Glossary
Comprehensive glossary of filmmaking terms, concepts, and techniques.
Showing 94 terms
A
7Aerial 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.
Aperture
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.
Aspect Ratio
The proportional relationship between a film frame's width and height, expressed as width-to-height.
Available Light
All light already present in a location, natural or artificial, used without adding film lighting equipment.
B
3Background
The area of the frame behind the main subject, providing context and depth.
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
7Camera
The device that captures light and records it as a sequence of still images forming a motion picture.
Chiaroscuro
The strong contrast between light and shadow used as a primary expressive tool to create depth and drama.
CinemaScope
A widescreen anamorphic lens system developed by 20th Century Fox in the 1950s that produced a wide 2.35:1 aspect ratio from standard 35mm film.
Close-Up
A shot framed tightly on a subject's face or specific object, filling most of the frame.
Composition
The deliberate arrangement of visual elements within a film frame to guide attention and convey meaning.
Contrast
The difference in luminance between the brightest and darkest areas of an image or scene.
CTO
Color Temperature Orange gel that warms a cool light source, converting daylight or HMI output toward tungsten balance.
D
12Day-for-Night Shot
A cinematographic technique in which daytime footage is processed or graded to simulate nighttime lighting conditions.
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.
Depth of Focus
The tolerance for image plane displacement behind the lens while maintaining acceptable sharpness.
Directing the Eye
Visual techniques a filmmaker uses to control where the audience looks within the frame.
Dogme 95
A 1995 Danish filmmaking manifesto demanding stripped-down production with handheld cameras, natural light, and no genre conventions.
Dolly Shot
A tracking shot achieved by moving the camera on a wheeled dolly along laid track.
Dolly Zoom
A camera technique combining simultaneous physical camera movement and zoom adjustment in opposite directions, keeping the subject constant while the background distorts.
Double Exposure
A technique combining two images on a single frame, either in-camera or in post-production, to create layered or superimposed visuals.
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
5Electronic ViewFinder
A small screen built into or attached to a camera that displays a live electronic image of what the lens is seeing, used for framing and monitoring exposure.
Establishing Shot
A wide shot at the start of a scene that orients the audience to a new location.
Expendables
Consumable supplies purchased for a film production that are used up during shooting and not returned.
Expressionism
A visual style that distorts reality through exaggerated design, lighting, and camera angles to externalise psychological or emotional states.
Extreme Close-Up
A shot framed on a single feature or small detail, isolating it entirely from its surrounding context.
F
10F-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.
Film Grain
The visible texture in photochemical film images caused by silver halide crystals in the emulsion.
Film Theory
The academic and critical study of how cinema produces meaning, affects audiences, and relates to culture.
Fish-Eye Lens
An extreme wide angle lens with very short focal length that produces strong barrel distortion and a curved field of view.
Flashback
A scene that interrupts the present narrative to show events from an earlier time.
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.
Frame
A single complete image in a sequence of images that creates the illusion of motion when played back.
Frame Rate
The number of individual frames captured or displayed per second, determining motion smoothness and aesthetic quality.
G
2Golden Hour
The period after sunrise or before sunset when low sun angle produces warm, directional, soft natural light.
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.
L
3Lens
An optical device that focuses light onto the sensor, determining field of view, depth, and image character.
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
4Magic Hour
The brief period after sunset or before sunrise when the sky provides soft, diffuse, warm-toned natural light.
Master Shot
A wide single take that covers the full geography and action of a scene from start to finish.
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.
O
4Overexposed
An image in which too much light reached the sensor, causing highlight areas to lose detail and clip to white.
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.
Overhead Shot
A shot captured directly above the subject, with the camera pointing straight down at 90 degrees.
P
2P.O.V. Shot
A shot that represents what a specific character sees, placing the camera at their eyeline in the direction of their gaze.
Pan
A controlled horizontal rotation of the camera on its vertical axis, used to follow action or reveal space within a scene.
R
4Rack 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.
Rotoscoping
An animation and visual effects technique in which animators trace over live-action footage frame by frame to create realistic movement or isolate subjects.
S
12Screen Test
A filmed audition in which an actor performs a scene under production conditions to evaluate their suitability for a role.
Shallow Depth of Field
A narrow focus plane that keeps the subject sharp while rendering the background and foreground as soft blur.
Shutter Speed
The duration of time the camera's shutter stays open for each frame, controlling exposure and motion blur.
Simile
A figure of speech that compares two unlike things using 'like' or 'as' to illuminate a quality or state.
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.
Soundtrack
The complete audio track of a film, or the commercial album of music from that film released separately.
Steadicam
A body-worn camera stabilizer that isolates the camera from operator movement using a mechanical arm and counterbalanced sled.
Subjective Cinema
A filmmaking approach that presents events through a character's internal perception rather than an objective external viewpoint.
Surrealism
An art and cinema movement using dreamlike imagery and irrational juxtapositions to access unconscious truth.
Symbolism
The use of objects, images, colors, or events to represent ideas beyond their literal presence in the story.
Symmetry
A compositional technique where elements are arranged to create visual balance around a central axis.
T
5T-Stop
A calibrated measurement of a lens's actual light transmission, used in cinema for exposure matching across lenses.
Technicolor
A proprietary color film process using three separate black-and-white strips to produce saturated dye-transfer prints.
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.
Two Shot
A shot framing two subjects within the same frame at roughly equal prominence.
V
2Vertigo Effect
A camera technique combining a simultaneous dolly and zoom in opposite directions, creating a disorienting spatial distortion effect.
Visual Effects
Post-production techniques used to create or alter imagery that cannot be practically captured on set.
W
4Whip 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.
Widescreen
Any film format with an aspect ratio significantly wider than the original 1.33:1 Academy standard, typically 1.85:1 or wider.