world film definitions
Terms
undefined, object
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- aerial shot
- shot taken from crane, plane, or helicopter. Not necessarily a moving shot.
- art director
- designer, in charge of sets and costumes
- camera angle
- the angle at which camera is pointed at the subject... low, high, or tilt
- cinematographer
- director of photographer... responsible for the camera and lighting - quality of the image
- closeup
- shot of the subject's face only, or any close shot
- crane shot
- a shot taken from a crane, a device resembling the "cherrypickers" used by the telephone company to repair lines
- credits
- the list of technical personnel, cast, and crew of a movie
- cross-cutting
- intermingling the shots of two or more scenes to suggest parallel action (intercutting)
- cut
- a switch from one image to another
- deep focus
- lense allows you to focus on all 3 planes - creates depth before focus on foreground, middle ground, and background - can be used for expressionism
- detail shot
- usually more magnified than a closeup... a shot of a hand, eye, mouth, or subject of similar detail
- direct sound
- technique of recording sound simultaneousy with image
- director
- man behind the camera, who determines what we see and when. he, not the producer, is the significant creative artist in a movie
- dissolve
- superimposition of a fade out over a fade in. sometimes called "lap dissolve"
- dolly shot
- taken from a moving dolly (set of wheels and platform) - almost the same as a tracking shot
- editor
- the cutter; the person in charge of splicing the shots of a movie together into final form
- establishing shot
- generally long shot that shows the audience the general location of the scene that follows, often providing essential information and orienting the viewer
- fade in
- a punctuation device - the screen is black at the beginning; gradually the image appears, brightening to full strength
- fade out
- the opposite of fade in
- follow shot
- a tracking shot or zoom that follows the subject as it moves
- footage
- a measurement of the amount of film actually shot (or to be shot)
- frame
- any single image on the film, or the size and shape of the image on the film, or on the screen when projected
- freeze frame
- a freeze shot, which is achieved by printing a single frame many times in succession to give the illusion of a still photograph when projected
- image
- a single specific picture
- insert
- a detail shot that gives specific and relevant information necessary to a complete understanding of the meaning of a scene (a letter, a tell-tale physical detail)
- jump cut
- a cut that occurs within a scene rather than between scenes, to condense the shot. it can effectively eliminate dead periods, such as that between the time a character enters a room and the time he reaches his destination on the other side of the room
- long shot
- a long shot includes at least the full figures of the subject, usually more
- medium shot
- a shot intermediate between a closeup and a long shot
- montage
- adjacent shots related to each other in such a way that they combine to produce another meaning - often used simply to mean editing
- motif
- a recurrent thematic or visual element
- over-the-shoulder shot
- a shot commonly used in dialogue scenes in wich the speaker is seen from the perspective of a person standing just behind and a little to one side of the listener, so that parts of the head and shoulder of the listener are in the frame, as well as the head of the speaker
- pan
- movement of the camera from left to right or right to left. Not the same as a tracking shot (in a pan, the camera is not transported anywhere)
- point of view shot
- a shot that shows the scene from one character's point of view
- process shot
- a "trick shot"; a shot rigged in the laboratory rather than on the set
- reaction shot
- a shot that cuts away from the main scene or speaker in order to show a character's reaction to it
- reverse angle
- a shot from the opposite side of a subject. In a dialogue scene, a shot of the second participant
- scene
- a complete unit of film narration. A series of shots (or even a single shot) that take place in a single location and deal with a single action.
- score
- the music for a movie
- screenplay
- the script of a movie
- set
- the location of a scene
- shot
- a single piece of film, however long or short, without cuts
- slow motion
- the camera is overcranked, so that the film runs through faster than the normal speed; when it is later projected at the normal speed the action will seem slowed down (the opposite is fast motion)
- soft focus
- filters, vaseline, or specially constructed lenses soften the delineation of lines and points, usually to create a romantic effect
- sound stage
- a specially contructed building in which sets can be built for studio filming
- soundtrack
- everything you hear in a movie - dialogue, sound effects, and music
- stock shot
- a library shot, i.e. a shot that is literally borrowed from a collection and inserted into a film, e.g., establishing shots of NYC, fottage of jet planes in flight
- subjective camera
- a style that allows the viewer to observe events from the point of view of a single character
- tilt shot
- the camera tilts up or down
- tracking shot
- generally, any shot in which the camera moves from one point to another. The camera can be mounted on a set of wheels that move on tracks or on a rubber-tired dolly, or it can be hand-held. Also called travelling shot
- Two-shot
- a shot of two people
- voice-over
- the narrator's voice when the narrator is not seen
- zoom
- a shot using a lense whose focal length is adjusted during the shot (long lenses are telephoto lenses; short lenses are wide-angle lenses)
- bildungsroman
- principal subject is the moral, psychological, and intellectual development of a usually youthful main character.
- reform director
- 1 good adult role model - changes environment to change behavior
- existentialism
- major philosophical movement in 20's - adopted by artists after the war in response to horrors of Stalin, Holocaust, Hiroshima... post-religious - we live in a vacuum, no God... put values in actions, they define who you are
- film noir
- crime - dark in tone and visual sense - shows the seedy underbelly of society... always urban
- liebstod
- love death
- absurdism
- dramatic version of existenialism
- brechtianism
- action interrupted to remind us we're watching a movie/play
- Bertol Brecht
- wanted audiences to go out and change the world - he didn't want to have audiences identify with the characters
- Cinema de Papa
- french films in the 50s