Glossary
Comprehensive glossary of filmmaking terms, concepts, and techniques.
Showing 164 terms
A
12Abby Singer
Film crew slang for the second-to-last shot of the filming day, named after a television production manager who habitually announced this shot incorrectly as the last.
Action
The verbal cue called by the director to signal performers and crew that filming has begun and the scene should commence.
Aerial Shot
A shot captured from an airborne platform -- drone, helicopter, or aircraft -- above the ground.
Animation
The art and technique of creating the illusion of movement from a sequence of still images, drawings, or computer-generated frames.
Anime
Japanese animated film and television, characterised by distinctive visual styles and spanning a vast range of genres and subject matter.
Antagonist
The character or force that directly opposes the protagonist's goal, generating the story's central conflict.
Anthology Film
A film composed of multiple separate short stories or segments, often connected by a shared theme, framing device, or genre.
Apple Box
A standardised wooden box used on set to adjust actor height, support equipment, or serve as an impromptu seat or platform.
Arc Shot
A shot in which the camera moves in a curved path around a stationary or moving subject.
Audio Bridge
A sound element that carries across a picture cut, connecting two scenes through continuous audio.
Auteur
A filmmaker, typically a director, whose personal vision and style so dominate their work that they are considered its primary creative author.
Avant-Garde
Experimental filmmaking that pushes beyond conventional narrative and form, prioritising innovation, abstraction, and the exploration of cinema's formal possibilities.
B
10B-Movie
A low-budget commercial film, originally the second feature in a double bill, typically made quickly in genre formats with modest production values.
Backstory
The history of a character or world that occurred before the story begins, shaping present behaviour and conflict.
Billing
The contractual placement and prominence of a performer's or filmmaker's name in a film's credits and marketing materials.
Biopic
A biographical film that dramatises the life of a real person, typically a public figure, historical figure, or celebrity.
Blacklisting
The practice of excluding individuals from employment in the film industry, historically applied to those suspected of Communist sympathies during the 1950s Red Scare.
Blaxploitation
A cycle of American films from the early 1970s featuring Black protagonists, Black creative talent, and Black cultural sensibility aimed primarily at Black urban audiences.
Blocking a Shot
The process of planning and rehearsing the precise movements of actors and camera within a scene before filming.
Bollywood
The Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai, India — the world's most prolific film industry by volume of productions and tickets sold.
Boom Shot
A shot in which the camera moves vertically -- rising or descending -- on a crane or jib arm.
Bounce
A lighting technique in which light is directed onto a reflective surface and allowed to reflect back onto the subject, producing soft, diffuse illumination.
C
25C-Stand
A versatile, counterweighted metal stand used to position flags, nets, diffusion, reflectors, and small lighting accessories on set.
C47
Film crew slang for a standard wooden clothespeg (clothespin), used on set to attach gels, diffusion, and other materials to lighting fixtures.
Catchlight
A small specular highlight reflected in a subject's eye from a light source, which gives the eyes depth, life, and vitality on camera.
CGI
Computer-generated imagery — the use of computer graphics software to create or enhance visual elements in film and television.
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.
Cinéma Vérité
A documentary filmmaking style that uses lightweight equipment and minimal intervention to capture spontaneous, unscripted reality.
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.
Cinerama
A widescreen format developed in the early 1950s that used three synchronised cameras and three projectors to fill a deeply curved screen.
Clapperboard
The hinged-arm board filmed at the start of each take to identify the shot and provide an audio synchronisation point.
Claymation
A form of stop-motion animation in which characters and objects are modelled from clay or similar malleable materials and animated frame by frame.
Coming-of-Age Film
A film that focuses on the emotional and psychological growth of a young protagonist transitioning from childhood or adolescence to adulthood.
Composition
The deliberate arrangement of visual elements within a film frame to guide attention, convey meaning, and create aesthetic impact.
Concert Film
A film that documents a live musical performance, typically combining multi-camera concert footage with backstage material, interviews, or narrative context.
Continuity
The maintenance of consistent spatial, temporal, and physical details across all shots within a scene.
Copy That
Radio communication term used on film sets to confirm that a message has been received and understood.
Coverage
The full range of shots filmed for a scene from multiple angles and sizes, giving the editor options in post-production.
Crane Shot
A shot captured by a camera mounted on a crane arm, enabling smooth vertical and horizontal movement.
Cross-Cutting
An editing technique that alternates between two or more simultaneous lines of action in different locations.
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.
CTB
Colour Temperature Blue — a family of colour correction gels used to raise the colour temperature of a warm light source, converting tungsten output toward daylight balance.
CTB, CTO, CTS
Colour correction gel families used on lights to shift colour temperature: CTB (blue) cools a warm source, CTO (orange) warms a cool source, CTS (straw) adds a subtle warming tint.
CTO
Colour Temperature Orange — a family of colour correction gels used to lower the colour temperature of a cool light source, converting HMI or daylight output toward tungsten balance.
CTS
Colour Temperature Straw — a pale amber colour correction gel that adds a subtle warm tint to a light source without performing a full colour temperature conversion.
Cutaway Shot
A shot of something outside the main scene's geography, used to provide context or bridge edits.
D
11Day-for-Night Shot
A cinematographic technique in which daytime footage is processed or graded to simulate nighttime lighting conditions.
Diegetic Sound
Sound that exists within the world of the story and can theoretically be heard by the characters on screen.
Directing the Eye
The visual techniques a filmmaker uses to control where the audience looks within the frame at any given moment.
Director
The creative authority responsible for translating a screenplay into a finished film.
Dogme 95
A 1995 Danish filmmaking manifesto demanding stripped-down production: handheld cameras, natural light, location sound, 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.
Doorway Dolly
A small, lightweight camera dolly narrow enough to pass through standard doorways, used for tracking shots in confined spaces where a full Western dolly cannot operate.
Double Exposure
A technique in which two separate images are recorded on the same film frame or combined digitally, creating a translucent overlay of both images.
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
6Electronic 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 that orients the audience to a new location at the start of a scene.
Expendables
Consumable supplies purchased for a film production — including gaffer tape, gels, diffusion, tie wire, black wrap, and other materials that are used up during shooting and not returned.
Exposition
Background information delivered to the audience that establishes story context, character history, and world rules.
Expressionism
A visual style that distorts reality through exaggerated design, lighting, and camera angles to externalise psychological or emotional states.
Eyeline Match
A continuity editing convention in which a cut from a character looking off-screen leads to what that character sees.
F
6Fast-Cutting
An editing style in which shots are very short in duration, creating rapid visual rhythm and a sense of energy or urgency.
Film Noir
A style of crime and thriller cinema characterised by chiaroscuro lighting, moral ambiguity, femme fatales, and cynical worldviews.
Film Theory
The academic and critical study of how cinema works — how it produces meaning, affects audiences, and relates to broader culture.
Flash-Forward
A scene or sequence that interrupts the present narrative to show events that occur later in the story's timeline.
Flashback
A scene or sequence that interrupts the present narrative to dramatise events from the past.
Foreshadowing
A narrative technique that places hints or signals early in the story that anticipate later events.
G
4Gaffer Tape
A heavy-duty, cloth-backed adhesive tape used throughout film production for securing cables, rigging, labelling, and repairs.
Grindhouse
Low-budget exploitation cinema shown in urban neighbourhood theatres, characterised by sensational content, genre excess, and cheap production values.
Grip
A crew member responsible for camera support equipment, rigging, and light-control tools on set.
Guerrilla Film
A film made with minimal budget and crew, often without official permits, using unconventional and resourceful production methods to reduce costs.
H
4Handheld Shot
A shot captured with the camera held and operated by hand, without mechanical stabilisation on a tripod or dolly.
Hays Code
The self-regulatory censorship code that governed Hollywood content from 1934 to 1968, prohibiting explicit sexuality, graphic violence, and moral ambiguity.
High Angle Shot
A shot where the camera looks down on the subject from above, making them appear smaller or more vulnerable.
Hitting a Mark
The actor's discipline of arriving at a precise pre-set floor position so the camera, focus, and lighting remain correct.
I
2IMAX
A large-format film and projection system that produces images significantly larger and sharper than standard 35mm cinema.
Insert Shot
A close-up of an object or detail within a scene that provides narrative information to the audience.
L
6L-Cut
An edit in which the audio from the incoming scene begins before the video cuts to that scene.
Last Looks
The final check of a performer's hair, makeup, and costume made by the relevant department heads immediately before the camera rolls.
Leitmotif
A recurring musical theme or narrative element persistently associated with a specific character, idea, or relationship.
Local 600
The International Cinematographers Guild, the IATSE local union representing directors of photography, camera operators, focus pullers, and other camera department crew in the United States.
Long Shot
A shot that frames a subject's full body within their surrounding environment.
Low Angle Shot
A shot where the camera looks up at the subject from below, making them appear larger, dominant, or threatening.
M
12Martini Shot
Film crew slang for the very last shot of the filming day, after which the next shot is 'in a glass' — meaning the crew goes to the bar.
Master Shot
A wide single take that covers the full geography and action of a scene from start to finish.
Match Cut
An edit that joins two shots by matching a visual element, shape, movement, or action across the cut.
Matte Shot
A composite shot in which part of the frame is blocked out during filming and replaced with a separately filmed or painted image.
Medium Shot
A shot framed from roughly the waist up, balancing the subject with their immediate environment.
Melodrama
A dramatic mode that heightens emotional intensity through exaggerated conflict, moral polarisation, and the amplification of feeling beyond naturalistic restraint.
Metaphor
A figure of speech or visual device that describes one thing in terms of another to illuminate a deeper meaning.
Mise-en-Scène
Everything visible within a film frame — actors, sets, lighting, costume, and camera position — as a unified expressive whole.
Mockumentary
A fiction film or series shot in documentary style to satirise its subject or the documentary form itself.
Montage
A sequence of short shots edited together to condense time, convey information, or create an emotional effect through juxtaposition.
Motif
A recurring element — image, sound, object, or idea — that accumulates meaning through repetition across a film.
Mumblecore
A low-budget American independent film movement of the 2000s characterised by naturalistic dialogue, non-professional actors, and relationship-focused narratives.
N
5Naturalism
A visual and narrative approach that represents the world as it objectively appears, avoiding stylisation, artifice, or dramatic exaggeration.
Neo-Realism
An Italian film movement of the 1940s and 1950s that depicted working-class life using real locations, non-professional actors, and unadorned visual style.
New Hollywood
The American film movement of the late 1960s and 1970s in which a generation of directors gained creative control and made formally adventurous, auteur-driven films.
New Wave
The French film movement of the late 1950s and 1960s that rejected conventional filmmaking in favour of personal, experimental, location-shot cinema.
Nickelodeon
An early form of cinema venue in the United States, common between 1905 and 1915, where short films were shown for a five-cent admission fee.
O
3Omniscient Point of View
A narrative perspective in which the camera and storyteller have access to all characters, locations, and information beyond what any single character knows.
Over-the-Shoulder Shot
A shot framed from behind one character's shoulder, looking toward the character they are addressing.
Overhead Shot
A shot captured directly above the subject, with the camera pointing straight down at 90 degrees.
P
6P.O.V. Shot
A shot that represents exactly what a specific character sees, placing the audience in their visual perspective.
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 characterised by self-reflexivity, irony, genre mixing, pastiche, and the questioning of unified narratives and stable meaning.
Pre-Code
The period of Hollywood filmmaking from 1930 to 1934 before strict enforcement of the Production Code, when films were notably frank about sexuality, crime, and moral ambiguity.
Pre-Screening
A screening of a film held before its public release for specific audiences including critics, industry professionals, or test audiences.
Prologue
An introductory section that precedes the main story, establishing context, tone, or a prior event relevant to the narrative.
R
5Reaction Shot
A shot that shows a character's emotional response to an event, action, or piece of dialogue.
Rear Screen Projection
A practical in-camera compositing technique where pre-filmed background footage is projected onto a translucent screen behind live actors.
Revival House
A cinema that specialises in screening older films, repertory programmes, and classic titles rather than current first-run releases.
Roadshow
A prestigious exhibition strategy in which a major film is shown in select venues at premium prices, with reserved seating and an intermission, before general release.
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
24Satire
A mode of storytelling that uses irony, exaggeration, and ridicule to expose and criticise human folly, vice, or social and political institutions.
Scene
A dramatic unit set in one location and continuous in time, assembled from multiple shots.
Screen Test
A filmed audition in which an actor performs a scene on camera to assess their suitability for a specific role.
Screener
A copy of a film distributed to critics, awards voters, or industry professionals for viewing before or during its theatrical release.
Screenlife
A filmmaking format in which the entire narrative is depicted through the screen of a computer, phone, or other digital device.
Sequence
A series of scenes linked by a common narrative thread, forming a distinct dramatic unit.
Setting
The time and place in which a film's story takes place, shaping character, tone, and visual world.
Shot
A continuous uninterrupted sequence of frames captured in a single camera run.
Shot List
A pre-production document listing every planned shot for a scene or shooting day, with shot size, angle, and movement.
Simile
A figure of speech that compares two unlike things using 'like' or 'as' to illuminate a quality or state.
Slate
The identifying board held in front of the camera at the start of each take, recording scene, shot, and take information.
Spaghetti Western
A cycle of Italian-produced western films made in the 1960s and 1970s, often shot in Spain, characterised by stylised violence and Ennio Morricone's distinctive scores.
Static Shot
A shot in which the camera remains completely still, with no pan, tilt, zoom, or physical movement.
Steadicam
A camera stabilisation system worn by an operator that isolates the camera from body movement, producing smooth fluid shots.
Stop Motion
An animation technique in which physical objects are photographed frame by frame with incremental movements between frames to create the illusion of motion.
Storyboard
A sequence of drawings or images that visually plan a film's shots before production begins.
Striking
A safety warning called out on a film set when a large or heavy piece of equipment is being moved through the crew area, alerting everyone to clear the path.
Subjective Cinema
A filmmaking approach that restricts the camera and narrative to a single character's perspective, perception, and inner experience.
Subtext
The layer of meaning beneath the explicit surface of dialogue and action, communicated indirectly through what is not said.
Superimposition
The optical or digital combination of two images so that both are simultaneously visible, one placed over the other.
Surrealism
A movement in art and cinema that draws on dreamlike imagery, irrational juxtapositions, and unconscious logic to challenge rational perception.
Swish Pan
An extremely rapid horizontal camera rotation that blurs the image completely, used as a transition between shots or scenes.
Symbolism
The use of objects, images, colours, or events to represent ideas or meanings beyond their literal presence in the story.
Symmetry
A compositional approach in which visual elements are arranged in balanced mirror-image correspondence around a central axis.
T
9Tail Slate
A clapperboard slated at the end of a take rather than the beginning, held upside down to signal to the editor that the sync mark occurs at the tail of the shot.
Take
A single recorded attempt at filming a shot, from the camera rolling to the director calling cut.
Technicolor
A proprietary colour film process used in Hollywood from the 1920s to the 1950s, renowned for its rich, saturated colour reproduction.
Three Shot
A shot framing three subjects within the same frame, establishing their spatial relationships simultaneously.
Tilt
A controlled vertical rotation of the camera on its horizontal axis, used to follow vertical movement or reveal height.
Tilt Shot
A shot in which the camera rotates on its horizontal axis, moving the lens angle up or down.
Tracking Shot
A shot in which the camera moves horizontally to follow a subject as they move through space.
Turnaround
The process by which a studio releases the rights to a project it has developed but chosen not to produce, allowing the project to be set up elsewhere.
Two Shot
A shot framing two subjects within the same frame at roughly equal prominence.
V
3Vertigo Effect
A camera technique combining a simultaneous dolly and zoom in opposite directions, creating a disorienting spatial distortion effect.
Video Village
The area on a film set where monitors display the camera feed, allowing the director, producer, script supervisor, and other key personnel to watch the performance without standing at the camera.
Visual Effects
Post-production techniques used to create or alter imagery that cannot be practically captured on set during principal photography.
W
4Walk-Through
A rehearsal on set in which actors move through a scene's blocking before the camera rolls and lighting is set.
Western Dolly
A large, heavy-duty camera dolly used in film production, capable of carrying significant weight and supporting a camera crane or jib arm in addition to the camera and operators.
What's Your 20?
Radio shorthand used on film sets to ask a crew member's current location, derived from the police and CB radio ten-code '10-20' meaning 'location'.
Whip Pan
An extremely rapid horizontal camera rotation used as a kinetic transition or punctuation within a scene.
Z
2Z-Movie
An extremely low-budget film that falls below even the modest production standards of the B-movie, often characterised by poor technical quality and minimal professional competence.
Zoptic Special Effects
A camera and lens system developed by Zoran Perisic that creates the illusion of flying or floating by combining a zoom lens with a motorised dolly moving in the opposite direction.