Week 1
The name given by the authors to the conventions of filmmaking that have evolved over time to become something like an overall film grammar.
What is cinematic language?
More specific versions of the main genre(s).
What are sub-genres?
Who or what tells the story of a film.
What is the narrator?
Chief electrician on a movie production set.
What is the gaffer?
Repeated images, seen throughout individual films, seen amongst genre.
What is iconography?
A returning visual, sound, or narrative element that imparts meaning or significance.
What is motif?
The illusion of movement created by evens that succeed each other rapidly, as when two adjacent lights flash on and off alternatively and we seem to see a single light shifting back and forth.
What is Phi Phenomenon?
A complex character possessing numerous, subtle repressed, or contradictory traits. Often develop over the course of a story.
What is a round character?
One interrupted run of the camera.
What is a shot?
Celluloid used to record movies.
What is film stock?
The perspective from which a story is told.
What is point-of-view?
A documentary film that systematically disseminates deceptive or distorted information.
What is a propaganda film?
The event or situation during the exposition stage of the narrative that sets the rest of the narrative in motion (inciting incident).
What is a catalyst?
An agent, structure, or other formal element, whether human or technological, that transfers something, such as information in the case of movies, from one place to another.
What is mediation?
Focuses on elements of film form, such as cinematography, editing, sound, and design, which have been assembled to make the film.
What is formal analysis?
Any information stated clearly and in detail, leaving no room for doubt.
What is explicit information?
An interest in or concern for the actual or real; a tendency to view or represent things as they really are.
What is realism?
The use of deep gradation and subtle variations of lights and darks within an image.
What is chiaroscuro?
The amount of time that it has taken to present the movies plot on-screen, i.e., the movie's running time.
What is screen duration?
The camera opening that defines the area of each frame of film exposed.
What is the aperture?
Slow movement of the camera towards a subject, making the subject appear larger and more significant.
What is Dolly-In?
The overall look and feel of a movie, the sum of everything the audience sees, hears, and experiences while viewing it.
What is mine-en-scene?
The process of capturing moving images on film or some other medium.
What is cinematography?
A principle pf composition that enables filmmakers to maximize the potential of the image, balance its elements, and create the illusion of depth.
What is the Rule of Thirds?
The organization, distribution, balance, and general relationship of stationary objects and figures, as well as of light, shade, line, and color, within the frame.
What is composition?