Glossary
Comprehensive glossary of filmmaking terms, concepts, and techniques.
Showing 63 terms
A
7ADR
Automated Dialogue Replacement: re-recording dialogue in a studio in sync with picture after production.
Audio
The sound component of a film, encompassing dialogue, music, sound effects, and ambient atmosphere.
Action
The verbal cue called by the director to signal performers to begin the scene.
Animation
The art and technique of creating the illusion of movement from a sequence of still images, drawings, or computer-generated frames.
Apple Box
A standardized wooden box used on set to adjust height, support equipment, or serve as an impromptu seat.
Audio Bridge
A sound element that carries across a picture cut, connecting two scenes through continuous audio.
Available Light
All light already present in a location, natural or artificial, used without adding film lighting equipment.
B
4Below the Line
The operational production costs in a film budget: crew, equipment, locations, sets, and post-production, managed by the line producer.
Biopic
A biographical film that dramatizes the life of a real person, typically a public figure or historical figure.
Blacklisting
The practice of excluding individuals from industry employment through informal employer coordination, historically the Hollywood Blacklist of 1947-1960.
Blaxploitation
A cycle of 1970s Black-led genre films aimed at Black urban audiences, blending action, crime, and soul soundtracks.
C
9Camera
The device that captures light and records it as a sequence of still images forming a motion picture.
Catharsis
The emotional purging or release an audience experiences through witnessing a story's dramatic events.
Cinéma Vérité
A documentary filmmaking style that uses lightweight equipment and minimal intervention to capture spontaneous, unscripted reality.
Crew
The collective technical and logistical workforce that builds and operates a film production.
CTB
Colour Temperature Blue. A family of colour correction gels that cools tungsten light toward daylight balance.
CTB, CTO, and CTS
Colour temperature correction gels that shift light between tungsten and daylight colour temperatures.
CTO
Color Temperature Orange gel that warms a cool light source, converting daylight or HMI output toward tungsten balance.
CTS
Color Temperature Straw gel that adds a subtle yellow-biased warm tint to a light source without full color temperature conversion.
Cut
The instantaneous transition between two shots in editing, and the act of assembling a film from those transitions.
D
6Diegetic Sound
Sound whose source exists within the story world and can be heard by the characters on screen.
Day-for-Night Shot
A cinematographic technique in which daytime footage is processed or graded to simulate nighttime lighting conditions.
Dialogue
The spoken words exchanged between characters in a film, written by the screenwriter and performed by actors.
Director
The creative authority responsible for translating a screenplay into a finished film.
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.
F
4Foley Artist
A sound professional who performs and records custom sound effects in sync with picture.
Fade
A gradual transition between an image and a solid colour, most commonly black, used to open or close a scene.
Flash-Forward
A scene that interrupts the present narrative to show events occurring later in the story's timeline.
Frame Rate
The number of individual frames captured or displayed per second, determining motion smoothness and aesthetic quality.
L
4Looping
The process of re-recording dialogue in post-production in sync with the picture; an older term for ADR.
Leitmotif
A recurring musical theme associated with a character, place, object, or concept that evolves with the story.
Location
Any real-world place outside a studio used as a filming environment for a production.
Low Angle Shot
A shot where the camera is positioned below the subject's eye line and tilted upward.
M
4Mixing
The final stage of audio post-production where all sound elements are balanced and positioned into the finished soundtrack.
Martini Shot
Film crew slang for the final shot of the shooting day, after which the next shot is in a glass.
Match Cut
An edit that joins two shots by matching a visual element, shape, movement, or action across the cut.
Mockumentary
A fiction film or series shot in documentary style to satirise its subject or the documentary form itself.
N
3Non-Diegetic Sound
Sound heard only by the audience, not by characters, with no source within the story world.
Naturalism
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.
P
4P.O.V. Shot
A shot that represents what a specific character sees, placing the camera at their eyeline in the direction of their gaze.
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.
Producer
The person who initiates, finances, and oversees a film from development through delivery and release.
R
2Revival House
A cinema that specialises in screening older films, repertory programmes, and classic titles rather than current first-run releases.
Rough Cut
The first shaped edit of a film, following the assembly, in which scenes are trimmed and paced but not yet finalised.
S
5Score
Original music composed specifically for a film, forming the non-diegetic musical layer of the soundtrack.
Sound
All audio elements in a film, including dialogue, music, effects, and ambience, forming the complete audio track.
Soundtrack
The complete audio track of a film, or the commercial album of music from that film released separately.
Slate
The identifying board held in front of the camera at the start of each take, recording scene, shot, and take information.
Soundstage
A large, acoustically treated studio building designed for filming, providing a controlled environment for set construction and shooting.
T
2T-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.
U
2Underexposure
Insufficient light reaching the sensor, causing shadow detail loss and increased noise.
Unreliable Narrator
A narrator whose account of events is compromised by bias, deception, ignorance, or psychological instability.
W
2Western Dolly
A large, heavy-duty camera dolly carrying operators and gear on track or pneumatic tires.
White Balance
A camera setting that calibrates color rendering so white objects appear white under any light source.