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| Adapted from: |
| Hayward, S. Key Concepts in Cinema Studies (London: Routledge, 1996) |
| Monaco, J. How to Read a Film (Oxford University Press, 1981) |
Aerial Shot
A shot taken from a crane, plane, or helicopter. Not necessarily a moving shot.
Backlighting
The main source of light is behind the subject, silhouetting it, and directed
toward the camera.
Bridging Shot
A shot used to cover a jump in time or place or other discontinuity. Examples
are
Camera Angle
The angle at which the camera is pointed at the subject:
Cut
The splicing of 2 shots together. This cut is made by the
film editor at the editing stage of a film. Between sequences
the cut marks a rapid transition between one time and space and another, but
depending on the nature of the cut it will have different meanings.
Cross-cutting
Literally, cutting between different sets of action that can be occurring simultaneously
or at different times, (this term is used synonymously but somewhat incorrectly
with parallel editing.) Cross-cutting is used to build suspense, or to show
the relationship between the different sets of action.
Jump cut
Cut where there is no match between the 2 spliced shots. Within a sequence,
or more particularly a scene, jump cuts give the effect of bad editing. The
opposite of a match cut, the jump cut is an abrupt cut between 2 shots that
calls attention to itself because it does not match the shots seamlessly. It
marks a transition in time and space but is called a jump cut because it jars
the sensibilities; it makes the spectator jump and wonder where the narrative
has got to. Jean-Luc Godard is undoubtedly one of the best exponents of this
use of the jump cut.
Continuity cuts
These are cuts that take us seamlessly and logically from one sequence or scene
to another. This is an unobtrusive cut that serves to move the narrative along.
Match cut
The exact opposite of a jump cut within a scene. These cuts make sure that there
is a spatial-visual logic between the differently positioned shots within a
scene. Thus, where the camera moves to, and the angle of the camera, makes visual
sense to the spectator. Eyeline matching is
part of the same visual logic: the first shot shows a character looking at something
off-screen, the second shot shows what is being looked at. Match cuts then are
also part of the seamlessness, the reality effect, so much favoured by Hollywood.
Deep focus
A technique in which objects very near the camera as well as those far away
are in focus at the same time.
Diegesis
The denotative material of film narrative, it includes, according to Christian
Metz, not only the narration itself, but also the fictional space and time dimension
implied by the narrative.
Dissolve/lap-dissolve
These terms are used interchangeably to refer to a transition between 2 sequences
or scenes. Generally associated with earlier cinema but still used on occasion.
In a dissolve a first image gradually dissolves or fades out and is replaced
by another which fades in over it. This type of transition, which is known also
as a soft transition (as opposed to the cut), suggests a longer passage of time
than a cut.
Dolly
A set of wheels and a platform upon which the camera can be mounted to give
it mobility. Dolly shot is a shot taken from a moving dolly. Almost synonymous
in general usage with tracking shot or follow
shot
Editing
Editing refers literally to how shots are put together to
make up a film. Traditionally a film is made up of sequences or in some cases,
as with avant-garde or art cinema, or again, of successive shots that are assembled
in what is known as collision editing, or montage.
Ellipsis
A term that refers to periods of time that have been left out of the narrative.
The ellipsis is marked by an editing transitions which, while it leaves out
a section of the action, none the less signifies that something has been elided.
Thus, the fade or dissolve could indicate a passage of time, a wipe, a change
of scene and so on. A jump cut transports the spectator from one action and
time to another, giving the impression of rapid action or of disorientation
if it is not matched.
Eyeline matching
A term used to point to the continuity editing practice ensuring the logic of
the look or gaze. In other words, eyeline matching is based
on the belief in mainstream cinema that when a character looks into off-screen
space the spectator expects to see what he or she is looking at. Thus there
will be a cut to show what is being looked at:
The eyeline match creates order and meaning in cinematic space. Thus, for example, character A will look off-screen at character B. Cut to character B, who-if she or he is in the same room and engaged in an exchange either of glances or words with character A-will return that look and so 'certify' that character A is indeed in the space from which we first saw her or him look. This "stabilising" is true in the other primary use of the eyeline match which is the shot/reverse angle shot, also known as the reverse angle shot, commonly used in close-up dialogue scenes. The camera adopts the eyeline trajectory of the interlocutor looking at the other person as she or he speaks, then switches to the other person's position and does the same.
Extreme long shot
A panoramic view of an exterior location photographed from a considerable distance,
often as far as a quarter-mile away. May also serve as the establishing shot
Fade in
A punctuation device. The screen is black at the beginning; gradually the image
appears, brightening to full strength. The opposite happens in the fade out
Fill light
An auxiliary light, usually from the side of the subject that can soften shadows
and illuminate areas not covered by the key light
Flashback
A scene or sequence (sometime an entire film), that is inserted into a scene
in "present" time and that deals with the past. The flashback is the
past tense of the film.
Flash-forward
On the model of the flashback, scenes or shots of future
time; the future tense of the film.
Focus
The sharpness of the image. A range of distances from the camera will be acceptably
sharp. Possible to have deep focus, shallow focus.
Focus in, focus out: a punctuation device whereby the image gradually
comes into focus or goes out of focus.
Follow shot
A tracking shot or zoom which
follows the subject as it moves.
Framing
The way in which subjects and objects are framed within a shot produces specific
readings. Size and volume within the frame speak as much as dialogue. So too
do camera angles. Thus, for example, a high-angle extreme long shot of two men
walking away in the distance, (as in the end of Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion,
1937) points to their vulnerability - they are about to disappear, possibly
die. Low angle shots in medium close-up on a person can point to their power,
but it can also point to ridicule because of the distortion factor.
Gaze/look
This term refers to the exchange of looks that takes place in cinema but it
was not until the 1970s that it was written about and theorised. In the early
1970s, first French and then British and American film theorists began applying
psychoanalysis to film in an attempt to discuss the spectator/screen relationship
as well as the textual relationships within the film. Drawing in particular
on Freud's theory of libido drives and Lacan's theory of the mirror stage, they
sought to explain how cinema works at the level of the unconscious. Indeed,
they maintained that the processes of the cinema mimics the workings of the
unconscious. The spectator sits in a darkened room, desiring to look at the
screen and deriving visual pleasure from what he or she sees. Part of that pleasure
is also derived from the narcissistic identification she or he feels with the
person on the screen. But there is more; the spectator also has the illusion
of controlling that image. First, because the Renaissance perspective which
the cinematic image provides ensures that the spectator is subject of the gaze;
and second, given that the projector is positioned behind the spectator's head,
this means that the it is as if those images are the spectator's own imaginings
on screen.
Feminists took up this concept of the gaze and submitted it to more rigorous analysis. Laura Mulvey's vital and deliberately-polemical article, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema(1975) started the debate by demonstrating the domination of the male gaze, within and without the screen, at the expense of the woman's; so much so that the female spectator had little to do, gaze upon or identify with. The exchange or relay of looks, (as it is also known) within film reproduces the voyeuristic pleasure of the cinematic apparatus but only for the male. In fact, given that woman is normally, both within the film and on screen, the prime object that is being looked at, (and thus controlled) much feminist film theory has argued that the gaze is male through and through. It has thus been held that by attempting to expose how woman is constructed cinematically as an object of the male gaze, it is possible to deconstruct the normalising or naturalising process of patriarchal (male) socialisation.
Iris in/iris out
An old technique of punctuation that utilises a diaphragm in front of the lens,
which is opened (iris in) or closed (iris out) to begin or end a scene. The
iris can also be used to focus attention on a detail of the scene.
Key light
The main light on a subject. Usually placed at a 45 degree angle to the camera-subject
axis. In high key lighting, the key light provides all or most of the light
in the scene. In low key lighting, the key light provides much less of the total
illumination.
Master shot
A long take of an entire scene, generally a relatively long shot that facilitates
the assembly of component closer shots and details. The editor can always fall
back on the master shot: consequently, it is also called a cover shot.
Medium shot
A shot intermediate between a close-up
and a full shot.
Montage
Simply, editing. More particularly: Eisenstein's idea
that adjacent shots should relate to each other in such a way that A and B combine
to produce another meaning, C, which is not actually recorded on the film.
Mise-en Scene
The term usually used to denote that part of the cinematic process that takes
place on the set, as opposed to editing, which takes
place afterwards. Literally, the "putting-in-the-scene":
Pan
(abbreviation of panorama) Movement of the camera from left to right or right
to left around the imaginary vertical axis that runs through the camera. A panning
shot is sometimes confused with a tracking shot.
Point of view shot
(Often abbreviated as 'pov'). A shot which shows the scene from the specific
point of view of one of the characters.
Pull back shot
A tracking shot or zoom that
moves back from the subject to reveal the context of the scene.
Rack focusing
A technique that uses shallow focus (shallow depth of field) to direct the attention
of the viewer forcibly from one subject to another. Focus is "pulled",
or changed, to shift the focus plane, often rapidly, sometimes several times
within the shot.
Reverse angle
A shot from the opposite side of a subject. In a dialogue scene, a shot of the
second participant.
Scene
A complete unit of film narration. A series of shots (or a single shot) that
takes place in a single location and that deals with a single action. Sometimes
used interchangeably with sequence.
Shot
In terms of camera distance with respect to the object within the shot, there
are basically 7 types of shots;
Close-up/extreme close-up CU/ECU)
The subject framed by the camera fills the screen. Connotation can be of intimacy,
of having access to the mind or thought processes (including the subconscious)
of the character. These shots can be used to stress the importance of a particular
character at a particular moment in a film or place her or him as central to
the narrative by singling out the character in CU at the beginning of the film.
It can signify the star exclusively (as in many Hollywood productions of the
1930s and 1940s). CUs can also be used on objects and parts of the body other
than the face. In this instance they can designate imminent action (a hand picking
up a knife, for example), and thereby create suspense. Or they can signify that
an object will have an important role to play in the development of the narrative.
Often these shots have a symbolic value, usually due to their recurrence during
the film. How and where they recur is revealing not only of their importance
but also of the direction or meaning of the narrative.
Medium close-up MCU)
Close-up of one or two (sometimes three) characters, generally framing the shoulders
or chest and the head. The term can also be used when the camera frames the
character(s) from the waist up (or down), provided the character is right to
the forefront and fills the frame, (otherwise this type of of shot is a medium
shot).An MCU of two or three characters can indicate
Conversely, if there is a series of two and one shots, these MCUs would suggest a complicity between two people against a third who is visually separate in another shot.
Medium shot (MS)
Generally speaking, this shot frames a character from the waist, hips or knees
up (or down). The camera is sufficiently distanced from the body for the character
to be seen in relation to her or his surroundings (in an apartment, for example).
Typically, characters will occupy half to two-thirds of the frame. This shot is very commonly used in indoor sequences allowing for a visual signification of relationships between characters. Compare a two-shot MS and a series of separate one-shots in MS of two people. The former suggests intimacy, the latter distance. The former shot could change in meaning to one of distance, however, if the two characters were separated by an object (a pillar, table or telephone, for example). Visually this shot is more complex, more open in terms of its readability than the preceding ones. The characters can be observed in relation to different planes, background middle ground and foreground, and it is the inter-relatedness of these planes which also serves to produce a meaning.
Medium long shot (MLS)
Halfway between a long and a medium shot. If this shot frames a character then
the whole body will be in view towards the middle ground of the shot. A quite
open shot in terms of readability, showing considerably more of the surroundings
in relation to the character(s).
Long shot (LS)
Subject or characters are at some distance from the camera; they are seen in
full within their surrounding environment.
Extreme long shot (ELS)
The subject or characters are very much to the background of the shot. Surroundings
now have as much if not more importance, especially if the shot is in high-angle.
A first way to consider these shots is to say that a shot lends itself to a
greater or lesser readability dependent on its type or length. As the camera
moves further away from the main subject (whether person or object) the visual
field lends itself to an increasingly more complex reading - in terms of the
relationship between the main subject and the decor there is more for the spectator's
eye to read or decode. This means that the closer up the shot, the more the
spectator's eye is directed by the camera to the specified reading.
Shots, in and of themselves, can have a subjective or objective value: the closer the shot, the more subjective its value, the more the meaning is inscribed from within the shot; conversely, the longer the distance of the shot the more objective its value, the greater the participation of the spectator or reader in the inscription of meaning. Other factors influence the readability of a shot. A high or low camera angle can de-naturalise a shot or reinforce its symbolic value. Take, for example, an ELS that is shot at a high angle. This automatically suggests the presence of someone looking, thus the shot is implicitly a point of view shot. In this way some of the objective value or openness of that shot, (which it would retain if angled horizontally at 90 degrees) is taken away, the shot is no longer 'naturally' objective. The shot is still open to a greater reading than a CUC, however; although the angle imposes a preferred reading (someone is looking down from on high). In terms of illustrating what is meant by reinforcing symbolic value, the contrastive examples of a low- and high-angle CU can serve here. The former type of shot will distort the object within the frame, rendering it uglier, more menacing, more derisory; conversely, when a high-angle CU is used, the object can appear more vulnerable, desirable.
Subjective camera
The camera is used in such a way as to suggest the point of view of a particular
character.
Subjective shots like these also implicate the spectator into the narrative in that she or he identifies with the point of view.
Story board
A series of drawings and captions (sometimes resembling a comic strip) that
shows the planned shot divisions and camera movements of the film.
Take
One version of a shot. A filmmaker shoots one or more takes
of each shot or setup. Only one of each group of takes appears in the final
film.
Tilt shot
The camera tilts up or down, rotating around the axis that runs from left to
right through the camera head.
Tracking shot/traveling shot/dollying shot
Terms used for a shot when the camera is being moved by means of wheels:
The movement is normally quite fluid (except perhaps in some of the wider car chases) and the tracking can be either fast or slow. Depending on the speed, this shot has different connotations, eg:
A tracking shot can go
Steadicam
The invention of cameraman Garret Brown (developed in conjunction with Cinema
Products, Inc.), this is a system which permits handheld filming with an image
steadiness comparable to tracking shots. A vest redistributes the weight of
the camera to the hips of the cameraman; a spring-loaded arm minimises the motion
the camera; a video monitor frees the cameraman from the eyepiece.
Wipe
An optical effect in which an image appears to "wipe-off" or push
aside the preceding image. Very common in the 1930s; less so today.
Voice-over
The narrator's voice when the narrator is not seen. Common in television commercials,
but also in film noir.
Zoom
A shot using a lens whose focal length is adjusted during the shot. Zooms are
sometimes used in place of tracking shots, but
the differences between the two are significant. A zoom normally ends in a close-up,
a zoom-back in a general shot. Both types of shot imply a rapid movement in
time and space, and as such create the illusion of displacement in time and
space. A zoom-in picks out and isolates a person or object, a zoom-out places
that person or object in a wider context. A zoom shot can be seen, therefore,
as voyeurism at its most desirably perfect.
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