Glossary
Comprehensive glossary of filmmaking terms, concepts, and techniques.
Showing 136 terms
A
11Abby Singer
Film industry term for the second-to-last shot of the day, named after production manager Abby Singer.
Action
The verbal cue called by the director to signal performers to begin the scene.
ADR
Automated Dialogue Replacement: re-recording dialogue in a studio in sync with picture after production.
Aerial Shot
A shot captured from an airborne platform: drone, helicopter, or aircraft above the ground.
Ambient Light
The non-directional background light present in an environment from all surrounding sources combined.
Animation
The art and technique of creating the illusion of movement from a sequence of still images, drawings, or computer-generated frames.
Anthology Film
A film of multiple separate short stories connected by a shared theme or framing device.
Aperture
The adjustable opening in a lens that controls light transmission and depth of field.
Assembly
The first stage of editing in which all usable footage is cut together in script order without refinement.
Available Light
All light already present in a location, natural or artificial, used without adding film lighting equipment.
Avant-Garde
Experimental filmmaking that challenges or abandons conventional narrative and form for formal innovation.
B
7Biopic
A biographical film that dramatizes the life of a real person, typically a public figure or historical figure.
Backlighting
Illumination placed behind the subject, separating them from the background and creating edge definition.
Blacklisting
The practice of excluding individuals from industry employment through informal employer coordination, historically the Hollywood Blacklist of 1947-1960.
Blocking a Shot
The process of planning and rehearsing the precise movements of actors and camera within a scene before filming.
Boom Shot
A shot in which the camera moves vertically, rising or descending, on a crane, jib arm, or pedestal.
Bounce
A lighting technique where light is aimed at a reflective surface and the reflected light illuminates the subject.
Bounce Board
A reflective panel that redirects and softens light from a primary source onto a subject.
C
15Cinéma Vérité
A documentary filmmaking style that uses lightweight equipment and minimal intervention to capture spontaneous, unscripted reality.
Concert Film
A film documenting a live musical performance, typically combining multi-camera concert footage with backstage material or interviews.
Camera
The device that captures light and records it as a sequence of still images forming a motion picture.
Catchlight
A specular highlight reflected in a subject's eye from a light source, giving the eyes depth and vitality on camera.
Chain of Title
The documented legal history of a film's ownership rights from original creator to current rights holder.
Character
A fictional person whose actions, decisions, and desires drive the story of a film.
Chimera
A brand of collapsible fabric softbox used in film and television lighting to diffuse and soften a hard light source.
Clapperboard
The hinged board filmed at each take's start to identify the shot and sync audio.
Close-Up
A shot framed tightly on a subject's face or specific object, filling most of the frame.
Contrast
The difference in luminance between the brightest and darkest areas of an image or scene.
Copy That
Radio confirmation used on film sets to acknowledge a received and understood message.
Coverage
The full range of camera angles and shot sizes captured for a scene, giving the editor options.
Crew
The collective technical and logistical workforce that builds and operates a film production.
Crossing
A verbal warning called out on a film set when a crew member is about to walk in front of a camera that may be rolling or about to roll.
Cutaway Shot
A shot that departs from the main scene to show something outside its geography, providing context or bridging edits.
D
12Dailies
The unedited footage from each day of production, reviewed by the director and key crew to assess quality before the next shoot day.
Deep 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.
Diffusion
Material or technique that scatters a light source, increasing its effective size and softening its shadows.
Directing the Eye
Visual techniques a filmmaker uses to control where the audience looks within the frame.
Director's Cut
The version of a film edited according to the director's creative vision, following the editor's assembly.
Dissolve
A transition where one shot fades out while the next simultaneously fades in, briefly overlapping both images.
Dogme 95
A 1995 Danish filmmaking manifesto demanding stripped-down production with handheld cameras, natural light, and no genre conventions.
Doorway Dolly
A compact camera dolly narrow enough to pass through standard doorways, used for tracking shots in confined spaces.
Dutch Angle
A shot where the camera is tilted on its roll axis, creating a diagonal horizon and sense of unease.
Dynamic Frame
A frame whose composition changes within a single continuous shot through camera movement, subject movement, or both.
E
4Executive Producer
A senior production credit given to a person who provides financing, oversees business affairs, or holds significant creative and strategic authority over a film.
Exposition
Background information delivered to the audience that establishes story context, character history, and world rules.
Extreme Close-Up
A shot framed on a single feature or small detail, isolating it entirely from its surrounding context.
Eyeline Match
A continuity editing convention in which a cut from a character looking off-screen leads to what that character sees.
F
8Fill Light
A secondary light source placed opposite the key to soften shadows and control contrast ratio.
Film Grain
The visible texture in photochemical film images caused by silver halide crystals in the emulsion.
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.
Footage
The complete body of recorded video or film material captured during production for editing.
Foreground
The area of the frame closest to the camera, used to create depth, frame the subject, or add visual context.
Fourth Wall
The invisible boundary between the fictional world and the audience that characters normally do not acknowledge.
Frame Rate
The number of individual frames captured or displayed per second, determining motion smoothness and aesthetic quality.
G
5Gaffer Tape
A heavy-duty, cloth-backed adhesive tape used throughout film production for securing cables, rigging, labelling, and repairs.
Genre
A category of film defined by shared narrative conventions, visual codes, and audience expectations.
Golden Hour
The period after sunrise or before sunset when low sun angle produces warm, directional, soft natural light.
Grindhouse
Low-budget exploitation cinema shown in urban neighborhood theaters, known for sensational content and cheap production values.
Guerrilla Film
A film made with minimal budget and crew, often without permits, using resourceful methods to reduce costs.
H
2Handheld Shot
A shot captured with the camera held by hand, without a tripod, dolly, or mechanical stabilisation system.
Hitting a Mark
The actor's discipline of arriving at a precise floor position so camera, focus, and lighting remain correct.
I
2IMAX
A proprietary large-format film and projection system producing images far larger and sharper than standard 35mm cinema.
Insert Shot
A close-up of a specific object or detail within a scene that delivers narrative information to the audience.
K
2Key Light
The primary and dominant light source in a scene, establishing the main direction and quality of illumination.
Kinoflo
A brand of soft, low-heat fluorescent and LED lighting fixtures for film and television production.
L
8L-Cut
A split edit where the outgoing audio continues after the video cuts to the next scene.
Lens
An optical device that focuses light onto the sensor, determining field of view, depth, and image character.
Limited Release
A distribution strategy opening a film on few screens to build word of mouth before wider expansion.
Line Producer
The production professional responsible for managing the below-the-line budget and daily financial operations of a film.
Location
Any real-world place outside a studio used as a filming environment for a production.
Logline
A one or two sentence summary of a screenplay that captures the protagonist, conflict, and stakes.
Long Shot
A shot that frames a subject's full body within their surrounding environment.
Low Angle Shot
A shot where the camera is positioned below the subject's eye line and tilted upward.
M
8Mockumentary
A fiction film or series shot in documentary style to satirise its subject or the documentary form itself.
Magic Hour
The brief period after sunset or before sunrise when the sky provides soft, diffuse, warm-toned natural light.
Martini Shot
Film crew slang for the final shot of the shooting day, after which the next shot is in a glass.
Medium Shot
A shot framed from roughly the waist up, balancing the subject with their immediate environment.
Metaphor
A figure of speech or visual device that describes one thing in terms of another to illuminate a deeper meaning.
Mise-en-Scene
The arrangement of all visual elements within a frame - setting, lighting, costume, blocking, and decor.
Montage
A sequence of short shots edited together to condense time, convey information, or create emotional effect through juxtaposition.
Mumblecore
A low-budget American indie film movement of the 2000s using improvised dialogue and non-professional actors.
N
4Naturalism
A filmmaking approach that represents the world as it objectively appears, avoiding stylisation and artifice.
Neo-Realism
An Italian film movement of the 1940s using real locations, non-professional actors, and working-class stories.
New Wave
The French film movement of the late 1950s and 1960s that rejected studio convention for personal, low-budget, location-shot cinema.
Non-Diegetic Sound
Sound heard only by the audience, not by characters, with no source within the story world.
O
3Omniscient Point of View
A narrative perspective where the camera and audience access information beyond any single character's knowledge.
Over-the-Shoulder Shot
A shot framed from behind one character's shoulder, looking toward the character they address.
Overcranking
Running the camera at a higher frame rate than playback to produce slow motion footage.
P
9P.O.V. Shot
A shot that represents what a specific character sees, placing the camera at their eyeline in the direction of their gaze.
PA (Production Assistant)
An entry-level crew member who supports department operations, logistics, and set management.
Pan
A controlled horizontal rotation of the camera on its vertical axis, used to follow action or reveal space within a scene.
Postmodern
A sensibility in film marked by self-reflexivity, irony, pastiche, and scepticism toward stable meaning.
Pre-Production
The planning and preparation phase of filmmaking that occurs after greenlight and before principal photography begins.
Principal Photography
The main shooting phase when the primary cast and crew capture the footage that forms the finished film.
Producer
The person who initiates, finances, and oversees a film from development through delivery and release.
Production Design
The visual world of a film: sets, locations, props, and environments, conceived and overseen by the production designer.
Protagonist
The central character whose goal drives the story forward and with whom the audience most closely aligns.
R
7Rack 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.
Reaction Shot
A shot that shows a character's emotional response to an event, action, or piece of dialogue.
Redlight
The decision by a studio or financier to cancel or refuse funding for a film project, halting its development or production.
Rembrandt Lighting
A portrait lighting pattern producing a small triangle of light on the shadow side of the face beneath the eye.
Rim Light
A light placed behind and slightly to the side of a subject to create a bright outline along their edges.
Rough Cut
The first shaped edit of a film, following the assembly, in which scenes are trimmed and paced but not yet finalised.
S
9Satire
A storytelling mode using irony, exaggeration, and ridicule to expose and criticise human folly, vice, or social and political institutions.
Score
Original music composed specifically for a film, forming the non-diegetic musical layer of the soundtrack.
Screenlife
A filmmaking format where the entire narrative plays out through a computer, phone, or tablet screen interface.
Shot List
A pre-production document listing every planned shot for a scene or shooting day, with shot size, angle, and movement.
Slate
The identifying board held in front of the camera at the start of each take, recording scene, shot, and take information.
Slow Motion
A visual effect produced by capturing footage at a higher frame rate than playback, stretching action across more screen time.
Soft Focus
A lens or filter technique that reduces image sharpness and spreads highlights, creating a dreamy, romantic quality.
Static Shot
A shot in which the camera remains completely still, with no pan, tilt, zoom, or physical movement.
Swish Pan
An extremely rapid horizontal camera rotation that creates a blurred smear, used as a transition or punctuation.
T
9Tail Slate
A clapperboard slated at the end of a take, held upside down to signal the sync mark is at the tail.
Telephoto Lens
A long focal length lens that magnifies distant subjects and compresses apparent depth between planes.
Three Shot
A shot framing three subjects within the same frame, establishing their spatial relationships simultaneously.
Three-Point Lighting
The foundational lighting setup using key, fill, and back light to illuminate a subject with dimensional depth.
Tilt
A vertical rotation of the camera on its horizontal axis, pivoting the lens up or down from a fixed position.
Tilt Shot
A shot where the camera rotates on its horizontal axis, pivoting the lens up or down while the body stays fixed.
Time Lapse
A technique capturing frames at low intervals over a long period, compressing slow processes into fast playback.
Tracking Shot
A shot where the camera physically moves through space to follow a subject or reveal an environment.
Two Shot
A shot framing two subjects within the same frame at roughly equal prominence.
W
5Whip Pan
An extremely rapid horizontal camera rotation creating a blurred smear across the frame.
White Balance
A camera setting that calibrates color rendering so white objects appear white under any light source.
Wide Angle Shot
A shot captured with a short focal length lens, producing a broad field of view and exaggerated depth.
Wipe
A transition in which a visible boundary line sweeps across the frame, replacing the outgoing image with the incoming one.
Wrap
The conclusion of a shooting day, a specific actor's scenes, or the entire production's principal photography.