Basic Film Terms

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Basic Film Terms
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Time components of film

• Running timethe full duration of a film.
  (Feature films are generally 90-120 minutes.)
• Story timethe amount of time the plot covers.
  (Could be hours or centuries.)

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Principle Parts of Film

• Frame the rectangle itself in which the film
  appears each still photograph that makes up a
  strip of film
• Shot what is recorded in a single operation of
  the camera from the time when the director gives
  the command action to the time the director
  says cut
• Scene a group of shots that are coherently
  related to each other with continuous action
  usually in a single location but not always
• Sequence a group of scenes forming a
  self-contained unit

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Types of Shots

• A shot is the time occurring between the camera
  being turned on and shut off.
• Shots vary in time from subliminal (a few frames)
  to quick (less than a second) to average (more
  than a second but less than a minute) to lengthy
  (more than a minute)

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Long Shot (LS)

• (A relative term) A shot taken from a sufficient
  distance to show a landscape, a building, or a
  large crowd
• (FS) a full body shot

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Pulp Fiction (1994)
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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II
(2011)
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The Dark Knight (2008)
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Establishing Shot (or Extreme Long Shot)

• Shot taken from a great distance, almost always
  an exterior shot, shows much of locale
• ELS

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The Godfather (1974)
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The Good, The Bad , and The Ugly (1966)
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The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
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Medium Shot (MS)

• (Also relative) a shot between a long shot and a
  close-up that might show two people in full
  figure or several people from the waist up
• Most common
• type of shot

The Talented Mr. Ripley
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The Godfather, Part II (1974)
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Fight Club (1999)
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300 (2006)
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Close-Up (CU)

• A shot of a small object or face that fills the
  screen

Apocalypse Now
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Extreme Close-Up (ECU)

• A shot of a small object or part of a face that
  completely fills the screen

Rocky Horror Picture Show
The Saint In London
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X-Men First Class (2011)
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Rocky Horror Picture Show
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Donnie Darko (2001)
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Types of Angles

• The angle is determined by where the camera is
  placed not the subject matter
• Angles can serve as commentary on the subject
  matter

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High Angle (h/a)

• Camera looks down at what is being photographed

Without Limits
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Big Fish
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The Big Lebowski
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Blade Runner
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Low Angle (l/a)

• Camera is located below subject matter

The Patriot
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Jurassic Park
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The Patriot
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Across the Universe
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Eye-Level

• Roughly 5 to 6 feet off the ground, the way an
  actual observer might view a scene/a camera films
  a subject from the same plane
• Most common

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The Dark Knight
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Inception
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The Shining
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Camera Movement
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Pan

• The camera moves horizontally on a fixed base.
• Usually a stationary camera in a smaller space

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Panning
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Tilting

• The camera points up or down from a fixed base

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Tilt
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Tracking (dolly) shot

• The camera moves through space on a wheeled truck
  (or dolly) but stays in the same plane

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The Dolly Shot
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Zoom

• Not an actual camera movement
• but a shift in the focal length of the camera
  lens to give the impression that the camera is
  getting closer to or farther from an object

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The Zoom
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Boom

• The camera moves up or down through space

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Crane

• A camera that is high up on a crane

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Lighting

• High key lighting the set, the stage, or scene
  is flooded with light

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Low Key lighting

• The set, the stage, or the scene is
  partially/dimly lit

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Lighting continued

• Front lighting- to characterize and/or bring
  attention to a certain item/detail
• Back lighting- make something look supernatural
• Bottom lighting make something look evil

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Focalization point of view

• Subjective a shot filmed from the pt. of view
  or perspective of a character
• Authorial - a shot filmed from the pt. of view
  of the director
• Neutral a stationary camera films whatever is
  near it

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Sound

• Diegetic sound that characters (key word) in
  the film can hear
• Non-diegetic sounds that in the film that
  characters cannot hear

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Editing techniques
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Cut

• Transition between scenes when one scene ends and
  another one begins
• Most common

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Dissolve

• A gradual transition in which the end of one
  scene is superimposed over the beginning of a new
  one.
• You see 2 shots at the same time.

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Fade-out/Fade in

• A scene gradually goes dark or a new one
  gradually emerges from darkness

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Wipe

• An optical effect in which one shot appears to
  push the preceding one from the screen.

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Two Shot or Reverse-Shot- Reverse

• focusing on one shot and reversing the shot
  (camera) to film the other subject or shot

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Cross-cutting

• When you cut from one scene to another, then
  change the scene or setting however, both scenes
  are happening at the same time

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Eyeline Match

• When you film a persons eyes in one shot, and in
  the next shot, you show what the person is
  looking at.

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Flashback

• Cutting from one scene to another that goes back
  in time

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Final Things to Note

• Framing (left, right, bottom, top, center)
• Dialogue/music lyrics
• Costuming/colors
• The Filter
• 2 basic philosophies of film-making