Vocab

Question 1

Aspect Ratio. What is the standard Academy ratio?

Answer 1

the relationship of the frame’s width to its height. The standard Academy ratio is 1.85:1

Question 2

Auteur

Answer 2

the presumed or actual “author” of a film, usually identified as the director. Also sometimes used in an evaluative sense to distinguish good filmmakers (auteurs) from bad ones.

Question 3

Backlighting

Answer 3

illumination cast onto the figure in the scene from the side opposite the camera, usually creating a thin outline of highlighting on those figures.

Question 4

Cinematography

Answer 4

A general term for all the manipulations of the film strip by the camera in the shooting phase and by the laboratory in the developing phase.

Question 5

Close-up

Answer 5

a framing in which the scale of the object shown is relatively large; most commonly a person’s head seen from the neck up or an object of comparable size that fills most of the screen.

Question 6

Continuity editing

Answer 6

a system of cutting to maintain continuous and clear narrative action. Continuity editing relies upon matching screen direction, position, and temporal relations from shot to shot.

Question 7

Crosscutting

Answer 7

editing that alternates shots of two or more lines of action occurring in different places, usually simultaneously

Question 8

Deep-focus

Answer 8

a use of the camera lens and lighting that keeps both the close and distant planes being photographed in sharp focus

Question 9

Diegesis

Answer 9

in a narrative film, the world of the film’s story.

Question 10

Diegetic sound

Answer 10

any voice, musical passage, or sound effect presented as originating from a source within the film’s world.

Question 11

Distribution

Answer 11

One of the three branches of the film industry; the process of supplying the finished film to the places where it will be shown.

Question 12

Establishing shot

Answer 12

A shot, usually involving a distant framing that shows the spatial relations among the important figures, objects, and setting in a scene.

Question 13

Exhibition

Answer 13

One of the three general areas of the film industry; the process of showing the finished film to audiences.

Question 14

Eyeline match

Answer 14

a cut obeying the axis of action principle, in which the first shot shows a person looking off in one direction and the second shows a nearby space containing what he or she sees. IF the person looks left, the following shot should imply that the looker is off-screen right.

Question 15

Long shot

Answer 15

a framing in which the scale of the object shown is small; a standing human figure would appear nearly the height of the screen.

Question 16

Medium shot

Answer 16

a framing in which the scale of the object shown is of moderate size; a human figure seen from the waist up would fill most of the screen

Question 17

Mise-en-scene

Answer 17

all of the elements placed in front of the camera to be photographed: the settings and props, costumes and make-up, and figure behavior.

Question 18

Montage

Answer 18

a synonym for editing; an approach to editing developed by the Soviet filmmakers of the 1920s, it emphasizes dynamic, often discontinuous, relationships between shots and the juxtaposition of images to create ideas not present in either shot by itself.

Question 19

Nondiegetic sound

Answer 19

sound such as mood music or a narrator’s commentary, represented as coming from a source outside of the space of the narrative.

Question 20

180-degree system

Answer 20

the continuity approach to editing dictates that the camera should stay on one side of the action to ensure consistent life-right spatial relations between objects from shot to shot. The 180-degree line is the same as the axis of action.

Question 21

Production

Answer 21

One of the three branches of the film industry the process of creating the film

Question 22

Three-point lighting

Answer 22

a common arrangement using three directions of light on a scene from behind the subjects (backlighting) from one bright source (key light), and from a less bright source balancing the key
light (fill light)