FILM & TV GLOSSARY
UKFILMNET FILM & TELEVISION PRODUCTION GLOSSARY
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absolute film | ||
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a film that is nonrepresentational, using form and design to produce its effect and often describable as visual music. | ||
abstract film | ||
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a film that presents recognisable images in such a way that the aim is more poetic than narrative. | ||
abstract form | ||
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a type of filmic organisation in which the parts relate to each other through repetition and variation of such visual qualities as shape, colour, rhythm, and direction of movement. See associational form | ||
actualities | ||
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an old term for documentaries | ||
aerial perspective | ||
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a cue for suggesting represented depth in the image by presenting objects in the distance less distinctly than those in the foreground | ||
affective fallacy | ||
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a term used in literary criticism to suggest that it is an error to judge a work of art on the basis of its results, especially its emotional effect | ||
affective theory | ||
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theory that deals with the effect of a work of art rather than its creation. | ||
aleatory technique | ||
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an artistic technique that utilises chance conditions and probability. In aleatory film, images and sounds are not planned in advance. | ||
ambient light | ||
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the natural light surrounding the subject, usually understood to be soft. | ||
anamorphic lens | ||
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a lens for making widescreen films using regular Academy ratio frame size. The camera lens takes in a wide field of view and squeezes it onto the frame, and a similar projector lens unsqueezes in onto a wide theatre screen. CinemaScope and Panavision are examples of anamorphic widescreen processes. | ||
angle of framing | ||
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See camera angle | ||
animatic | ||
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A rough television commercial or film produced by photographing or digitally scanning into a computer storyboard sketches and then compiled into a video clip with the audio portion synchronised to the pictures. Used primarily for testing purposes. | ||
animation | ||
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any process whereby artificial movement is created by photographing a series of drawings or computer images one by one. | ||
aperture | ||
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The aperture is the term used to describe the size of the hole in the front of the camera that permits light to enter and fall on the film (or the electronic image sensor) that is collecting the light. The device that controls the size of the aperture is known as the iris. Hence the setting that measures the iris 'hole' size is known as the aperture. Aperture is measured in f-stops and these range from f1.4 (fully open) through f2.0, f2.8, f4, f5., f8, f11 and f16, right up to f22 (fully closed). I.e. the larger the f-stop number the smaller the aperture size-the smaller the size of the hole permitting light into the camera. f1 .4 permits twice as much light as f2.0 and f2 .0 permits twice as much lighting as f2 .8. | ||
artisanal production | ||
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a production in contrast to the mass production of studio production. A filmmaker, producer, and crew devote their energy to making a single film. | ||
aspect ratio | ||
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the relationship of the television or film frame's width to its height. | ||
associational form | ||
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a type of organisation in which the film's parts are juxtaposed to suggest similarities, contrasts, concepts, emotions, and expressive qualities. | ||
asynchronous sound | ||
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sound that is not matched with image, as when dialogue is out of sync with lip movements | ||
attraction | ||
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Eisenstein's theory of film analyses the image as a series or collection of attractions, each in a dialectical relationship with the others. In this theory, attractions are thus basic elements of film form. | ||
auteur policy | ||
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politique des auteurs, first stated by Francois Truffaut in his article "Une certaine tendance du cinema francais" in Cahiers du cinema in 1954, suggests that one person, usually director, has the artistic responsibility for a film and reveals a personal worldview through the tensions among style, theme, and the conditions of production. It argues that films can be studied like novels and paintings as a product of an individual artist. | ||
autuer | ||
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an "author" of a film, usually identified as the director, especially a director with a recognisable style and whose personal vision dominates the film or filmmaking process, as opposed to just a "metteur en scene" whose direction is considered more like craftsmanship. | ||
avant garde | ||
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artists who are more intellectually or aesthetically advanced than are their contemporaries (if we assume that art is progressing). Avant garde films are generally non-narrative in structure. | ||
axis of action | ||
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In the continuity editing system, the imaginary line that passes from side to side through a main actors, defining the spatial relations of all the elements of the scene as being to the right or the left. It is also called the 180-degree line. When the camera crosses this axis at a cut, those spatial relations are reversed thereby confusing the audience. It is one of cardinal rules of continuity editing not to cross this axis during a sequence. | ||