Glossary

Bridging Shot - A shot that connect two shots from the same scene or two connect one scene to another by showing a change in time or location.

Cinematography - The art of positioning a camera and lighting a scene - the composition of the image with the camera and the light: 'painting moving images with light'.

Close-up - A picture that shows a fairly small part of the scene, such as a character's face, in great detail so that it fills the screen. It abstracts the subject from a context. 

Codes - Commonly accepted and understood patterns or modes of representation in films.

Composition - The complete arrangement of a scene (by the director). The process includes camera angles, framing, lighting, properties, the layout of the scene and the movement of the camera. 

Connotation - The implicit meaning of a word or phase. In film connotation refers to the suggestive qualities of dialogue, sound, settings, images, et al.

Continuity (or invisible) editing - The editing style characteristic of the Hollywood system and classic narratives for the showing  of cause and effect.

Conventions - Elements of plot, character, mise en scene and other aspects of film language associated with particular genres and styles.

Cropping - An important element of framing -  cropping is the way in which the frame is used to exclude aspects of the mise en scene.

Crossing the line - Breaking the 180-degree rule of continuity editing.

Cross-cutting - Editing device - cutting back and forth between two locations or characters to suggest a relationship between them, e.g. that one is approaching the other. 

Cutaway - A sudden change to another scene of action or angle.

Denotation - the literal meaning of a word or phase in literature. In film the term applies to the process of describing images and sounds represented in films/other media texts.

Digital Technologies - Refers to any system for recording and reading information - images, sounds - in computer-based numerical codes rather than in the older 'analogue' systems where information is directly stored on film or tape. Besides being easier to access, manipulate and store than analogue copies, digital versions of texts are all equal quality. 

Dissolve - An edit where one image gradually replaces the other.

Editing - The process by which short are put together into sequences or sense. Usually described according to rhythm or pace (i.e. the varying lengths of the short in the sequence) and type of transition.

Establishing Shot - A long shot, often the first in a sequence that sets up, or 'establishes', a scene's setting and/or its participants.

Flashback - A narrative device that allows the audience insights in to characters' past experiences or motivations.

Frame - Either the individual images that comprise a filmstrip or the rectangular shape of the recorder images.

Jump Cut - Any cut that draw attention to itself.

Long Shot - A shot that shows all or most of a fairly large subject (for example, a person) and usually much of the surroundings.

Match on action - A cut between two shots of the same action from different angles, but giving the impression of the continuity of action.

Medium Shot - In such a shot the subject or actor and its setting occupy roughly equal areas in the frame.

Micro Short - A short film of less than 90 seconds in length.

Mise en scene - Literally, 'put in the picture': the combined effect of all the visual element in the frame, Includes location, set, props, costume, make-up and lighting. 

Montage - A style of editing or 'mounting' images on such a sequence that new meanings arise from their juxtaposition.

Narrative - The events happening to characters within a story and told over time, in chronological order.

Objective Shot - A shot that provides an audience with privileged knowledge, and which might not be available to the characters in the film.

Panning Shot - A shot in which the camera moves on a horizontal plain, from the left to right or vice versa.

Plot - The events in an individual narrative and how they are arranged.

Reaction Shot - A close-up in which an actor is seen to respond to an action.

Rough Cut - The rough cut contains the entire film in a continuous sequential order including the approximate running time to see how the film works. 

Rushes (clips) - The unedited shots.

Shot/reverse Shot - A film technique wherein one character is shown looking at another character, and then the other character, and then the other character is shown looking 'back' at the first character; frequently used in shooting conversations between characters.

Subjective (point-of-view) shot - A shot that shows what a character is looking at.

Take - The shot secured from the point of turning the camera on, to turning it off. Takes of each shot are generally numbered and the number of  each successive take is increased until the filming of the shot is completed.

Tracking shot - The action of physically moving the camera along a track in oder to follow an action or reveal a scene. 

Treatment - A written representation of the film, used as an overview of the film prior to the finalisation of the shooting script.

Two-Shot - The two-shot shows two people on the frame.