Film Terminology

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Film Terminology
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Cinematography

• Cinematography literally means writing with
  movement.
• It is the art of making motion pictures
• The cinematographer (different from the director)
  uses the camera as a maker of meaning, just as
  the painter uses the brush or the writer uses the
  pen.
• While the directors vision shapes the whole
  production of the film, the cinematographer makes
  the very specific decisions about how the movie
  will be photographed.

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Shooting a Movie

• The three key terms used in shooting a movie are
  shot, take, and setup.
• A shot is one uninterrupted run of the camera. It
  can be as short or as long as the director wants,
  with the obvious condition that it not exceed the
  length of the film stock in the camera.
• Take indicates the number of times a particular
  shot is taken (e.g. shot 14, take 7).
• A setup is one camera position and everything
  associated with it.

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Film Stock

• The two basic types of film stock one to record
  images in black and white, the other to record
  them in color are completely different and have
  their own technical properties and possibilities.
• Which stock is right for a particular film
  depends on the story being told but with only a
  few outstanding exceptions, virtually all movies
  are now shot in color, since that is what the
  public is accustomed to and expects.
• In 1936 only 1 of the feature releases from
  major studios were in color by 1968, virtually
  all of them were.

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Black-and-White Films

• Famous films deliberately shot (at least
  partially) in black-and-white
• Martin Scorceses Raging Bull (1980)
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vYiVOwxsa4OM
• Steven Spielbergs Schindlers List (1993)
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vW74jGQ-CDTE
• Woody Allens Manhattan (1979)
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vuyaj2P-dSi8

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Black-and-White Films

• Take a moment and think about why the director
  may have chosen to shoot the following films in
  black-and-white, rather than color. What moods
  are created as a result?
• Raging Bull
• Mood ____________________________
• 2. Schindlers List
• Mood ____________________________
• Manhattan
• Mood ____________________________

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Black-and-White Films

• Audiences have come to associate black-and-white
  photography and cinematography with a stronger
  sense of gritty realism than that provided by
  color film stock.
• The distinct contrasts and hard edges of
  black-and-white can express an abstract world
  (i.e. a world from which color has been removed).
• Black-and-white film stock is most often used for
  the kind of tales told in westerns, film noirs
  (detective stories), and gangster films.

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Color in Films

• While most films are shot in color nowadays, the
  color we see on the screen isnt always natural.
• Film artists and technicians can manipulate the
  colors in a film just like any other element.
• Color can be used to evoke a specific mood or
  tone in a film.
• In Spike Lees Do the Right Thing (1989), colors
  are heightened to call attention to the heat of
  the day.
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vXpDzd5Sw5HU

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Lighting

• Lighting shapes the way a movie looks and it
  helps tell the story.
• As a key component of the composition of a film,
  lights create the audiences sense of space by
  illuminating people and things, creating
  highlights and shadows, and defining shapes and
  textures.
• Filmmakers can employ either natural or
  artificial light while shooting.

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Types of Shots

• The most commonly used shots employed in a movie
  are the long shot, the medium shot, and the
  close-up.
• The names of these shots refer to the distance
  between the camera lens and the subject being
  photographed.

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Long Shots

• The long shot (LS) shows the full human body,
  usually filling the frame, and some of its
  surroundings.
• The LS can be used to diminish the size of the
  character in relation to some larger force.
• The extreme long shot (ELS) occurs when the human
  figure is placed very far away from the camera.

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Medium Shots

• The medium shot (MS) shows the human body,
  usually from the waist up.
• The MS is the most frequently used type of shot
  because it reproduces the level of closeness we
  would ordinarily have when talking to a person
  face-to-face and it provides more detail of the
  body than the LS.
• The medium long shot (MLS) is taken from the
  knees up and includes most of a persons body.

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Close-ups

• The close-up (CU) often shows a part of the body
  filling the frame traditionally a face, but
  possibly a hand, eye, or mouth.
• An extreme close-up (ECU) is a very close shot of
  some detail, such as a persons eye, a ring on a
  finger, or a watch.

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Camera Angle and Height

• The cameras shooting angle, the level and height
  of the camera in relation to the subject being
  photographed, is another element of filmmaking
  that offers many expressive possibilities.
• The five basic camera angles eye level, high
  angle, low angle, Dutch angle, and aerial view
  must be used appropriately with a movies
  storytelling.

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Camera Angle and Height

• An eye-level shot is made from the observers eye
  level and usually implies that the cameras
  attitude toward the subject being photographed is
  neutral.
• A high-angle shot is made with the camera above
  the action and typically implies the observers
  sense of superiority to the subject being
  photographed.

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Camera Angle and Height

• In contrast to the high-angle shot, a low-angle
  shot is made with the camera below the action and
  typically places the observer in the position of
  feeling helpless in the presence of an obviously
  superior force, as when we look up at King Kong
  on the Empire State Building or up at the shark
  from the underwater cameras point of view in
  Jaws.
• Even a slight upward or downward angle of a
  camera may be enough to express an air of
  inferiority or superiority.

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Camera Angle and Height

• In a Dutch-angle shot, the camera is tilted from
  its normal horizontal and vertical position so
  that it is no longer straight, giving the viewer
  the impression that the world in the frame is out
  of balance.
• An aerial-view shot (or birds-eye-view shot), an
  extreme type of point-of-view shot, is taken from
  an aircraft or very high crane and implies the
  viewers omniscient point of view.

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Scale

• Scale is the size and placement of a particular
  object or a part of a scene in relation to the
  rest, a relationship determined by the type of
  shot used and the position of the camera.

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Special Effects

• Special effects create images that would be too
  dangerous, too expensive, or, in some cases,
  simply impossible to achieve with traditional
  cinematography.
• Such illusions are accomplished in essentially
  three ways through in-camera effects created in
  the regular camera used for shooting on the
  original negative, through laboratory effects
  created on a fresh piece of film stock, and
  through computer-generated effects created by
  digital technology.