CINEMATOGRAPHIC GLOSSARY

CINEMATOGRAPHIC GLOSSARY

CINEMATOGRAPHIC GLOSSARY

ADAPTATION. Re-elaboration of a narrative, theatrical, radio text and also a news story or a journalistic report, made in such a way as to give rise to a film script.

SHOT ANGLE. Position of the camera. It is distinguished in: normal when the camera is on the same plane as the object being shot; raised, when the camera takes up from above; lowered, when the camera starts from the bottom.

ART DIRECTOR. Stage Construction Director or Production Designer.

ATTACK. The way to go from one frame to another.

ACTOR. Interpret the character expected in the written script. It is chosen by the director. It can be replaced by a stand-in in the most dangerous or acrobatic scenes. The actors who do not pronounce jokes are extras.

ROOM. Camera or movie camera with which moving images are fixed on the film.

FIELD. It is the amount of space shown by the frame. The field can be: very long when it embraces, in the shots of the exteriors, a very large space and offers an overall view of the place, so that the human figures are either not present or appear at a considerable distance, barely distinguishing themselves; long, when in the exterior the human figure remains of limited dimensions; medium, when the figure, despite having greater relief, does not reach the top and bottom edges of the picture with head and feet; total, when the totality of an interior is shown with all the characters acting on it (eg the total of a square or a studio); off-screen is all that, excluded from the field, one senses nevertheless to be present in the six places around the camp (ie on the four sides of the field, behind the scenography, behind the camera). The field is often used to build strong dramatic effects and its presence and nature can be sensed through the expressions of the characters or the movements of the machine. Field/countershot: the technique of shooting and editing consisting of following another shot with a shot, but taken from the opposite corner. It is often used in the resumption of a dialogue, a duel, etc. to contrast one a character with another.

TROLLEY. The movement performed by moving the camera mounted on rails where a trolley or another platform is placed (eg the houndstooth, a three-wheeled cart, or the camera car, when the camera is fixed on a car or on a motorcycle). The movement can be forward or backward, in the side railway, in the side lift, aerial, for shooting from above, in a circular (turning around the subject). Optical tracking: the effect of moving away or approaching by operating the zoom, even very quickly.

CAST. All the main and secondary actors involved in a film are meant.

CASTING. Distributor of the parts: he is in charge of choosing the right actors of a film, proposing them to the director and the producer.

CIAK. Wooden the instrument in the form of a tablet fitted with a swinging rod in the lower part, on which are written the title of the film, the names of the director and the director of photography, the number of the scene, of the shot and of the shot which we are about to turn. It is captured at the head of every shot to simplify assembly. The clapper beats in front of the lens when the director pronounces the words: "Engine, action!", Which follow the words "Silence!".

FILMMAKER. Anyone who collaborates in any way, usually excluding the actors, with making a film.

CINEMA. From the Greek kinéo ( Nuovo ) and graphs (I write), an apparatus invented in 1895 by the French brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière, with which it was possible for the first time to project a succession of moving photographic images onto a screen. Their first one-minute video was entitled The Exit from Lumière Factories.

Kinetoscope. Apparatus for cinema projections which in the upper part had an opening on which one spectator at a time could observe the film of the film, which for the first time consisted of a celluloid ribbon, scrolled quickly. It was invented by Thomas Alva Edison, the inventor of the light bulb.

CLIMAX. The highlight of a film.

TAIL. Piece of black or white film placed at the beginning or end of the rollers to allow loading.

SOUNDTRACK. Lateral space of a film reserved for sound recording. It is obtained through the mixage on a single column of at least three columns until then separated: that of the dialogues, that of the music and that of the noises. The column of dialogues is almost never the one recorded during filming because it can easily contain errors (accidental noises, the actor makes a mistake ...). The music column is definitely composed with a film mounted, since the times of the music must correspond to those of the scene.

COLOR. The first color film, produced in 1935 by the US film company RKO, was shot by director Rouben Mamoulian. It was called Becky Sharp .

Dupe. Process by which films are obtained with negative images, printing them from a positive copy, called "lavender" in jargon due to its light blue color. Negative counter-types allow you to print perfect new copies of the film.

PROCESSING COPY. It is the first positive copy of the film obtained during the editing, still consisting of two columns, the one of the visual and that of the sound.

SCRIPT. The text of the screenplay of a film, collected and typed in a kind of book that is distributed to the director, the actors, the editor, etc.

DETAIL. Type of the foreground that captures a detail of a person or an object.

PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTOR. He takes care of lighting, camera position, choice of film type, etc. The workforce depends on him: train drivers, electricians, operators.

FADE. Visual effect which is used to switch from one shot of the film to the other without a clear cut. It consists in making the image slowly appear or disappear, varying its brightness; in opening the subject appears progressively from the bottom; in closing it is made to disappear gradually, obscuring it. When the image disappears and at the same time another appears, the cross- fading occurs, usually used to mean the passage of time or the contemporaneity of two actions in different places.

DISTRIBUTOR. Whoever buys the film's exploitation rights from the producer, rents it to the exhibitors, turns it into a DVD or a television product, and usually finances the related advertising campaign. This figure may also coincide with that of the manufacturer.

DOLLY. Tool consisting of a small crane ( dolly ) mounted on a trolley, used by the operator, which houses it with the chamber, to perform lateral, vertical and horizontal movements.

DUBBING. Operation carried out by the voice actors, who replace the voice of the actors with their own, especially when one wants to translate a foreign film. But an actor can also dub his own voice in a studio, which allows for greater sound reliability. With dubbing, you can also provide the film with a different soundtrack than the one recorded during the making of the film.

SPECIAL EFFECTS. They can be sound or visual. Those sound are obtained to reproduce sounds that are neither the dialogue nor the music of a film and generally correspond to noises of environments: steps, opening and closing of doors, rain or wind, vehicle noises, etc. The visual ones are obtained in order to create unreal, illusionistic images, of different dimensions from the real or no longer existing. Some effects are obtained during shooting, others in the laboratory. They are widely used in sci-fi and catastrophic cinema.

NIGHT EFFECT. Shooting technique, also known as "American night", consisting in making a shot, during the day, steps for a night shot.

OPERATOR. The person or company that manages the administration of a movie theater.

EXPRESSIONISM. German cinematographic current in which reality is distorted with fantastic or even monstrous scenes, in dark, dark atmospheres. Robert Wiene's film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari , is considered the progenitor of this genus. Very famous were Nosferatu the vampire (1922) and Metropolis (1926).

FICTION. A predominantly television term that indicates everything that is an imaginary narrative, and therefore is not a documentary, debate, newscast, etc.

FLASHBACK. Backward flash of memory. It is the narrative medium used in a film to interrupt the chronological continuity of the story and introduce a fact that occurred previously in reality, in the dream or in the memory. It is generally accomplished by assembly, by means of a clear break or a cross-fade. It can be very short or very long.

FlashForward. A flash forward, into the future, with imagination, when certain events are expected as possible.

FLOU. Optical effect of blurring the image, such as to blur the outlines. It is used to immerse things or figures in the vagueness of dreams or memories. It is obtained by means of filters or gauze veils.

FRAME. Each of the paintings in which the impressed film is divided. Scrolling at a speed of 24 per second, the projected frames give the impression of movement.

FIRE. In cinematography it is the point of maximum sharpness achieved by the image destined to be the center of the spectator's attention.

GAG. Visual or verbal invention, of short duration, which during a film generates sudden hilarity.

KINDS. The main genres of cinematography are: western, police, horror, musical, adventure, animation, comedy, science fiction, war, historian ...

DAILY. The printed cinematographic material that the director, the actors and the technicians are used to make projected daily for a vision of control.

WIDE. Objective that widens the normal visual angle tending to deform the lateral areas.

TOWER CRANE. Large equipment designed to make the camera perform large vertical, horizontal and transversal movements, sometimes combined with those of the trolley. It is also called dolly .

HAPPY END. The happy ending of a film. Typical in western movies is "the arrival of ours", that is the cavalry that has the upper hand over the Indians.

HOLLYWOOD. California town that in the years 1907-08 became the world capital of cinema. It had been chosen by many important producers because the mild climate made it possible to shoot outdoor scenes almost in every season of the year. Furthermore, there were huge spaces available and a lot of cheap labor. In Hollywood it was decided for the first time the industrial realization of the films, which included the standardization of genres (westerns, melodrama, adventure, comedy, etc.), the professionalism of all the operators, the creation of the stardom of actors and actresses, the use of advertising to market the product on a global scale.

LIGHTING. It can be natural (sunlight) or artificial (reflectors, lamps, spotlights). Lighting management is up to the director of photography.

SHOT. It is the amount of space recorded by the camera (landscape, figures, objects ...) in a certain time: more shots shot in the same spatial unit give life to the scene. The frame is also the set of frames shot without interruption. It is the moving or fixed image corresponding to the space captured by the camera lens. It can be taken from above, from below, oblique, plumb, upside down ... It is objective if it reproduces reality as seen by the director's eye; subjective if it reproduces reality as the eye of a character sees it. More shots or more scenes, shot even in very different environments, make a sequence.

LUMIÈRE. Surname of the two French brothers (Auguste and Louis) who invented cinematography in 1895. Around 1500 films were shot in a few years, all of them short documentaries, but, despite their success, they abandoned production as early as 1901. Their first documentary appeared in Paris on December 28, 1895, the arrival of a train at La station. Ciotat : the almost frontal resumption of a train entering the station so terrified the spectators who, believing they were invested, fled from the hall.

Melies. The French illusionist and magician, Georges Méliès (1861-1938), was the first to create films using a multi-scene editing system. This allowed him to make the first film tricks, moving from the documentary genre to the fantastic one. A 10-15 minute film could have a film length of up to 500 meters. In the film studio he set up in Montreuil, near Paris, he shot more than 500 films, using actors for the first time and then inventing a cinematographic narrative directed by the figure of the "director". His most famous film was The Journey to the Moon (1902), of thirty futuristic scenes, whose individual frames had been colored by hand.

MIXING. Phase of film processing during which dubbing, recording of sound effects and music are mixed on a single magnetic tape which constitutes the definitive soundtrack.

ASSEMBLY. Phase of the processing of a film in which the most expressive shots and sequences, among the many turns, are joined together. Editing is one of the central moments in the creation of a film, because it determines the nature and rhythm of the story. It can be of various types: linear , a sequence of shots and sequences in a logical and chronological order; alternated or crossed : glued together simultaneous shots or sequences, but set in different places, to give the impression, with a fast alternation of the images, that the actions took place at the same time; parallel , when the images reproduce opposite actions, but without temporal relationships; descriptive , when images are introduced that have no precise spatial-temporal reference with the others, to which they are joined; to Griffith (name of an American director), when two contemporary actions, but of a different environment, are rapidly alternated as long as they come together. The editing can make use of the flashback , interrupting the course of events with a jump in the past; or flash-forward , anticipating events that will occur later. The assembly also links the images to each other according to different criteria: detachment, fading in closing, fading in opening, cross-fading, sequence plane.

MACHINE MOVEMENT. The movements of the camera, whether panoramic, trolley-mounted, crane or dolling or composite movements.

SLOW MOTION. Table equipped for mounting the film.

NEOREALISM. Italian cinematographic current of the second post-war period, which rejects the canons of fascist cinematography and focuses on the representation of real life, especially in the aspects of marginalization and poverty, in real existing places: the same actors were often not professionals and spoke Italian used in the streets. The film that marks the birth of this current is Rome City Open (1945) by Roberto Rossellini. Other very famous films were Sciuscià , Paisà , Bicycle Thieves , La terra trema ...

OPERATOR. Also known as a cameraman, he is the one who maneuvers the camera following the directives of the director of photography (when the two people do not coincide).

PAN FOCUS. Shooting process that focuses on all the details of a shot.

OVERVIEW. Horizontal, vertical or oblique movement, obtained by rotating the camera around its axis, so as to capture the whole panorama of external spaces, including objects or figures that move around it, like a person's circular gaze. It also indicates the resulting shot. A rapid "slap-sweep" is said to move the camera from one frame to another.

PEAK. The "peak" of a television film, that is a moment of great tension in history, which is unfortunately often used for an advertising break.

PLAN. It consists of the frames in which the human element predominates. The plans are of different types: very close up , when only the face of the actor or a very close object appears; foreground , when the face and part of the actor's bust appears; half figure , when the actor is taken up from the waist up; full figure , when the actor touches the top and bottom edges of the picture; American piano , when the figure is taken from the knees upwards (typical in the duels of western movies); particular , when only a detail of the human body appears (mouth, hands ...); detail , when only a detail of an object or an animal appears. The listening plan has a predominantly television use, as it indicates the frame of the listener to the person who is speaking: in general he finds employment in the interview. The sequence plan is a single frame that follows the subject in a uniform way, without cuts or detachments: in this way the assembly in slow motion is avoided. Cinematic time and real time coincide. When the film was used, the maximum possible shot was 11 minutes, the equivalent of a reel of 300 meters. Hitchcock's film, The rope , was filmed this way, using a series of tricks between one reel and another.

PLOT. It's the plot, the main story of a film. The subplot are the secondary stories.

PRODUCER. Who provides the capital needed to make a film, organizes its production and completes it.

DEPTH OF FIELD. Possibility to focus all the space inside a frame.

PAINTING. The movie screen space occupied during the projection of the frame.

MOVIE DIRECTOR. Turn the written script into a movie, choosing and directing the actors on the set. You can avail yourself of the collaboration of an assistant director.

REMAKE. Partial or total re-make of a film, generally very successful, made over time, preserving the plot or updating it and changing the dialogues, the performers and the director.

RECOVERY. The act of taking an image with the camera and recording it on the film screen: panoramic, dolly shot, optical tracking, hand-shot, dolling, aerial or underwater shooting are various forms of cinematographic shooting. It is almost never unique: the same image can be resumed dozens of times, until the best result is reached. Hand-held shooting occurs when the camera is operated by the operator without a foothold: a specific camera, called steadycam , is fixed to the cameraman by means of a sling, allowing him to keep the frame stable.

Artist. Technician specialized in the reproduction of any type of noise.

LADDER. Stage of elaboration of the written text of a film between the subject and the treatment. It provides general indications on the subdivision of the subject into narrative blocks and summarizes the order of the most important scenes.

SCENE. Every moment of the cinematographic representation in which the scenographic factors, fixed and mobile, internal or external, generally do not undergo mutations. The scenes of a cinematic story are defined by the sets , ie from the places where the action takes place. The scenes must be numbered, indicated at each change of sets, they must also indicate the light necessary for the action.

FILM SCRIPT. The final stage of processing the written text of a film which, with respect to each scene, contains all the information necessary for the shooting, the actions of the actors, the lines of the dialogue, the interventions of the music (soundtrack and background noise), the atmospheric indications, room descriptions. It derives from the writing of the subject, through the intermediate phases of the lineup and treatment. The scenes must be numbered and marked with precise indications of time and place. The screenwriter is helped by professional historians when the film deals with historical subjects.

DESIGN. The art of creating natural environments, built, adapted, in which the action of a film must take place. Scenes can be set up by the scenographer, both outdoors and in soundstages (movie studios), or directly on the computer.

SECRETARY OF EDITION. Who, during the shooting on the set, takes note, timing them, of the processing times, of all the details of the scene (clothes, position of the actors and objects), so that mistakes are not made when they turn, after hours or days, successive shots of the same sequence.

SEQUENCE. It is a set of shots that constitute a whole from the point of view of the story. They enjoy a relative autonomy almost like a chapter of a novel. You have the sequence plan when multiple scenes follow one another without a break in a single frame thanks to a single and continuous movement of the camera; the sequence plan therefore abolishes the practice of assembly. Generally the sequences of the interiors are turned first, then those of the exteriors, to avoid continuous displacements of the cast.

SET. The place, conveniently set up, in which the filming of a film takes place, in a soundstage or outdoors.

SUBJECT. The topic of a film, contained in a few pages with an indication of the plot, places, times and characters. The subject may derive from a literary, musical or theatrical work, from a historical or news story or from the imagination of an author who wrote it precisely for the purpose of cinematographic use.

SOUND. The first sound film, produced in 1927 by the US film company Warner Bros, was shot by director Alan Crosland. It was called The Jazz Singer , whose main actor was Al Jolson.

REMOVAL. The transition from one frame to another, without ties, without interruption, indeed often in contrast: for example, from a silent and shaded interior to an exterior full of light and noise.

Steadicam. Camera fixed on the operator with a special harness: it has a kind of arm that allows the machine to rotate, obtaining extraordinary effects. It is used as a rule with a large angle and requires a lot of skill.

STORYBOARDS. The story of a film or even a scene made with drawn frames. It is mainly used in television commercials.

SOUND TECHNICIAN. It takes care of recording the soundtrack, which includes, in addition to the noises, the speech (dialogues, any voiceover ...) and the music itself.

CAMERA. The camera can replace the film. The image produced is no longer chemical but electronic. The camera allows the director to immediately review the footage.

TELEFILM. In English serials , in American series . A series of television films that share the character and the environment. Each TV series usually has a story with a beginning and an end. A series of comedy TV series is called sit-com ( situation comedy ), but there are also telenovelas , the television equivalent of appendix novels, which tell private stories, of love and tears.

TENDON. A cinematographic medium to pass from one shot to the next by progressively hiding part of the scene and making the following appear.

THRILLER. A generic term (from thrill , thrill) that defines a highly emotional film, which puts the viewer in an anxious state, proposing situations that can have a tragic conclusion.

TRANSPARENT. Use of visual special effects obtained by projecting onto a translucent screen of glass or plastic, placed behind the actors, a scene turned previously, which comes to be the background to the one that is being filmed. It is used to simulate a car ride, an airplane flight, etc.

TREATMENT. Phase of elaboration of the written text of a film between lineup and script. It provides more and more detailed information on the action of the characters, the order of the duration of the sequences, the topic of the dialogues.

TROUPE. The set of all those involved in the production of a film: director (usually using an assistant editor), actors and extras (often assisted by stand-ins), technicians (set designer, director of photography, noise writer, sound technician, voice actors).

Truka. Optical printer with which special effects can be obtained at the time of printing: tricks, special optical effects, slowing down and acceleration, elimination of shooting errors, etc.

TV MOVIE. Movies produced expressly for television.

VOICE OUTSIDE THE FIELD. In the dialogue column, when you want to indicate who is speaking, you write the name of the character in capital letters and then what it says. But if he writes next to the name FC ( Off field , or Off ), then it means that the words are spoken by someone who at that moment is not framed. A voiceover can also be simply the inner voice of an actor who thinks and does not move his lips.

ZOOM. Lens with variable focal length that allows to obtain effects of approaching and moving away from props without having to move the camera.