of film (with or without sound) with a sequence of images that create an illusion of movement when projected; originally referred to the motion or movement (due to the principle of persistence of vision) perceived when a string of celluloid-recorded images were projected at a rate of 16 or more frames per second; an art form, and one of the most popular forms of entertainment, known archaically as aphotoplay during the silent era. |  Example: from Edweard Muybridge's 'animal animation' or 'persistence of vision' experiments in the late 19th century. |
| refers to lighting (or a light source) that is naturally existing in the real world, i.e., from a lamp post, table lamp, sunlight shining through a window, etc., that appears in a scene; for the lighting to appear natural in a film scene, it should seem to be coming from light sources that are visible or implied within the scene; the opposite effect is unmotivated lighting |  Example: Andy's crucifixion victory stance in The Shawshank Redemption (1994) was lit by unmotivated or inexplicable lighting | |
| a slang term for the Walt Disney Co. or any division thereof -- refers to the company's most famous animated character: Mickey Mouse | ||
| acronym-initials meaning 'Motion Picture Association of America' - an organization that represents the interests of the major motion picture studios | ||
| refers to the style of filming and editing first found on the MTV cable channel in the 1980s and its music videos, consisting of rapidly-cut shots, fast-paced action, jump-cuts, fast-edits, numerous camera angles | Example: first evidenced in the films of surrealists, and during the New Wave era; more recently in films such asEasy Rider (1969), Flashdance (1983), and Oliver Stone'sNatural Born Killers (1994) | |
| a major film genre category denoting a film that emphasizes segments of song and dance interspersed within the action and dialogue; known for its distinctive artists, stars, singers, and dancers; two major types are 'backstage' musicals and 'music-integrated' musicals. |  Examples: 42nd Street (1933), Singin' in the Rain (1952), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), An American in Paris (1951), West Side Story (1961), The Music Man (1962), My Fair Lady (1964), The Sound of Music (1965), and Mary Poppins (1964) | |
| a print with only the picture image (minus the sound track) | ||
| the telling of a story, and the supplemental information given to the film audience by an off-screen voice; sometimes the narrator is a character in the film, who provides information in a flashback; see also voice-over. |  Examples: during the opening credits in Casablanca (1942), and throughout Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948); also the lyrics-as-narration (by the Doors' song 'The End') in the opening ofApocalypse Now (1979) | |
| a structured series of events, linked by cause and effect, that provide the plot of a film; a film that tells a chronological or linear story (with a beginning, middle, and end), as opposed to non-narrative films, such as poetic or abstractfilms. | ||
(naturalistic) | a stage, artistic, philosophical, or literary term as well as a film term, signifying an extreme form of realism in which life is depicted in a stoic, unbiased way; see also Neo-Realism. | Examples: Dead End (1937), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), On the Waterfront (1954) |
| refers to film that has an inverted record of the light and dark areas of the photographed scene | ||
| an influential movement of the late 1940s and 1950s that originated in Italy; inaugurated by Jean Renoir, but associated with Italian post-war directors (Rossellini, Visconti, and De Sica); refers to films made outside the studio, with shooting on real locations, sometimes the absence of a script and/or non-professional casts and actors - all designed simultaneously to cut costs and increase the impression of spontaneity; neo-realistic films often deal with contemporary social and political issues; see alsonaturalism. | Example: De Sica's definitive The Bicycle Thief (1948, It.) | |
| originally referred to the "Big Three" (ABC, NBC and CBS), but now with additional competitors, including Fox Channel, often known as 'free-TV' | Example: the prescient Network (1976) forecast the development of a fourth sensationalist network, with its fictional UBS channel that specialized in reality television programming | |
| also known as Nouvelle Vague; originally referred to a group of individualistic, innovative, and non-traditional French filmmakers, directors and producers in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer, and Alain Resnais, who began as critics on Cahiers du Cinema and espoused the principles of auteur theory; the New Wave film style was characterized by a cinema verite style with the use of the jump cut, the hand-held camera, non-linear storytelling, and loose, improvised direction; now used to generally refer to any new movement in a national cinema. |  Examples: Chabrol's Le Beau Serge (1958) (aka Bitter Reunion), Truffaut's feature film debut The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups) (1959),Godard's Breathless (A Bout de Souffle) (1959), Marcel Camus'Black Orpheus (1959), Chabrol's Les Cousins (1959), and Resnais' Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) | |
| refers to a filmed cinema news report | ||
| the term for a makeshift motion picture theater, often a converted store, which proliferated all over the US, mostly in working-class areas of metropolitan centers, during the first decade of the 20th century. The name was derived from the 5 cents/nickel charged to patrons. |  A nickelodeon or 'storefront theatre' from the late 1800s or early 1900s. | |
| a dark and brooding film that features a downbeat, depressing, dreary, cynical, gloomy or bleak tone; often doom-laden and concerned with the subjects of death, suffering, tragedy, unhappiness, and existential despair; the protagonist often meets with death or tragedy in a film's conclusion; see also dystopia. | Examples: Almost all film noirs are nihilistic, such as The Killers (1946), D.O.A. (1950), Sunset Boulevard (1950), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Taxi Driver (1976), and American Beauty (1999) | |
| a highly-flammable kind of film base, composed of cellulose nitrate, used up until the late 1940s when it was then supplanted by acetate base. |  Example: deteriorating and powdery nitrate-based film, one of the most important reasons for film archival work and preservation. | |
| see film noir, tech-noir | ||
| a small role in a film, usually a brief appearance on screen, that has no dialogue but where the individual is clearly identifiable and usually appears in the credits; see alsoextra, cameo, bit, and walk-on. | ||
(non-synchronized) | refers to a scene shot without synchronized sound - and sounds must be added later during the editing stage; sync sound is its opposite; also refers to a mis-matched soundtrack; aka asynchronous | |
| a movement, now officially headed by the Non-Traditional Casting Project (NTCP) to "promote inclusive hiring practices and standards, diversity in leadership and balanced portrayals of persons of color and persons with disabilities"; not to be confused with cast against type ormiscast | Example: Morgan Freeman as Red in The Shawshank Redemption (1994) - a role originally written for an Irish character | |
| A film that wistfully looks back at an earlier past time, often depicting it as more innocent and uncomplicated than it actually was, historically; nostalgia films usually look back on the protagonist's or narrator's childhood. See alsocoming of age film. | Examples: How Green Was My Valley (1941), Amarcord (1973), American Graffiti (1973), A Christmas Story (1983), Radio Days (1987), Cinema Paradiso (1988, It./Fr.), Avalon (1990), Crooklyn (1994), The Inkwell (1994). | |
| refers to making a novel from a film or screenplay | ||
| an abbreviation, refers specifically to National TelevisionSystem Committee that sets TV and video standards; also refers to the US and Japanese video systems that have 525 horizontal scan lines, 16 million different colors, and 30 frames per second (or 60 half-frames (interlaced) per second); competing systems in Europe and worldwide arePAL (Phase Alternating Line) and SECAM (Sequential Color with Memory) | ||
(or nudie flick) | an old term for a pornographic movie, often used during the age of the Hayes Code when nudity was forbidden by censors in mainstream films on the silver screen; an era of nudie films was generated by filmmaker Russ Meyer in the late 50s; also see porn. |  Examples: Russ Meyer's cheaply-madeThe Immoral Mr. Teas (1959) was known as a 'nudie-cutie'. Ecstasy (1933) andBlow-Up (1966) - examples of two other films with nudity that generated controversy when first released |
| in the movie-theatre business, refers to operating expenses associated with a film (the exhibitor's calculation of what it takes to lease his theater, to staff and run it, etc.); akahouse nut | ||
| a cliched and expected scene for a particular genre, e.g., a love scene in a romance or dramatic film, a shoot-out in a Western, the solving of a crime in a mystery, a rescue in an action film, etc. |  Example: The famous waves-churning embrace in From Here to Eternity (1953) | |
(or off-camera) | refers to action or dialogue off the visible stage, or beyond the boundaries of the camera's field of vision or depicted frame; aka off-screen | |
point-of-view (POV) | a film in which the narrator knows (and sees) everything occurring in a story, including character thoughts, action, places, conversations, and events; contrast to subjective point-of-view | |
(or on-camera) | on the visible stage, or within the boundaries of the camera's field of vision | |
| a term for a short, one-line joke (that contains its own punchline); also the term may refer to the 'high concept' description of a film - a few words used to describe a script, storyline or a film's premise that a person can easily understand with a simple one-liner | Examples: (comedic one-liner): "Either he's dead or my watch has stopped!" (Groucho Marx in A Day At the Races (1937)), and (high concept one-liner): "A teenager is mistakenly sent into the past, where he must make sure his mother and father meet and fall in love; he then has to get back to the future." Back to the Future (1985) | |
| a scripted or filmed narrative (or an avant-garde or experimentalfilm) featuring a solo performance piece with only one actor or actress who sometimes plays multiple roles or characters; often presented by a stand-up comedian; contrast with concert film | Examples: Give 'em Hell, Harry! (1975), Paul Robeson (1977), Gilda Live (1980), Secret Honor (1984), Whoopi Goldberg Live (1986), Swimming to Cambodia (1987)(by Spalding Gray), The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1991) (with Lily Tomlin), and Eric Bogosian's Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll (1991) | |
| refers to a film 10-12 minutes long | ||
| refers to the typical size of a movie poster | ||
| the presentation of the 'opening credits' (as an introduction to the audience about the film and including selected important members of the production) is known as the opening credits sequence; sometimes it is superimposed on the action, but often exists as static letters on a solid background; since the closing or end credits usually list the entire cast and production crew, the opening credits sequence is usually positioned to set the mood of the film, and sometimes even lacks any credits except the film's title |
Robocop 2 (1990) and Vanilla Sky (2001) were unusual in that there were no opening credits of any sort, not even the title of the film - an increasing trend! | |
(or optical effects) | in film-making, refers to a visual device, e.g., a fade, wipe,dissolve, superimposition, freeze-frame, split-screen,composite (a train reflection in a car window), or another effect, some of which can be created in the camera, and others that have to be achieved in post-production by mixers or other specialized techniques | Example: Star Wars (1977) mimicked the Saturday matinee style of episodic serials with various opticals |
| the name given to the awards of AMPAS (the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) given each year to various performers and others in the film industry; officially known as the "Academy Award of Merit" |  The 13.5 inch award statuettes were officially nicknamed Oscars after 1939 | |
| Often used in a derogatory way to describe studio-invented pre-release PR buzz that a film (usually an epic or serious biopic released late in the year) is worthy, meaningful, and deserving of Oscar awards; the term was reportedly first used by Hedda Hopper in a "Looking at Hollywood" column on June 1, 1948; the term either refers to (1) a self-proclaimed, "important", often over-produced film, undercut by its attempt to appeal to all demographics, or (2) a showy acting performance designed to draw attention to itself; these kinds of films and performances were the sort that used to guarantee an Oscar from Academy voters during the film industry's adolescent years of the 1950's and early 1960's, but are now considered either pretentious and/or cheesy in the modern age, and ironically often hurt the film's or actor's chances at winning an Oscar, though some films still succeed; aka Oscarbation | Examples: The Alamo (1960) and Chill Wills' campaign for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar was the first major example of "Oscar bait" backlash; also Hello, Dolly! (1969), Paint Your Wagon (1969), The Towering Inferno (1974), Inchon (1982); recent examples include The Last Samurai (2003), Alexander (2004), Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) and The Pursuit of Happyness (2006);Around the World in 80 Days (1956), Gandhi (1982) andThe English Patient (1996) are examples of successful "Oscar bait"; Christopher Guest's For Your Consideration (2006), a mockumentary about movie-making, examined Hollywood's obsession with awards by its story of an indie production titled Home for Purim. | |
| refers to camera shots that are not included (literally, they are 'taken out') in the final cut or print of a film, often retrieved from thecutting room floor, and shown during the closing credits; also seeblooper | Examples: Films with blooper outtakes at the conclusion during the credits include: Cannonball Run (1981), Liar Liar (1997), A Bug's Life (1998), and Toy Story 2 (1999). | |
| poor, overly-broad, or 'over-the-top' acting by a 'ham' actor; aka "hamming it up" or 'chewing up the scenery'; sometimes considered in a positive light as 'campy'; contrast with underacting |  Example: Faye Dunaway inMommie Dearest (1981). | |
| to speed up a camera - to shoot at more than the normal 24 fps, so that the resulting image appears in slow-motion; this technique is often used to shoot miniatures; the term "cranking' refers to the old technique of having to turn or crank a camera by hand | ||
| refers to a film shot that has more light than normal, causing a blinding, washed-out, whitish, glaring effect; deliberately used for flashbacked or dream scenes; aka flared or bleached; the opposite of underexposed |  Example: the kissing scene in Pride & Prejudice (2005)before a bright sun | |
| the carry-over of dialogue, sounds, or music from one scene to another; occurs when the cut in the soundtrack is not at the same time as the cut in the image; can also refer to two or more characters speaking at the same time; aka overlap sound | Example: Robert Altman's M*A*S*H (1970) | |
| a very commonly-used medium camera angle or view in a dialogue scene, mostly with alternating shot/reverse-shot editing, in which the camera records the action from behind the shoulder and/or head of one of the characters, thus framing the image; the two characters are thus linked or connected to each other, and their positions are established | ||
| in film terms, a pre-credits or opening credits musical selection that sets the mood and theme for the upcoming film | Examples: Most musicals feature an overture (during or before the opening credits) that is comprised of a medley of the main songs of the film, such as West Side Story (1961) and My Fair Lady (1964); some dramatic (or epic) films have overtures as well -- Ligeti'sAtmospheres overture in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) precedes the opening credits. Pre-credit overtures are often cut in home and television video releases. | |
| slang term for a drive-in movie theater; aka passion pit; see alsohard-top (indoor movie theater) | ||
| abbreviation for 'personal appearance' - often required of major stars - to promote or provide PR (p.r.) or 'public relations' (marketing) for their films | ||
| the speed/tempo of the dramatic action, which is usually enhanced by the soundtrack and the speed of the dialogue, the type of editing, etc. | ||
| the marketing elements of a film project, such as script, signed film stars, director, locations, 'high-concept' hook, etc. | ||
| verb meaning 'to express a totally negative opinion of' a film, normally in a critical film review; also known as 'trashing' a film | ||
(or panning shot, orpanoramic shot) | abbreviation for panorama shot; refers to the horizontal scan, movement, rotation or turning of the camera in one direction (to the right or left) around a fixed axis while filming; a variation is theswish pan (also known as flash pan, flick pan, zip pan, blur pan, or whip pan), in which the camera is purposely panned in either direction at a very fast pace, creating the impression of a fast-moving horizontal blurring of images across the screen; often confused with a dolly or tracking shot. |  Examples: the call to roundup as the camera moves around and captures the faces of the cowpokes in Red River (1948); in John Ford's Stagecoach (1939) a panning shot reveals the presence of Indians just as the stagecoach seems to be heading to safety; and many films utilizing theswish pan -- a fast blurring panning action that blends two scenes together (signifying rapid movement from one place to the next). |
| a technique that avoids the 'letterboxing' of a widescreen film for a full-framed 4x3 home video or TV picture, by focusing on the elements of the picture that are most important to the plot and by adjusting or cropping the image; when an important part of the image drops out of the visible screen, the picture is mechanically panned to the side (left or right in a ping-pong effect) to show the missing part - hence, the term pan-and-scan; approximately 43% of the visuals are sacrificed or cropped out in the pan-and-scan version, affecting the director's original intent and aesthetic sense |
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(editing, action, sound, etc.) | editing that cuts between two sequences taking place at different locations and possibly different times; parallel action refers to a narrative device in which two scenes are observed in parallel by cross-cutting; parallel sound refers to sound that matches the accompanying image; aka cross-cutting, inter-cutting | |
| a comedy that imitates or makes fun of an existing work(s) in an absurd, non-sensical way, and exaggerates its characteristics | Examples: Airplane! (1980) - a parody of disaster films;Blazing Saddles (1974) - a parody of westerns. | |
| a dramatic scene that justifies everything that preceded it; the necessary result of a complication for which the audience has been prepared; contrast to punchline and money shot | Example: the startling scene with an admission of incest ("She's my sister and my daughter!") by Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) in Chinatown (1974) | |
| refers to bribery or under-the-table payments | ||
| literally, Latin for "mask"; related to the on-screen image or personality associated with a star | Examples: Mae West: a sexually-bold vamp with one-liners filled with sexual innuendo; Groucho Marx: a sly, witty, irreverent, sarcastic insult-spewing, wisecracking scam artist | |
| slang terms for motion picture(s) | ||
| a particular story-telling approach, literally, to have one film within another; in some cases, the characters are aware of the 'film-within-a-film,' and break the fourth wall and enter into or interact with it; aka subset film or film within a film |  Example: the newsreel of Kane's life "News on the March" in Citizen Kane (1941), homage to the real "The March of Time" newsreel | |
| refers to the most sexually-attractive star-actresses of an era, who would be popularized in seductive poses usually semi-clad - in pictures, calendars, or mass-produced posters that were usually literally "pinned-up", usually with thumbtacks, on bedroom walls, the insides of lockers, and so forth; this practice started especially amongst GI servicemen away from home during military combat who pined for the 'girl-back-home'; related terms are cover girl (for magazine covers), model or cheesecake |  Examples: Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, Betty Page, Marilyn Monroe, Raquel Welch, Brigitte Bardot, Bo Derek, Farrah Fawcett | |
| orally or written (sales) proposals for film projects usually made by screenwriters (to sell a screenplay idea), or independent producers for studio producers or executives to obtain financial backing; anything from a one-line description to a two- to three-pagetreatment of an idea (before becoming a script); also refers to short phrases that capture or succinctly sum up the script | Examples: Jaws (1975): Man afraid of water pursues killer shark; or E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982): Loveable alien is left behind; or Toy Story (1995): Toys come to life | |
| refers to the character that launches the action between theprotagonist and the antagonist; or the character who sets the main events of the plot in motion; films with a classic "love triangle" involve a woman who serves as the 'pivotal character' between two rival suitors | ||
| an animation technique in which the illusion of continuous, real movement of three-dimensional objects, often people, is broken and/or made to move unevenly or jerky through the use of stop-action cinematography (single frame animation) or by printing only selected frames from the continuously-exposed negative |  Example: the infamous eating scene in Tom Jones (1963) | |
plot point | refers to a series of dramatic events or actions that make up a film'snarrative; a plot point is a key turning point or moment in a film's story that significantly advances the action; plot points either set the story further into motion, or disrupt and complicate the plot; also known as beat or A story; contrast to a subplot (aka B story or C story) - a secondary plot in a film; a plot plant is the technique of 'planting' an apparently trivial piece of information early in a story - that becomes more important later on | |
(POV) | the perspective from which the film story is told; also refers to a shot that depicts the outlook or position of a character; also seeomniscient and subjective point of view, and P.O.V. shot | |
(or point-of-view shot) | a subjective shot made from the perspective of one of the characters to show the audience the scene as it would look through the character's eyes; usually coupled (before and/or after) with areaction shot (or a three-shot sequence called a shot reverse shot) to establish the POV; also known as first-person point-of-view shot or subjective camera (the use of the camera to suggest the POV of a particular character) |
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| refers to a film that exploits sex; see also nudie | ||
| either a throwaway scene or an epilogue that happens during or after the end credits; sometimes used as a bonus for theatergoers who remain to watch the credits, and partly to generate 'buzz' about the extra scene |  Examples: Airplane! (1980)has the most famous example of a post-credits sequence when taxi passenger (politician and income-tax fighter Howard Jarvis), who was abandoned by Ted Striker (Robert Hayes) -- but with the meter still running, checks his watch and huffs with one final punchline: "Well, I'll give him another 20 minutes, but that's it!"; other films include Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), Angel Heart (1987), The Great Outdoors (1988),Cosi (1996), and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003). Many films have post-credit sequences in the middle of the end credits, such asGremlins 2: The New Batch (1990), Chicken Run (2000), and Shrek 2 (2004) | |
| refers to a return to tradition, in reaction to more 'modernist' styles | ||
| the final stage in a film's production after principal photography or shooting, involving editing, the addition of sound/visual effects, musical scoring, mixing, dubbing, distribution, etc.; in digital post-production, can also include changing facial expressions, removing flaws or obtrusive objects (microphone, boom, etc.), enhancing the visual image, etc.; aka post; contrast to pre-production | ||
| refers to the post-production process of recording the sound after the film has been shot, often adding dialogue spoken by actors as they watch the projected film | ||
| a literary reference to the hard-edged, American detective/crime thrillers (also often called 'pulp fiction' or 'dime novels') rapidly written and filled with violence, crime, and sex - to literally 'boil the pot'; also known as hard-boiled | Examples: Most of the films based upon Raymond Chandler's, Dashiell Hammett's and Mickey Spillane's film-noirish crime novels, i.e., The Big Sleep (1939),The Maltese Falcon (1941), and Kiss Me Deadly (1955), featuring 'private dicks' and 'femme fatales' | |
| refers to the four-five years (1930-1934) before the enforcement of the Hays Production Code in Hollywood, to rigidly sanitize and censor films. In film plots from mid-1935 and lasting about the next 30 years, adultery and promiscuity were prohibited (unless they ended in a miserable downfall), and all crimes (and their criminals) had to be punished. | Examples: pre-Code films included Night Nurse (1931),Queen Christina (1933), Baby Face (1933), and The Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933). See History of Sex in Cinema for more. | |
| the first official public screening of a movie, marking the kick-off, opening or opening night; a 'red carpet' premiere is one with greater publicity and hoopla (sensational promotion), ballyhoo, or hype; aka a bow, debut, or preem | ||
| the main idea of a movie, usually explainable in a few sentences | ||
| the planning stage in a film's production after the project is finallygreenlighted, and before principal photography or actual shooting commences, involving script treatment and editing/rewriting, scheduling, set design and construction, casting, budgeting and financial planning, and scouting/selection of locations; contrast topost-production | ||
| the second or third film in a series of films that presents characters and/or events that are chronologically set before the time frame of the original movie; contrast to sequel | Examples: Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999), and Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) are both prequels to Star Wars (1977); a combination prequel-sequel film was Coppola's The Godfather, Part II (1974); Another Part of the Forest (1948) was a prequel of The Little Foxes (1941) | |
| a short film, usually with excerpts from a future film, intended as an advertisement; a sneak preview refers to an unadvertised, often surprise showing of an entire film before its general release or announced premiere, often to gauge audience reaction; aka trailer | ||
| to view/watch/see a movie before it is released for the public (at thepremiere) | ||
| refers to the filming of major and significant portions of a film production that involves the main/lead actors/actresses; contrast tosecond-unit photography | ||
| refers to the main characters in a play or film (usually those that have dialogue); contrasted to protagonists or antagonists, orextras. | ||
| refers to a positive copy of a film | ||
| a very popular sub-genre with the film's plot usually set within the walls of an institutional prison; themes involve imprisonment and/or escape, the effects on the characters involved and interactions between officers and inmates, and issues of justice/injustice; the prison flick sub-genre can be found in any major genre (animated, drama, comedy, musical, science fiction, sexploitation, etc.) | Examples: The Big House (1930), I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932), Brute Force (1947), Stalag 17 (1952), Riot In Cell Block Eleven (1954), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Jailhouse Rock (1957), The Defiant Ones (1958), The Great Escape (1963), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Take the Money and Run (1969), Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), Papillon (1973), Caged Heat (1974), Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (1975), Midnight Express (1978), Escape from Alcatraz (1979), Stir Crazy (1980), Escape from New York (1981), 48 HRS (1982), Chained Heat (1983), Schindler's List (1993),The Shawshank Redemption (1994), The Rock (1996), The Green Mile (1999), Chicken Run (2000), O Brother Where Art Thou? (2000) | |
(projection or shot) | a technique that shoots live action in front of a screen on which the background view is projected; a process shot refers to a shot of live action in front of a process projection | |
| the chief of a movie production in all logistical matters (i.e., scheduling, financing, budgeting) save the creative efforts of the director; raises funding and financing, acquires or develops a story, finalizes the script, hires key personnel for cast, crew, and director, and arranges for distributors of the film to theaters; serves as the liaison between the financiers and the film-makers, while managing the production from start to finish. | ||
| refers to how companies buy advertising space within a film for their products, as a way for a producer to fund some film production costs |
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| the general process of putting a film together, including casting, set construction, costuming, rehearsals, and shooting; also refers to themiddle stage of production which is preceded by pre-productionand followed by post-production | ||
| refers to a film's overall design, continuity, visual look and composition (colors, sets, costumes, scenery, props, locations, etc.) that are the responsibility of the production designer; the art department refers to the people in various roles (e.g., matte painters, set designers and decorators, illustrators, title designers, scenic artists, and storyboard artists) who work under the production designer's supervision; the art director is responsible for the film's physical settings (specifically refers to the interiors, landscapes, buildings, etc.) |  Example: Anton Furst's amazing, Oscar-winning Art Direction/Set Decoration of Gotham City in Batman (1989) | |
| production refers to an entire movie project; pre-production refers to the stage at which a film is prepared to go into production; post-production refers to the stage at which editing, scoring and effects are executed on a motion picture; production value refers to the overall quality of a film, based not on the script, acting, or director, but on criteria such as costumes, sets, design, etc. | ||
| the machine that rapidly puts ('projects') a succession of motion picture images (individual frames) up onto a screen, using the principle of illusion of motion | ||
| a speech, preface, introduction, or brief scene preceding the the main action or plot of a film; contrast to epilogue. | Example: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) provided a prologue to briefly explain the essential history of Middle-Earth and its inhabitants | |
| slang term for sales promotion | ||
(or property) | abbreviation for properties - refers to the furnishings, fixtures, hand-held objects, decorations, or any other moveable items that are seen or used on a film (or stage) set but that are not a structural part of the set; usually the responsibility of the prop man or property master. |  Example: Life-size cutouts of celebrity guests, from the set ofThe King of Comedy (1983) |
| the lead or main character in a film; also known ashero/heroine; contrast to antagonist. | ||
| a funny, witty line that culminates a story, joke or scene; contrast with payoff and one-liner | Example: In When Harry Met Sally...(1989), the request of a female patron after Sally's fake orgasm in the deli: "I'll have what she's having." | |
| refers to an ad research rating that gauges how easily a celebrityis recognized -- and how well the celebrity is liked | ||
refers to an on-screen film technique of focus change that blurs the focal planes in sequence, forcing the viewer's eye to travel to those areas of an image that remain in sharp focus; the focus changes from an object in the foreground to an object in the background or vice versa, to direct, shift, and steer the attention of the viewer forcibly from one subject to another; also known asselective focusing or pull focus |  Example: the scene in Desert Hearts (1985) when Vivian (Helen Shaver) realized that lesbian Cay (Patricia Charbonneau) was naked in her bed behind her,  or the foreground image of a spider-web in Spider-Man (2002) | |
| also known as the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) film rating system, first officially instituted in late 1968; it refers to the ever-evolving classification system for films usually based upon age-appropriateness, and the judgment of a film's suitability for various audiences, in terms of sexual content, offensiveness, or violence; see also censorship | Examples: "G-Rated or General Audiences," "PG-Rated or Parental Guidance Suggested," "PG-13," "R-Rated or Restricted under 17," and "NC-17, or No One 17 and Under Admitted" (originally known as the X rating), are examples of ratings; the X-rating is not trademarked / copyrighted by the MPAA; NR (not rated), meaning that a film was not submitted for ratings, is sometimes used in place of X. Pornographic films often use "XXX" to imply a rating stronger than X. | |
| a quick shot that records a character's or group's response to another character or some on-screen action or event; often accompanied with a POV shot; reaction shots are usuallycutaways. | ||
| actual time it would take for an event to occur in reality, as contrasted to filmic time (time can be sped up or slowed down). Real and filmic time often coincide for long sequences within a film; also see running time. |  Example: High Noon (1952) was specifically shot in real-time with frequent reference to clocks ticking closer and closer to the noon-time showdown. | |
| filming so that the reality outside the camera is shown in a neutral style with as little distortion and interference as possible; realism is attained by long, uninterrupted takes, deep focusshots, and other filmic techniques; contrast to expressionism; similar to the 'reality' of docudramas | Examples: Woody Allen's Husbands And Wives (1992);Bergman's Scenes From a Marriage (1973) | |
| a special effects technique to create backgrounds, in which actors are filmed in front of a screen on which a background scene is projected; commonly used in early films to produce the effect of motion in a vehicle. Also see process shot, process photography, or back projection. |  Example: rear projection inWritten on the Wind (1956), or the many films with shipboard scenes of two actors standing near a railing behind which are rear-projected waves and sky | |
| literally, to "roll out" a welcoming 'red carpet', laid down for major ceremonies (film premieres, awards ceremonies) to signify an important, honorary event with dignitaries and esteemed guests attending; often the locale for live interviews and photo opportunities |  Example: the red carpet entryway for the Academy Awards show | |
| an instance of foreshadowing that is deliberately planted to make viewers suspect an outcome--but the audience is to be deceived - the opposite happens and the false clue 'plant' is irrelevant; often done for humor, irony, or for other thematic reasons; contrast to McGuffin | Example: the various clues, all to subvert and confuse, that are unrelated to the real reason for Michelle Pfieffer's paranormal beliefs and confusion in What Lies Beneath (2000). | |
| refers to a film project that was in production, but lost its financial backing - resulting in a premature abandonment by the studio; aka a film in turnaround | ||
| refers to a plastic or metal spool for winding film; also, earlier films were measured in reels (one reel = about 10 minutes of running time). |  Example: typical film reel | |
| a film production that re-creates an actual event as closely as possible | Examples: Glory (1989), Nixon (1995). | |
| refers to how one film in its storyline (through dialogue, images) alludes to, recalls, or refers to another film; similar to homage | Examples: the movie that E.T. (in Spielberg's E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)) is watching at home on TV and that Elliot re-enacts in his Science class is the John Wayne classic The Quiet Man (1952);
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| refers to a studio releasing a work subsequent to the original or initial release; similar to re-release | ||
| refers to the first distribution and general public exhibition of a film to theatre audiences. | ||
| refers to a later production (of a previous film), with different credits, script, and cast; a redone, second version of a film's narrative and subject matter; remakes have been common throughout all of film history. | Examples: The Jazz Singer (1927) remade in the 50s asThe Jazz Singer (1953) with Danny Thomas, and in the early 1980s as The Jazz Singer (1980) with Neil Diamond; also What Price Hollywood? (1932) became A Star is Born (1937) - with Janet Gaynor, and A Star is Born (1954) - with Judy Garland, and A Star is Born (1976) with Barbra Streisand; and the unnecessary, meticulous shot-by-shot remake of Psycho (1960) by Gus Van Sant in 1998   | |
| refers to that portion of film grosses that goes to filmdistributors; also refers to videocassette (or DVD) rentals | ||
| the revival or rebroadcast of a work by the original distributor, studio, releaser, or broadcaster. | Example: Disney's re-releases of its animated films every five to seven years. | |
| refers to the funds kept or saved by a producer in casesupplementary shootings (reshoots) are required - often occurring after test screenings or decisions made by studio executives | ||
| the outcome, or the "untying" of tension in the scenes after theclimax of a film; refers to how things turned out for all of the characters; some films abruptly end without a scene following the climax; aka denouement | Example: the original, non-studio version of Don Siegel's ultra-paranoid Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) was softened with the addition of a framing device ('bookends') at the film's beginning and end), to change the film's resolution and make it less grim | |
| usually a tribute, exhibition, or 'looking back' at a film star's, artist's or director's work over a span of years with a comprehensive compilation or montage of film clips or excerpts; also known as a retro; also, in terms of a screenplay, a film in which nearly the entire story is looking back in time at events that have already taken place, usually accomplished byflashback | Example: Sunset Boulevard (1950) - a film told almost entirely as a backwards-looking retrospective | |
| a basic camera angle composed of a shot photographed from the opposite side of a subject to provide a different perspective; in adialogue scene between characters, a shot of the second participant is commonly composed as an over-the-shoulder shot; sometimes known as an 180 degree angle shot or change in perspective; the alternating pattern between two characters' points of view is known as shot/reverse shot |   Example: a typical dialogue scene with shot/reverse shot between two characters in Written on the Wind (1956). | |
| refers to a trick camera effect, created by running film backwards in the camera or during optical printing; aka reverse action | ||
| refers to films that present an apparent genre stereotype and then subvert, revise, or challenge it; aka deconstruction |  Examples: Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), and The Long Goodbye (1973); Arthur Penn's Little Big Man (1970)(shown here); the sword-and-sorcery Dragonslayer (1981, UK), or Costner's Dances With Wolves (1990) | |
| film or exhibition theatres that are dedicated to emphasizing or specializing in only one type of film - such as foreign films, older films, silent films, classics, rarely-screened films, etc. | Example: the Film Forum in New York City, founded in 1970, which exhibits well over a hundred different classic films a month on three screens; one screen features a theme every month (i.e., Greatest Westerns, Paramount Before the (Hays) Code, Golden Age of Film Noir (1941-1958)) | |
| refers to exploitation films (such as "sex-hygeine" films) with controversial content (disguised as educational medical information) that were heavily promoted and shown on the road, and would be packed up quickly in case of the authorities; also refers to films that were released early and shown in prestigious theatres |  Example: showman Kroger Babb's Mom and Dad (1945),or Child Bride (1938) | |
| a French term literally meaning 'novel with a key'; in film terms, refers to a film in which actual persons/events are disguised or masked as fictional characters - but with a 'key,' the true persons/events are revealed | Examples: Citizen Kane (1941) - with similarities between Kane and newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst | |
| refers to a camera rotation - which can be a vertical or horizontalpan; or it may refer to a camera move in which the camera is moved in a complete (or half) circle to produce a spinning, disorienting effect to the viewer; a partial rotation is termed a tilt | ||
| an early edited (or 'cut') version of a film - with all the pieces of the film assembled in continuous, sequential order, but without any fancy editing; also sometimes known as first cut; one of the stages toward the final cut; often used in a focus group screening. | ||
| a measure of the duration or length of a film, usually about two hours for a feature film. | ||
| the prints of takes (of the camera footage) from one day's shooting, usually without correction or editing, for examination by the director before the next day's shooting; aka daily-ies | ||
| a mocking, ridiculing commentary on an economic, political, religious or social institution, ideology or belief, person (or group), policy, or human vice. | Examples: The Great Dictator (1940), Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love the Bomb (1964), Brazil (1985) | |
| (1) the outline for a screenplay, or (2) a complete screenplay | ||
| usually a shot (or series of shots) that together comprise a single, complete and unified dramatic event, action, unit, or element of film narration, or block (segment) of storytelling within a film, much like a scene in a play; the end of a scene is often indicated by a change in time, action and/or location; see alsoshot and sequence. |  Example: The classic love scene of John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara caught in a drenching rainstorm in a graveyard, and their rain-soaked embrace in The Quiet Man (1952) | |
| refers to the outdoor background in a set (represented by either a backdrop or a natural view). | ||
| usually refers to a character (or group of characters), usually subsidiary, whose appearance, actions and/or dialogue draws more attention than other actors in the same scene; similar to the term 'chewing up the scenery.' | Examples: Tim Curry as Darkness in Legend (1985); William Bendix as Jeff in The Glass Key (1942); John Gielgud as Hobson the butler in Arthur (1981) | |
| from the Yiddish expression for 'inferior' - refers to a forgettable, cheaply-made, low-budget, luridly-advertised B-film (or lower Z-film) with little or non-existent quality - often unintentionally hilarious; designed to take in profitable box-office in opening week; usually films found in the horror, comedy and science-fiction genres of the 50s and 60s. | Examples: Films from AIP (American International Pictures); also Robot Monster (1953) and The Giant Claw (1957), Sex Kittens Go to College (1960) | |
| the musical component of a movie's soundtrack, usually composed specifically for the film by a film composer; the background music in a film, usually specially composed for the film; may be orchestral, synthesized, or performed by a small group of musicians; also refers to the act of writing music for a film |  Examples: Bernard Herrmann's memorable score with screeching violins for Hitchcock'sPsycho (1960) or the score for The Wizard of Oz (1939) | |
| refers to the direction that characters or objects are moving in a film's scene or visual frame; common screen directions include "camera left" (movement to the left) or "camera right" (movement to the right); a neutral shot is a head-on shot of a subject with no evident screen direction; a jump-cut often indicates a change in screen direction | ||
| the term for a promotional DVD (or video) version of a film that is sent to voters (and film critics) by the movie studios for their convenience during the awards season, before the movie is officially available to the public through video rental chains | ||
| the exhibition or display of a movie, typically at a cinemahouse/theatre; to screen (or unspool) a film means to show or project a film; types of screenings include a critical screening (a pre-release viewing for film critics), a pre-screening, or a focus-group screening (to test audience reactions to a film's rough cut); cinema is another term for a movie theatre. | ||
| a script or text for a film production written by a scripter orscreenwriter(s) (or scribe), written (scribbled, scripted, orpenned) in the prescribed form as a series of master scenes, with all the dialogue provided and the essential actions and character movements described; screenplays are oftenadaptations of other works; known archaically as aphotoplay during the silent era. |
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| refers to a filmed audition in which an actor performs a particular role for a film production; casting often depends upon the photogenic (the projection of an attractive camera image) quality of the star. | ||
| a type of highly-verbal comedy prevalent in 1930's Hollywood, and typified by frenetic action, verbal wit and wisecracks (substituting or serving as a metaphoric euphemism for sex), a battle of the sexes with conflict that is ultimately resolved - all elements that serve as important plot points. | Examples: Capra's It Happened One Night (1934) and Hawks'Bringing Up Baby (1938) and His Girl Friday (1940); My Man Godfrey (1936), The Awful Truth (1937), Sturges' The Palm Beach Story (1942), and Cukor's The Philadelphia Story (1940). | |
(also shooting script) | refers to the written text of a film - a blueprint for producing a film detailing the story, setting, dialogue, movements and gestures of actors, and the shape and sequence of all events in the film; in various forms, such as a screenplay, shooting script, breakdown script (a very detailed, day-to-day listing of all requirements for shooting, used mostly by crew), lined script, continuity script, or a spec script (written to studio specifications); a screenplay writer is known as ascreenwriter, scripter, scribbler, scribe or penner; a last-minute script re-writer is known as a script doctor; ascenario is a script that includes camera and set direction as well as dialogue and cast direction; a shooting script is a detailed final version of the screenplay with the separate scenes arranged in proper sequence, and used by the cast. |  Example of shooting script, for The Shawshank Redemption (1994) |
| in general terms, an actor who plays a subordinate or secondary role; aka second fiddle; in comedies, it refers to a performer who acts as a sidekick, foil or stooge (straight man) to a lead comedian | Examples: Dean Martin was a 'second banana' to Jerry Lewis when they were a comic duo; or Bud Abbott to Lou Costello; or Ralph Bellamy to Cary Grant in His Girl Friday (1940); also, Ward Bond as a secondary player in many westerns | |
| in larger film productions, this refers to the less important scenes (large crowd scenes, scenery, foreign location backgrounds, various inserts, etc.) that are filmed by a smaller, secondary or subordinate crew, usually headed by asecond-unit director; contrast to principal photography | ||
| a section or episode of a film; a series of sequences that comprise a major section of the plot; segmentation of a film often helps to further analysis | ||
| an industry term meaning prerecorded videocassettes or DVDs priced lower, to encourage their sale rather than rental | ||
| a black-and-white image that has been converted to a sepia tone or color (a brownish gray to a dark olive brown) in order to enhance the dramatic effect and/or create an "antique" appearance |  Example: the black and white print forCabin in the Sky (1943) was reprocessed as sepia-toned to create a more flattering skin tone for the actors; also an opening sequence (pictured) inButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) | |
| a cinematic work that presents the continuation of characters, settings, and/or events of a story in a previously-made or preceding movie; contrast to a prequel, follow-up, serial,series, spin-off or remake. | Examples: The Maltese Falcon (1941) followed by The Black Bird (1975); National Velvet (1944) followed by International Velvet (1978); A Man and a Woman (1966) followed by A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later (1986); generally, sequels are inferior - with some exceptions, such as The Godfather, Part II (1974), Toy Story 2 (1999), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), X2: X-Men United (2003), etc. | |
| a scene, or connected series of related scenes that are edited together and comprise a single, unified event, setting, or story within a film's narrative; also refers to scenes that structurally fit together in the plot; sequence usually refers to a longer segment of film than a scene; sequences are often grouped into acts (like a three-act play); a sequence shot refers to a long, normally complicated shot with complex camera movements and actions; see also shot and scene. | Examples: the wedding sequence in The Godfather (1974), the drug-bust sequence in GoodFellas (1990) | |
| a multi-part, 'short-subject' film that was usually screened a chapter/episode per week at a film theatre; the predominant style of the serial was melodrama; often, each chapter or episode, continually presented in installments over several weeks, would conclude with an unresolved cliffhanger to ensure that audience would return the following week to discover the resolution; popular until the early 1950s; contrast with series and sequels. |  Example: The Perils of Pauline (1914). | |
| a string or sequence of films with shared situations, characters or themes and related titles, but with little other inter-dependence, especially with respect to plot or significant character development. Usually presented withoutcliffhangers; the term also applies to feature films with more than one sequel; contrast with serials and sequels. | Examples of films made in series: The Thin Man (1934),Blondie (1938), Superman (1978), Rocky (1976), Star Trek - The Motion Picture (1979), the James Bond 007 films, andPlanet of the Apes (1968). | |
| the environment (an exterior or interior locale) where the action takes place in a film; when used in contrast to location, it refers to an artificially-constructed time/place (a backdroppainting or a dusty Western street with a facade of storefronts); supervised by the film's art director; strikerefers to the act of taking apart a set once filming has ended. |  Example: the War Room set, production-designed for Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). | |
| usually a self-contained, elaborate scene or sequence that stands on its own (i.e., a helicopter chase, a dance number, a memorable fight, etc.), and serves as a key moment in the film; in terms of production, it may also refer to a scene with a large set |  Examples: the Death Star trench run in Star Wars (1977), the attack on a Vietnamese village by helicopters in Apocalypse Now (1979), the snake pit sequence inRaiders of the Lost Ark (1981), the musical duet-dance on a giant electronic keyboard in Big (1988), and the bullet-dodging sequence in The Matrix (1999). | |
| the time (time period) and place in which the film's story occurs, including all of the other additional factors, including climate (season), landscape, people, social structures and economic factors, customs, moral attitudes, and codes of behavior; aka locale. | ||
| the place or position where the director and the director of photography put the camera (and lighting) when shooting a scene; a scene is usually shot with multiple setups and with multiple takes from each setup; aka angle. | ||
(screenplay) | in screenplay terms, set-up refers to the first act in which the characters, situation, and the setting are established. | Example: the 'first act' of The Wizard of Oz (1939) before the Technicolor sequences in the Land of Oz |
| a humorous, light-hearted film with an improbable plot about sexual relationships and extra-marital affairs, with various pairings between numerous characters, often characterized by slamming doors; aka sex farce or bedroom farce. | Examples: Woody Allen's A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982), Hal Ashby's Shampoo (1976), the Italian filmCasanova 70 (1965). | |
| refers to non-pornographic, non-explicit, soft-core films that feature sexual themes or explicit sexual material and nudity often in an apparently crude, immature, leering way; these films exploited the concept of sex without violating long-standing cultural and legal taboos against showing it all on the screen; often with lurid titles; aka skin flick |  Examples: the films of Russ Meyers, such as Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1966), Vixen (1968). | |
| the process of filming or photographing any aspect of a motion picture with a camera; the plan for a shoot is termed ashooting schedule. |  Example: a 'behind-the-scenes' look at the shooting of the "Yellow Brick Road" scene in The Wizard of Oz (1939) | |
(shorts or short films) | a film that is shorter than around 30 or 45 minutes; in the silent film era, most films were shorts, such as those shown in nickelodeons; then, during the early film era, the price of a movie ticket included not only the weekly feature but also "selected short subjects," as they were usually billed; contrast to features. |  Examples: the 1930s talkie shorts of Our Gang or The Little Rascalsfrom Hal Roach Studios; the Pete Smith Specialties short subject films (from the mid-1930s to mid-1950s); MGM's crime dramas and investigative exposes - Crime Does Not Pay shorts (from the mid-1930s to mid-1940s); Warners' popular Joe McDoakes series in the 1940s and 1950s; Robert Benchley's series of comedy shorts; MGM's one-reel Dogville comedies; also the Oscar-winning childhood fantasy short, The Red Balloon (1956, Fr.) (pictured) |
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