Film Glossary
A short vocabulary to watch cinema more precisely: from the long take to the MacGuffin.
- American shot
- A framing from head to knees, popularised by the Western.
- Anamorphic
- A system that squeezes a wide image onto the negative and expands it on projection.
- Aspect ratio
- The ratio between the image's width and height (4:3, 16:9, 2.39:1…).
- Backlight
- Light placed behind the subject, outlining it against the background.
- Breaking the fourth wall
- When a character looks at or addresses the viewer directly.
- Chroma key
- A technique replacing a uniform color background with another image.
- Close-up
- A tight framing, usually of the face, that emphasizes emotion or a detail.
- Color grading
- Adjusting color and contrast in post-production to set the visual tone.
- Continuity
- Visual and action consistency between adjacent shots so the cut goes unnoticed.
- Cross-cutting
- Alternating between two simultaneous actions in different places.
- Crossing the line
- Breaking the 180-degree rule, abruptly flipping the spatial layout.
- Cut
- The instant change from one shot to another; editing's basic transition.
- Cutaway
- A brief shot inserted to cover the main action or add context.
- Day for night
- Shooting in daylight and darkening the image to simulate night.
- Deep focus
- A technique keeping both foreground and background in sharp focus.
- Diegesis
- The world of the fiction; the diegetic is what happens within that world.
- Diegetic sound
- Sound whose source exists within the fiction and the characters can hear.
- Dissolve
- A transition in which one image gradually melts into the next.
- Dolly zoom
- A simultaneous opposing track and zoom: the background warps while the subject stays fixed (the Vertigo effect).
- Dutch angle
- A tilted framing that conveys tension or unease.
- Editing / montage
- The selection and ordering of shots; where film builds its meaning and rhythm.
- Ellipsis
- Omission of a stretch of time or action that the viewer fills in.
- Establishing shot
- An opening shot that establishes a scene's place and context.
- Extreme long shot
- A very wide framing where the landscape dominates the human figure.
- Fade
- An appearance from (or vanishing into) black that opens or closes a sequence.
- Flashback
- A jump back in narrative time (analepsis).
- Flashforward
- A jump forward in narrative time (prolepsis).
- Foley
- Everyday sound effects recorded in a studio in sync with the image.
- Found footage
- Fiction presented as real footage recorded by the characters.
- Frame
- Each of the still images that, projected in succession, create movement.
- Framing
- The decision of what enters the frame and how it is composed.
- High / low angle
- Camera placed above or below the subject, altering their power or fragility.
- High-key lighting
- Even, bright lighting with few shadows.
- Jump cut
- A cut between near-identical shots that produces an abrupt jump in time.
- Leitmotif
- A musical theme tied to a character, place or idea that recurs through the film.
- Long take
- A single, extended take that resolves a whole scene without a cut.
- Low-key lighting
- High-contrast lighting with deep shadows, typical of film noir.
- MacGuffin
- An object or goal that drives the plot, though it matters little in itself.
- Match cut
- A cut between two shots linked by a similar shape, movement or idea.
- Medium shot
- A framing showing a character from the waist up.
- Mise-en-scène
- Everything arranged before the camera: set, light, costume, performance and framing.
- Non-diegetic sound
- Sound outside the fiction's world, like background music or narration.
- Off-screen space
- What exists outside the frame and the film implies without showing.
- Overhead shot
- Camera placed directly above the scene, looking down.
- Pan
- A horizontal rotation of the camera on its axis, without moving.
- POV shot
- A framing that adopts a character's physical point of view.
- Rotoscoping
- Drawing or animating by tracing over previously filmed footage.
- Rule of thirds
- A compositional guide placing elements on a grid of thirds.
- Score
- A film's combined music, voices and effects; strictly, its original music.
- Shot
- A continuously filmed image fragment without cuts; the basic unit of editing.
- Shot / reverse shot
- Alternation of opposing shots, the standard way to film dialogue.
- Slow motion
- Shooting at more frames per second to dilate on-screen time.
- Split screen
- Dividing the frame into two or more simultaneous images.
- Steadicam
- A stabilizing rig that allows fluid handheld moving shots.
- Stop motion
- Frame-by-frame animation of real objects moved by hand.
- Storyboard
- A comic-like set of drawings planning the shots before filming.
- Superimposition
- Overlaying two images within the same frame.
- The 180-degree rule
- A convention keeping the camera on one side of an imaginary line so the characters' positions stay clear.
- Three-point lighting
- The classic scheme of key, fill and back light.
- Tilt
- A vertical rotation of the camera on its axis, up or down.
- Tracking shot
- A physical movement of the camera on rails or wheels during the take.
- Voice-over
- A voice whose source is not in the image, often narrating or interior.
- Wide shot
- A broad framing that places characters within their setting.
- Wide-angle lens
- A wide-angle lens that exaggerates depth and perspective.
- Wipe
- A transition in which one shot pushes the previous one across the frame.
- Zoom
- An optical move in or out by changing focal length, without moving the camera.