Basic Film Terms

Time components of film

• Running time—the full duration of a film. (Feature films are generally 90-120 minutes.)

• Story time—the amount of time the plot covers. (Could be hours or centuries.)

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

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)

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

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II (2011)

The Dark Knight (2008)

Establishing Shot (or Extreme Long Shot)

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

• ELS

The Godfather (1974)

The Good, The Bad , and The Ugly (1966)

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

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

The Godfather, Part II (1974)

Fight Club (1999)

300 (2006)

Close-Up (CU)

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

Apocalypse Now

Extreme Close-Up (ECU)

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

The Saint In London

Rocky Horror Picture Show

X-Men: First Class (2011)

Rocky Horror Picture Show

Donnie Darko (2001)

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

High Angle (h/a)

• Camera looks down at what is being photographed

Without Limits

Big Fish

The Big Lebowski

Blade Runner

Low Angle (l/a)

• Camera is located below subject matter

The Patriot

Jurassic Park

The Patriot

Across the Universe

“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

The Dark Knight

Inception

The Shining

Camera Movement

Pan

• The camera moves horizontally on a fixed base.

• Usually a stationary camera in a smaller space

Panning

Tilting

• The camera points up or down from a fixed base

Tilt

Tracking (dolly) shot

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

The Dolly Shot

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

The Zoom

Boom

• The camera moves up or down through space

Crane

• A camera that is high up on a crane

Lighting

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

Low Key lighting

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

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

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

Sound

• Diegetic – sound that characters (key word) in the film can hear

• Non-diegetic – sounds that in the film that characters cannot hear

Editing techniques

Cut

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

• Most common

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.

Fade-out/Fade in

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

Wipe

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

Two Shot or Reverse-Shot- Reverse

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

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

Eyeline Match

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

Flashback

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

Final Things to Note:

• Framing (left, right, bottom, top, center)

• Dialogue/music lyrics

• Costuming/colors

• The Filter

• 2 basic philosophies of film-making