Glossary
Comprehensive glossary of filmmaking terms, concepts, and techniques.
Showing 37 terms
A
3Aperture
The adjustable opening in a lens that controls light transmission and depth of field.
Arc Shot
A shot where the camera moves in a curved path around a subject, keeping consistent distance.
Auteur
A filmmaker, typically a director, whose personal vision and style so dominate their work that they are considered its primary creative author.
C
3Close-Up
A shot framed tightly on a subject's face or specific object, filling most of the frame.
Camera
The device that captures light and records it as a sequence of still images forming a motion picture.
Composition
The deliberate arrangement of visual elements within a film frame to guide attention and convey meaning.
D
7Deep Focus
An optical and aesthetic approach in which a large depth of field keeps foreground, midground, and background simultaneously sharp.
Deep Focus Shot
A shot in which subjects at very different distances from the camera are all rendered in sharp focus simultaneously.
Depth of Field
The range of subject distances in front of and behind the focus point that appear acceptably sharp.
Depth of Focus
The tolerance for image plane displacement behind the lens while maintaining acceptable sharpness.
Dolly Zoom
A camera technique combining simultaneous physical camera movement and zoom adjustment in opposite directions, keeping the subject constant while the background distorts.
Director of Photography
The head of the camera and lighting departments, responsible for the visual language of a film.
Dolly Shot
A tracking shot achieved by moving the camera on a wheeled dolly along laid track.
F
5F-Stop
A numerical scale that indicates a camera lens's aperture setting, controlling the amount of light passing through the lens to the film or sensor.
Fish-Eye Lens
An extreme wide angle lens with very short focal length that produces strong barrel distortion and a curved field of view.
Focus
The optical alignment that renders a subject at a specific distance sharply in the image.
Focus Puller
The first assistant camera responsible for maintaining sharp focus on subjects throughout every take.
Foreground
The area of the frame closest to the camera, used to create depth, frame the subject, or add visual context.
M
2Medium Shot
A shot framed from roughly the waist up, balancing the subject with their immediate environment.
Mise-en-Scene
The arrangement of all visual elements within a frame - setting, lighting, costume, blocking, and decor.
R
3Rack Focus
A deliberate shift of focus from one subject to another within a single shot, drawing the viewer's attention from one plane of depth to another.
Racking Focus
A technique that shifts the focus point from one subject to another during a single unbroken shot.
Rembrandt Lighting
A portrait lighting pattern producing a small triangle of light on the shadow side of the face beneath the eye.
S
4Shallow Depth of Field
A narrow focus plane that keeps the subject sharp while rendering the background and foreground as soft blur.
Soft Focus
A lens or filter technique that reduces image sharpness and spreads highlights, creating a dreamy, romantic quality.
Swish Pan
An extremely rapid horizontal camera rotation that creates a blurred smear, used as a transition or punctuation.
Symmetry
A compositional technique where elements are arranged to create visual balance around a central axis.
T
3T-Stop
A calibrated measurement of a lens's actual light transmission, used in cinema for exposure matching across lenses.
Telephoto Lens
A long focal length lens that magnifies distant subjects and compresses apparent depth between planes.
Take
A single recorded attempt at filming a shot, from the camera rolling to the director calling cut.