Movies

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Cinematic Language

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Myriad of accepted systems, methods, or customs which a movie communicates. Integrated techniques and concepts connecting viewers to the story.

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Editing

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Joining together discrete shots. Gives movies the power to choose what and how the viewer sees. Basic creative force. Process which editor combines and coordinates shots into whole.

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Cut

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Direct change from one shot to another. The precise point at which shot A ends and shot B begins; result of cutting.

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Close-Up

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A shot that often shows a part of the body filling the frame - traditionally a face, but possibly a hand, eye, or mouth.

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Shot

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Uninterrupted run of the camera. Unbroken span of action captured by an uninterrupted run of a motion-picture camera.

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Fade-In / Fade-Out

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Transitional device which a shot fades in from a black field on black-and-white film or from a color field on color film, or fades out to a black field or a color field. / Transition between scenes; grows darker or comes out from darkness.

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Low-Angle Shot

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AKA Low Shot. A shot that is made with the camera below the action and that typically places the observer in a position of inferiority.

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Cutting On Action

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AKA Match-on-Action cut. A continuity editing technique that smooths the transition between shots portraying a single action from different camera angles. Editor ends the first shot in the middle of a continuing action and begins the subsequent shot at approximately the same point in the matching action.

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Protagonist

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Main character. Primary character whose pursuit of the goal provides the structural foundation of a movie's story. Reinforces our culture's celebration of the individual.

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Implicit Meaning

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Lies below the surface of story and presentation. Association, connection, or inference from EXPLICIT MEANINGS.

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Explicit Meaning

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Everything presented on the surface of a movie. What we see.

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Formal Analysis

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Analytical approach primarily concerning film form, or the means by which a subject is expressed. Film analysis that examines and dissects the complex synthesis of how a scene or sequence uses formal elements - narrative, cinematography, editing, sound, composition, design, movement, performance, editing, etc. - to convey story, mood, and meaning by screenwriters, directors, cinematographers, actors, editors, sound and art designers, etc.

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Theme

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Motif. Defining the story. A shared, public idea, such as a metaphor, a myth, or familiar conflict or personality type.

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Dolly In

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Camera moves slowly toward the subject - gradually enlarges subject in the frame. Slow movement of the camera toward the subject, making the subject appear larger and more significant. Gradual intensification is commonly used at moments of a character's realization and/or decision, or as a point-of-view shot to indicate the reason for the character's realization.

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Duration

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A quantity of time.

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Point of View

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POV - the position from which a film presents the actions of the story; not only the relation of the narrator but also the camera's act of seeing and hearing. Process of editing different shots together in a way that the resulting sequence makes us aware of the perspective or POV of a particular character or group of characters. Camera adjusting to what the character is seeing/hearing/experiencing.

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Jump Cut

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A sudden "jump forward" in the action that intentionally defies our expectations of continuity. The removal of a portion of a film, resulting in an instantaneous advance in the action - a sudden, perhaps illogical, often disorienting ellipsis between two shots.

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Narrative

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Structure used in acts that establish, develop, and resolve character conflict. Cinematic structure in which content is selected and arranged in a cause-and-effect sequence of events occurring over time.

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Content

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Subject of an artwork (what the work is about). Something to express. THE SUBJECT OF ARTWORK.

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Form

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The means by which that subject is expressed and experienced. Supplies the methods and techniques necessary to present it to the audience. Allows us to see content (subject) in a particular way. Shape particular experience and interpretation of specific content. Form is cinematic language. Tools and techniques filmmakers use to convey meaning and mood to the viewer.

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Persistence of Vision

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Process by which the human brain retains an image for a fraction of a second longer than the eye records it.

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Phi Phenomenon

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Illusion of movement created by events that succeed each other rapidly, as when two adjacent lights flash on and off alternately and we seem to see a single light shifting back and forth. This cognitive phenomenon is part of the reason we see movies as continuous moving images, rather than a successive series of still images.

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Apparent Motion

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Perceiving separate images as one continuous image - each successive image differs only slightly from the one that precedes it. Movie projector tricking us into perceiving separate images as one continuous image rather than a series of jerky movements.

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Mediation

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Process by which an agent, structure, or other formal element, (human or technological) transfers something from one place to another. (Medium).

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Freeze Frame

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Image is shown on-screen for a period of time. AKA Stop-frame OR Hold-frame. A still image within a movie, created by repetitive printing in the lab of the same frame so that it can be seen without movement for whatever desired length of time by filmmakers.

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Realism

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Interest or concern for the actual or real; a tendency to view or represent things as they really are.

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Anti-realism

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Interest or concern for the abstract, speculative, or fantastic. A treatment opposite of realism, though not strict polarities.

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Verisimilitude

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Movie's vision seems internally consistent, giving the viewer a sense that the world on-screen in possible. A convincing appearance of truth; movies are verisimiliar when they convince you that the things on screen - people, places, and so on, no matter how fantastic or anti-realistic - are "really there."

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Mise-en-scene

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Elemental system; composes design elements such as lighting, setting, props, costumes, and make-up within individual shots. Staging. Overall look and feel of a movie - sum of everything an audience sees, hears, and experiences while viewing it.

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Narrative Movie

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AKA Fiction film. Movie that tells a story - with characters, places, and events - that is conceived in the mind of the film's creator. May be wholly imaginary or based on true occurrences; may be realistic, or unrealistic, or both. Broader conceptual context as any cinematic structure in which content is arranged in a cause-and-effect sequence of events occurring over time.

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Documentary Movie

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Film that purports to be nonficitonal. Take many forms, including instructional, persuasive, and propaganda.

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Factual Movie

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Documentary film that, usually, presents people, places, or processes in a straightforward way meant to entertain and instruct without unduly influencing audiences.

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Instructional Movie

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Documentary film that seeks to educate viewers about common interests, rather than persuading them to accept particular ideas. Teach basic skills.

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Persuasive Movie

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Documentary film concerned with presenting a particular perspective on social issues, or with corporate and governmental injustice.

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Propaganda Movie

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Documentary film that systematically disseminates deceptive or distorted information.

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Direct Cinema

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Approach to documentary filmmaking that employs an unobtrusive style in an attempt to give viewers as truthful and "direct' an experience of events as possible. Avoid interviewers and limit use of narration.

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Experimental Movie

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AKA Avant-garde film. Implying a position in the vanguard, out in front of traditional films. Usually about unfamiliar, unorthodox, or obscure subject matter and are ordinarily made by independent (even underground) filmmakers, not studios, often with innovative techniques that call attention to, question, and even challenge their own artifice. (EX: Enter The Void)

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Stream of Consciousness

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A literary style that gained prominence in the 1920's that attempted to capture the unedited flow of experience through the mind.

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Genre

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Categorizing of narrative films by the stories they tell and they way they tell them: form, content, or both. Ex: musical, comedy, biography, western, film noir, drama, romance, etc.

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Film Noir

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(Black film) Dark and gritty crime dramas.

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Gangster

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Rags to riches. Organized Crime genre.

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Horror

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Fear of ultimate loss of control: Death and insanity. One of the most diverse, fluid genres.

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Science Fiction

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Dread of technology and change. Powerful science potentially helping us and also destroying us. Technology vs humanity // Science vs Soul.

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Western

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Exploration and settlement. American history inspired. Civilization vs Wilderness. Location linked to open spaces and endless possibilities.

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Musical

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Characters are expressed through song and dance. Music, singing, dancing, and spoken dialogue.

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Generic Transformation

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The process by which a particular genre is adapted to meet he expectations of a changing society.