Chapter 4 Flashcards
Cinematography
Motion-picture photography, literally “writing in movement”
Apparent Motion
The psychological process that explains our perception of movement when watching films, in which the brain actively responds to the visual stimuli of a rapid sequence of still images exactly as it would in actual motion perception.
Magic Lantern
A device developed in the 17th Century for using a lens and a light source to project an image from a slide; precursor of motion pictures.
Chronophotography
A sequence of still photographs that record incremental movement, such as those depicting human or animal motion produced by Eadweard Muybridge and Etienne-Jules Marey
Film Stock
Unexposed film consisting of a flexible backing or base and a light-sensitive emulsion
Nitrate
The highly flammable chemical base of 35mm film stock in use until the early 1950s
Safety Film
Acetate-based film stock that replaced the highly flammable nitrate film base in the early 1950s
Film Gauge
The width of the film stock - such as 8mm, 16mm, 35mm, 70mm
Panchromatic Stock
A film stock that responds to a full spectrum of colours, rendering them as shades of grey, and became the standard for black-and-white movies after 1926.
Technicolor
Patented colour processing that uses three strips of film to transfer red, green, and blue directly onto a single image; developed between 1926 and 1932 and widely used until the 1950s
Camera Lens
A piece of curved glass that focuses light rays in order to form an image on film.
Focal Length
The distance from the centre of the lens to the point where light rays meet in sharp focus.
Telephoto Lens
A lens that has a focal length of at least 75mm and is capable of magnifying and flattening distant objects.
Zoom Lens
A lens with a variable focal length.
Depth of Field
The range of distance before and behind the main focus of a shot within which objects remain relatively sharp and clear.
Wide-angle lens
A lens with a short focal length (typically less than 35mm) that allows cinematographers to explore a depth of field that can simultaneously show foreground and background objects or events in focus.
Handheld Camera
A lightweight camera that can be carried by the operator rather than mounted on a tripod. Allow for greater mobility, lower production costs, and encourages location shooting.
Widescreen Processes
Any of a number of systems introduced in the 1950s that widened the image’s aspect ratio and the dimensions of the movie screen.
Aspect Ratio
The width-to-height ratio of the film frame as it appears on a movie screen or television monitor
Anamorphic Lens
A camera lens that compresses the horizontal axis of a widescreen image onto a strip of 35mm film or a projector lens that decompresses such an image.
Filter
Transparent sheets of glass or gels placed in front of the lens to create various effects.
Flare
A spot or flash of white created by directing strong light directly at the lens.
Zooming
Rapidly changing focal length of a camera to move the image closer or farther away.
Camera Movement
A property of a shot in which the camera moves of the borders of the image are altered by a change in the focal length of the camera lens to follow an action or explore a space.
IMAX
A large-format film system that is projected horizontally rather than vertically to produce an image approximately ten times larger than the standard 35mm frame.
Analog Video
Analog or digital electronic medium that captures, records, stores, displays, and transmits moving images.
Digital Cinematography
Shooting with a camera that records and stores visual information electronically as digital code.
Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI)
Still or animated images created through digital computer technology. First introduced in the 1970s, CGI was used to create feature-length films by the mid-1990s and is widely used for visual effects.
Digital Intermediate (DI)
A digitized version of a film that allows it to be manipulated.
Digital Cinema Package (DCP)
A collection of digital files that stores and projects audio, image, and data streams.
Shot
A continuous point of view (or continuously exposed piece of film) between two edits.
Cut
In the editing process, the join or splice between two pieces of film; in the finished film, an editing transition between two separate shots or scenes achieved without optical effects.
Take
A single filmed version of a scene during production or a single shot onscreen.
Master Shot
A single shot recording an entire scene from start to finish from an angle and distance that keep everything in view. It is used for coverage during the editing process.
Coverage
Filming many takes, often using different setups, in order to have options during editing.
Point of View
A subjective shot that reproduces a characters optical point of view, often preceded or followed by shots of the character looking.
Subjective Point of View
A point of view that re-creates the perspective of a character as seen through the camera.
Objective Point of View
A point of view that does not associate the perspective of the camera with that of a specific character.