Film Terms Part 2 Flashcards
High Angle Shot/Low Angle Shot
These terms refer to camera placement. If a camera is looking down on an actor from a high vantage, it is a high angle shot; if a camera is placed very low to the ground and looks “up” at actors, it is a low angle shot. High angle shots might emphasize that characters are being overwhelmed by their circumstances, while low angle shots might emphasize that characters are somehow larger than life. Be very careful, however, when attaching a certain cinema technique to a recurring plot device or tone. There are always exceptions, and you need to evaluate every scene individually.
Take (and short and long take)
generally, a take refers to the time a shot is begun to the time it stops. On a film sets, a director might have to go through several takes before settling on the shot he or she wants (you probably have seen this in films before, with the clapboard and someone shouting “Take 12” –meaning they have done this shot eleven times before this one). Alternatively, like shot, take also takes on a secondary meaning when combined with certain adjectives (in this case, long and short), except that a long or short take refers to time, whereas a long short or close up refers to distance. A short take, for instance, might be one or two seconds long, although contemporary films continue to use shorter and shorter takes of less than a single second (making two or three seconds, which sounds like a short amount of time, not very short at all). A long take would refer to a single unbroken shot that lasts for a larger amount of time– thirty seconds, for instance. One extreme recent example of a long take would be Russian Ark, a film shot on digital video and using a single, very long take for the entire film. Another more extreme example would b ed Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope, where the director used long takes of several minutes apiece and attempted to hide the cuts by tracking behind characters’ backs or pieces of furniture. Some directors are also famous for the use of long takes, such as Jean Renoir and Orson Welles.
Frame
Literally, a frame of film refers to the smallest unit of film possible. Film frames appear on a film strip, which when projected, creates the illusion of motion. Film is shown at 24 frames per second (or f.p.s. a common abbreviation). In a much looser sense, scholars sometimes talk about the frame to mean the four sides of the film as it is being projected, and they also often use it as a verb (e.g. “the film frames the action in such a way that we can see both characters at once.”)
Screen
Often used with on or off to refer to what we see within the frame. On screen, for instance, is something we can see, whereas off screen action might be something we hear but which takes place outside the frame. Screen also refers to the actual physical screen on which we project film.
Screen
Often used with on or off to refer to what we see within the frame. On screen, for instance, is something we can see, whereas off screen action might be something we hear but which takes place outside the frame. Screen also refers to the actual physical screen on which we project film.
Shallow/Soft Focus
Refers to how much of the shot is in focus. With shallow or soft focus, generally we can only see the actor’s face in focus. The background appears blurry. This kind of focus was common in Classic Hollywood films and is still common, because the viewer cannot see the background, then the director does not need to light the background, for instance, or make sure the background is perfectly ordered. Also a blurry background focuses our attention all the more on what is in focus, which is generally the actor’s face. Shallow focus is achieved with a long lens (this can be confusing, since one would assume a shallow focus would require a short lens).
Deep Focus
Refers to a shot in which everything, including the background, is in focus. This type of shot is much more difficult to achieve, since the entire set must be adequately lit, designed, etc. Also, the danger is that the viewer’s attention will shift from subject to backdrop, but some directors use this “danger” to their advantage. William Wyler, for instance, in The Best Years of Our Lives, shows a man playing piano in the foreground while another man in the background calls his girlfriend (the first man’s daughter) to break things off. Without deep focus, this shot would be impossible. Directors Jean Renoir and Orson Welles are most often associated with deep focus, which sometimes (but does not always) accompany long takes and a moving camera (since everything is lit, the camera is much more able to move fluidly and reposition itself among props and actors).
Rack Focus
Shifting the focus from one object to another within a single shot. Sometimes, directors will use a rack focus when two characters are on screen at once but are positioned at different distances from the camera.
Editing
Refers to the way that individual shots are connected to one another to make the film.
Montage
This word has two meanings. First, montage can simply be another word for editing, which is often the way you will see it in film theory or when we study Soviet filmakers of the early twentieth century. Second, and more commonly in contemporary usage, montage refers to a series of shots edited together to shoe a longer activity evolving in a shorter amount of time or to show a series of related activities. A sports film, for instance, might have a training montage, where the character becomes more better at the sport (the film might condense three months of training, for instance, into a two minute montage of jogging, lifting weights, etc.) Or a film might show a series of related activities through a montage. For instance, a film about a news station might have a montage of the evening news preparing to air (with shots of make up being applied to the anchor’s faces, cameras being moved into position, producers arguing over a story, and other images and sounds we might associate with this scene.)
