--A--B--C--D--E--F--G--H--I--J--K--L--M--N--O--P--Q--R--S--T--U--V--W--X--Y--Z
Accent Light – A lighting instrument used to focus attention on a certain part of a shot.
Aleatory Technique - Using luck and happenstance for production. Used mostly in comedy and documentary videos, where rough plans are drawn up, and then are allowed to develop in front of the camera.
Alternating Current (AC)- Current from a generator, like what is in your house.
Arc Shot - A shot movement where the camera circles the subject.
Assistant Camera - A person who, working with a camera operator helps maintain the camera and do the more complex operations that require more than one set of hands, such as pulling focus.
Audio Mixer - A device that “mixes” sounds from various sources such as tape decks, CDs, microphones, and so forth. Sometimes called an audio board.
Auto Iris - Automatic control of the aperture of the iris on a video camera to control exposure. Not often used in video production because of the problem with transients, it is mostly used in consumer and news photography.
Automatic Gain Control (AGC) - Regulates the volume of audio or video levels automatically. AGC is good when you do not have time to control video or audio levels by hand, but no matter how good it has gotten transients, which are sudden changes in condition like thunderclaps or reflected flashed of light, can cause AGC to clamp down and become very noticeable.
Available Light - The light available naturally on a scene, without artificial lighting. Available light can be used effectively by addition of reflectors, scrims, flags, dots, fingers, and butterflys to block, bounce, or diffuse light on set.
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Baby – A 1000-watt lighting instruments. OK, so this is not a baby to a college student who normally plays with 500-watt instruments, but in the profession when you can have 10,000-watt and 25,000-watt instruments floating around (and once in a while crashing to the ground) this is a baby.
Back Focus – Adjusts the relationship of the lens with the pickup device in a camera. A properly adjusted back focus means that if you zoom in and focus at the cameras tightest angle of view, the image will remain in focus when you zoom out. If instead you focus while zoomed in and zoom out to find the picture is out of focus, the back focus of the camera needs adjusting.
Background – The area in the back of the plane of focus, or the area of psychological focus. Or an object set in the back of the main plane of action.
Background Action - Action that occurs in the background of a scene. For example, if your two main characters are police, and they are in a squad room talking, chances are a lot of other police and citizens are doing all sorts of stuff at the same time, filling in the details of the environment. Characters performing background action are said to be employed, which is just barely the case because they do not get paid a lot.
Back Lighting - Light that shines on a subject from behind and above, rimming the head and shoulders, and providing a sense of contrast and false depth. A back light will be seen as a rim of light around the subject’s upper portion.
Barn Doors - Device which is attached to a lighting instrument to control the spill of light. Or, what keeps the cow inside.
Blimp - Device that fits around a shotgun mic to eliminate wind noise. A blimp can be simply a shell, or it can be a big furry thing that looks like the audio person impaled a muppet on an aluminum pole. A blimp could also be a device to quite down the operation of a film camera when sync sound is being recorded.
Boom - An extendable pole for lifting a microphone, camera, or light in the air. A different sort of boom which does a similar job is a jib.
Boom Microphone - Microphone held above the action by a boom arm.
Boom Operator - Operator of a microphone or camera boom.
Boom Shot - A shot that uses a boom to lift the camera up and move it around through the air.
Blocking - Setting up a scene. Positioning talent, cameras, and props, then constructing the points at which action will take place.
Blue-Gunning – Method of adjusting a monitor using a color bar so that it displays colors correctly. Many monitors will have a switch that says “B Gun only”.
Bumper - A short identification used to designate a change from commercial to program material, or to designate a change from local to national commercials.
Business - Nonverbal actions by a talent to make a realistic interpretation of a character. When done in the background, it is sometimes called employment.
Butterfly - A large expanse of fabric held up by one or more stands and sometimes guy wires and stakes. It acts as a large scrim, flag, or reflector of light. Technically, a big butterfly is called an overhead, while the term butterfly is restricted to smaller units, but now days everyone calls them butterflys and overheads interchangeable. Old timers though will take offense.
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Call - Time when people must show up for work on set.
Cameo Lighting - Lighting only a single subject and a small space on set, used to bring a single subject to the foreground and reduces the audiences choice of what to look at on screen.
Cameo Shot - Simple shot where all of the attention is focused on one subject through the use of plain backgrounds, lighting, and camera arrangement.
Camera Angle - The point of view of the camera. This can be from in front or behind talent, or from high angle or low angle.
Camera Left – To the left of the image the camera picks up. As opposed to stage left which is the opposite direction.
Camera Right – To the right of the image the camera picks up. As opposed to stage right which is the opposite direction.
Camera Operator - In studio productions, the person who operates a studio camera and its positioning equipment. In field productions operates the camera under the aegis of the Director of Photography.
Cardiod Microphone - Unidirectional microphone pickup pattern.
Cast – All of the talent in a production.
Century Stand - Called a C-Stand, this device is simply the most useful piece of grip equipment ever invented, and one of the tougher to use properly. You can use it to hold flags, scrims, lighting instruments, butterflys, or your coat.
Character Generator (CG) – Computer and application which adds titles or other graphics to a television show. Now days this is often the term given just to a live application of titling, but some nonlinear editors will still call their graphics packages character generators. This does not refer to the process of rolling up Dungeons and Dragons characters in the middle of a video production.
Charged Coupling Device (CCD) – Light sensitive semi-conductor which acts as the “film” in video cameras. Light hits the CCD, which is converted into an electrical pulse and encoded into information that can be turned into a video signal.
Cheat - Rearranging talent so from one shot to another so that the action can be better covered by the camera, without ruining continuity. If a cheat is too blatant, then the audience will loose suspension of disbelief.
Chiaroscuro - High contrast photography with lots of dark and light portions of the scene. Or the answer to the question on Dr. McCoy’s test about Caravaggio and the sixteenth century which you answered in mind numbing detail about Italian actresses being obscure.
Close-up (CU) - Shot which centers on the head of the subject, used to magnify or choke emotion. An extreme close-up gets even tighter, and a medium shot or bust shot is looser.
Closed Stance - When the talent stands with their hands folded over their chest or held tightly in front of them. Demonstrates vulnerability.
Closure - The psychological ability of a human mind to draw familiar objects outside the box, if provided with enough visual information. On extreme close-ups, a person is shot so that the upper portion of the head is cut off, and the chin is above the lower portion of the shot. The viewer will “draw in” the missing parts of the picture. If the shot is misframed (both the chin and the top of the head are off screen) then they cannot draw in the details and loose their suspension of reality.
Clip - A segment of video or film, or a video file on a computer. The level at which a key is dropped out, also called the clip level.
Condenser Microphone -
Continuity - Structuring space and time in a production to present the illusion of uninterrupted action.
Continuity Editing - Editing for a “transparent” effect, where time and space seem to flow in a natural manner.
Continuity Shooting - Shooting for continuity.
Contrast - The difference between the least amount of light in a shot, and the most amount of light, or the difference between the darkest and lightest parts of scene.
Contrast Ratio - The ratio of contrast between light and dark. Video and cinema have restricted contrast ratios lower than the human eye, and thus must be lit with special care to create a realistic look.
Cross-Shot (X/S) –
Cross Shooting -
Crane - Just what it sounds like. A large lifting device which can be used like a jib to get the camera in the air and move it around to get shots. Unlike a jib, cranes are usually much larger.
Courtesy Flag – If you have enough C-Stand, a flag you set up to shade someone. Especially important for a talent who may sweat out their makeup.
Cue - An order to initiate an action. For example, a director can cue the talent to start speaking, a VTR to roll, or the technical director to take a shot. On lighting boards, a cue is a gang of lights which can be switched on and off at one time.
Cue Cards - Before teleprompters, cue cards were used to remind talent of their lines and to give simple stage directions. They are still the simplest way of doing this, all you need is a marker and some cardboard.
Cut - Also called a take. An instantaneous transition from one shot to another that is similar to how the eye looks from object to object. Cut can also be the command given to stop some action, or an entire shot.
Cut-In -
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Daylight - When used in video, usually means 5600 degree kelvin light, as opposed to 3200 degree kelvin studio lighting.
Decibel - Measurement of sound intensity on a logarithmic scale. Abbreviated dB.
Depth of Field - Really, it should be depth of focus, but now days the two terms get sort of confused. This is the depth at which a lens can keep two objects in focus. All of this is related to a concept known as zone of confusion.
Detail Shot - Extreme close-up, used to see detail.
Dichroic Filter - An optical color filter that uses wave interference instead of color absorption to change the color of light passing through it. Use to correct the color of light, it is much more expensive than gels, although it is more efficient and the filters often last longer in field use. A 3200k to 5600k filter is often permanently mounted on tungsten lighting instruments intended to be used only in the field.
Dimmer - Device that reduces the amount of electricity going to a lighting instrument, reducing how much light is spilling on an object.
Director - The main creative artist in a production, and the overall head of the actual production of a program. A supervisor of the production process.
Director of Photography (DP) - The head cinematographer or videographer in charge of the lighting and photography team of a production.
Discontiunity - Breaking continuity to confuse the audience as to where in space of time they are. Very rarely done because it has the tendency to cause the audience to drop out of their suspension of disbelief.
Discovery Shot - A shot which ends up on an object or person that was not immediately noticeable when the shot started. Makes the audience think they have “discovered” something that was previously hidden.
Dissolve - A transition between two shots where one image fades out and another image fades in to replace it. Often provides shifts in time, allows a shift to a full screen graphic, or denotes a change of place.
Documentary - Film which deals with factual information, generally and exploration of human interest rather than an industrial piece
Dolly - A platform on wheels or tracks for moving cameras.
Dolly Shot - Moving in or away from a subject on a dolly, track, crab, or truck mount. The whole camera moves, as opposed to a zoom where only the lens aspect ratio is affected.
Dolly Grip - The Dolly Grip operates this camera position device.
Dope Sheet - List of shots, used either show what shots are left to shoot, what shots are already shot, or what shots are in a particular reel of film or cassette of tape.
Downstage - Close to the camera. In the foreground. Traditionally, stage commands are said from the talents perspective, camera commands from the perspective of the camera.
Dress Off - Also dressing, a directional command to a talent, or for the movement of an object on set. A director dresses off an object to the right or left, or asks a talent to dress off a little upstage
Drift - When done on purpose, drifting is a motion by a talent to give room for a camera or another talent to pass, usually subtle enough not be noticed by the audience. For example a crowd may part for a camera without seeming to part by a small drift. When done by accident a talent can drift away from their assigned walking lane and ruin complex shots.
Drop - A canvas curtain on which a scene is painted as background, is does not echo sounds and is easy to move, but can be hard to use realistically. Also, a place where electrical outlets are provided.
Drop Box - An electrical converter that turns high voltage electricity into electricity that can be used by the lighting crew. For example, a drop box can convert 40 amp 240 volt service that runs a washer dryer into 4 120 volt 20 amp household current plug ins for regular household power cables.
Dubbing - Duplicating video tape. A dub is a completed copy of a video tape.
Dupe - Slang for duplicating video tape.
Dutch Angle - Canting the camera diagonally for emotional effect. Thee effect makes the audience uneasy, creating anxiety for the situation on screen.
Dynamic Microphone -
Dynamic Range - Range between high intensity and low intensity. For example, a stereo with a wide dynamic range has a wide difference between the quietest sounds it can reproduce and the loudest.
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Effects Light - Lighting instrument intended to highlight some portion of a scene, especially something in the background.
Egg Crate – Device that controls the spill of light from an instrument. Softer than a snoot, used on soft lights.
Establishing Shot - Wide shot (usually) used to show how individuals are related to the space around them. Used to “set the scene” so the audience knows where the characters are interacting.
Equipment Cages - Storage for additional equipment used in the studio.
Event Driven - The realm of the talk show, event driven studio productions are not scripted, except for segment rundowns, and rely on a moderator to keep the action going.
Executive Producer - A senior producer who handles legal decisions and business deals.
External Rhythm - The pace of a production.
Extreme Close-up (XCU) - Shot which effects closure on a talents face, or focuses on detail in an object.
Extra - A person included in a production for atmosphere. Extras can have speaking parts, or merely pass through the scene.
Eye Contact - When the talent looks right at the camera. Invites the audience into the scene as part of the action from the point of view of the addressed subject.
Eye Syncing - When a talent reacts involuntarily to a sound on set such as an explosion, and non-sync sound is being use, the audio editor will have to sync the blink of the eye (the most common reaction to loud, sudden noise) with the sound on the sound track.
Eyeline Matching - Setting camera shots so that various characters appear in logical positions when displayed on close-ups as a method of protecting continuity. Normally involves making realistic use of glances to paint a picture outside of the close up.
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F-Stop - The opening of the iris expressed as a ration over 1. So an f-stop of 1.4 is 1.4/1, or a very wide opening. An f-stop of 16 would only be 1/16.
Fade - Going to or from black in an edit. Shows a change in scene, the end of a major section of programming, or the end of programming altogether.
Falloff – The fading of light the farther away from the source you get. Take a little Lowel Omni-light with a 500 watt lamp in it, and set it up. Set the light to spot. At five feet, it spills a little over 20,000 lux on a subject. Now move it to ten feet. It now spills a little over 5000 lux on the subject. So if you double the distance an instrument is from a subject, the light cast is cut by four. Falloff is also the fading away of light at the edges of a pattern. The softer a light is, the more gradual it fades away.
Fill Light – In three point lighting, a fill light balances the dark side of a lighting setup to keep the image inside of the limitations of the mediums contrast ration.
Filter - Device that modified light. Or, in Photoshop, After Effects, and Final Cut pro, a pre-made special effect applied to an image or a clip.
Fishpole – A device for holding a microphone above a scene, keeping it out of the shot. Sometimes it can even be held below a shot, depending on the camera angle.
Flag – A cloth gobo that blocks light.
Flanging – Combining two copies of the same section of audio, only with one slightly delayed from the other.
Flash Frame – A single frame of video that has dropped out to be replaced with black, or some other shot. Used to occur frequently in editing when tape based editors would hiccup and roll past where they were suppose to stop. That area they rolled past would “flash” when played back, often being very noticeable. In digital media it still happens when clips are not properly trimmed, but is much easier to repair.
Flat – Either a portable, easily constructed set piece usually made from plywood, or a description of a shot that lacks depth either because it is lit flat, or because it has been shot from straight on.
Flattening – Compression layers until there is only a single one in a graphics program, often done before the image is exported to another application.
FlexFill – Company that makes a round reflector or diffusion device which can be collapsed for easy storage. One of the easiest lighting devices to take into the field as it requires no electricity, can be held in the hand, and is very compact to store.
Flood – A light with limited focus. In variable focus lights, flood is the position where the beam will be the broadest, but will cast the least light on any single place.
Floor Director – The boss of the studio floor. The floor director is the eyes, ears, and voice of the director on set.
Floor Manager – See Floor Director.
Fluid Head – A tripod head which has oil in it to allow it to pan and tilt smoothly without the need of springs. Usually the oil buffers some form of bearings.
Focal Length – The length of a lenses focal elements, which determines its angle of view. A long focal length lens, called a telephoto lens, has a narrow angle of view and makes objects appear close. A short focal length lens has a wide angle of view and makes objects appear distant. Variable focal length lenses are called zoom lenses, and are capable of changing a camera’s angle of view without moving the camera body itself.
Follow Focus – Refocusing a camera during a shot so the subject always remains in the plane of focus. Harder than it sounds.
Foot Candle – A measure of light, now being replaced by lux. The AJ-D215 needs 2000 lux reflected to open its iris to f5.6 and have maximum exposure.
Foley Artist – A sound effects artist.
Frame – A single entire image. NTSC video has 30 frames per second of video, although professionals use 29.97 frames per second (called drop frame) to make it add up to real time equally.
Free-Form Program - An unscripted production that uses improvisation.
French Flag – Device that blocks sunlight from a lens, preventing lens flare. You can buy wonderful, adjustable French flags for camera lenses that do just about everything, or you can clamp some cardboard or foam core in the gobo arm of a C-stand.
Fully Scripted Program - When a production has a complete script with all dialogue and movement planned in advance.
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Gaffer – The head of the electrical department in charge of the physical construction of lighting arrangements for a production.
Gaffer’s Tape - Cloth tape used in video because it is tough, sticks to nearly everything, but wont leave a sticky residue if not kept on an object for to long. Very expensive, for tape that is.
Gallery - A space for an audience.
Gamma – Tonal reproduction of an image. Gamma control adjustments are needed for different mediums, for example PC video and television video has a different gamma curve.
Gel – Transparent tinted plastic used to either change the color of light, or to soften, reduce, or even eliminate light. Gels are resistant to heat, and very sturdy, but are considered expendables because they do burn up.
Gobo – “Go Between”. Any device which blocks light. Used for lots of things. Different types of gobos include dots, fingers, and even cookies, although overheads, reflectors and butterflys usually are not considered gobos.
Gobo Arm – Originally a device which held gobos away from a stand. Usually refers to a special type of arm which attaches to a C-Stand, also known as a hollywood arm or a grip arm.
Greeking – Obscuring a products name for liability purposes. Sometimes, such as in the cult class Repo Man, generic products are used.
Green Room - Where talent prepare for their appearances on a show.
Grip – Person responsible for skilled construction on set, including helping with lighting, laying dolly track, building and setting jibs, and even moving sets and props. Generally, a highly skilled gofer.
Grip Arm – See Gobo Arm.
Grip Head – Device for holding gobo arms on a stand, especially a C-Stand.
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Head Room - The space between the top of a subject’s head and the top of the frame.
Hero – The subject of your shoot. Usually a product for a commercial. A hero is usually prepared for photography in great detail.
Hertz – A cycle per second.
HMI - Halogen Metal Incandescence lights which are very power efficient, but are very expensive. Usually they are daylight balanced to 5600 Kelvin, but they require a device called a ballast to generate the high frequency electricity they need to operate (florescent lights need ballast also, but the ones in your home do not need a ballast as heavy or efficient as an HMI does.)
Hot Set – The set is active, noise and stumbling around is not advised. On a hot set, never walk in front of a light or camera, keep cell phones and pagers off, and do not lean on big stacks of c-stands, or you may have to become a college professor because no one else will hire you.
Hot Wire - The ungrounded conductor wire in an electrical cable, usually black or red insulation but not white, gray or green.
Hue – Color of an image. In additive systems like television, red, green, and blue would represent the primaries on the hue wheel.
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Iris – A valve within a lens to control the amount of light that passes through.
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Jib – A camera mount which is in essence an arm to lift the camera in the air.
Jump Cut – Shots which are similar being edited together as a take or cut. This jars the audiences sense of perspective.
Junior – A 2000-watt lighting instrument. At this point, students who are not careful will be blowing fuses and popping breakers on a regular basis, and the smart professor will have cut every bit of 16 gauge power cable in their department in half and tried to order 12 gauge using the presidents credit card. In reality, this is a small instrument.
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K – 1000. An you thought it was more complicated than that. A 1K is a 1000 watt light. Oddly enough, some people will say 32k light for a tungsten lamped quartz light, but what they really mean is 3200 Kelvin.
Kelvin – Measurement scale of absolute temperature. Used by photographers to measure the relative color value of light compared to a set standard for white. 3200 Kelvin is the temperature of a professional tungsten filament quartz lighting instrument. 5600 Kelvin is the average color temperature of outdoor light at noon.
Key Grip – Lead grip who controls the grip team for the gaffer. In general, the key looks out for the grip crew while the gaffer looks out for the DP.
Key Light – Primary light in three point lighting.
Keystoning – When am object is photographed other than perpendicularly, it causes the bottom or top to bulge out like a keystone of a bridge, and the other end to be compressed.
Kicker Light – Light used to rim the shoulders and sometimes the head.
Knee – Adjustment for highlights in a video. High end video cameras allow manual adjustment of the knee to stretch and compress high luminance portions of the video.
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Lavaliere - Small microphone that is usually “hidden in plain view” on the upper body of a subject.
Layer – In graphics programs like Photoshop and After Effects, a layer is a level of the graphic. The advantage of layers is that images may be designed to modify each other, cover up each other, or be moved in relation to each other. Thus text could be layered on a transparent background and that background set on a piece of artwork, and so forth.
Lens – Device that focuses light onto a pickup for exposure and recorded. Lenses can be quite complex.
Lens Flare. Light striking the camera lens at an angle and causing a reflection from the lens elements. Often used as a special effect, but it can be an unwanted annoyance.
Lip Sync – Matching the lips with words. Some forms of digital media can loose lip sync. This is especially true with data rate problems that cause dropped frames, and with unlocked audio on consumer camcorders.
Load - The amount of electric power required.
Location – Out of the studio. A location can be almost anywhere.
Location Manager - When filming on a location, this person arranges the permits from authorized people to shoot at that location and.
Location Sound – Sound recorded during a shoot.
Lock Down – Shooting with a camera locked down. Used in the studio for unchanging shots to save the expense of a camera person, or in cases where special effects demand exact shot placement such as the Star Trek “beaming effect.”
Luminance - The brightness information in an image.
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Make-up Artist - A skilled cosmetologist who works with talent.
Mark 5 Blaster – Something our heroine is holding. Now if I knew exactly what it did, I could decide if I was scared, but the Worzel wont tell me.
Mask – In most graphic programs, a mask allows a designer to protect part of an image from modification, or in its reverse form, protect everything else.
Master - The final version of an edited sequence or program. Either in the form of a video taped master, or on hard drive, or possibly somewhere else.
Master Scene Technique - Using a single long take to cover a scene from one master angle, usually the establishing shot, then filling in detail with close-ups and shots from different angles. A basic way to shoot for editing, and a safe way to assure that a scene is successfully captured.
Master Shot – A single long shot used in the master scene technique, but often done anyway as a safe way of getting the action recorded in one uninterrupted take.
Match Frame Edit – An edit which matched exactly a previous edit in order to add an a/b roll effect which would have otherwise required a loss of a generation. A match frame edit is suppose to be invisible. In the digital realm, they are rarely needed.
Medium Shot (MS) -
Method Acting – Process where talent immerse them in theatrical roles. Often produces more realistic performances.
Mise-en-scene – “In the Scene”. Using the frame of video or film to paint a cohesive image, where all parts of the image feed into a greater whole.
Montage – Series of unrelated or partially related images not connected by standard continuity (although abstract continuity can exist) that when combined together in sequence can tell a story.
MOS – A take or sequence of takes which are shot without sound, usually with the intention of adding the sound later.
Multicamera / Assemble Edited - The show is produced live to tape but each segment is produced one at a time, then added to the existing show.
Multicamera / Live to Air - This includes news and online shopping. The show is made in real time, possibly with roll ins of more complex information.
Multicamera / Live to Tape - This show is produced live but is recorded to tape. An example of this is late night TV (recorded earlier in the night) or tape delay tv shows (some informercials).
Multicamera Production – Common in studio production and sports, but rare in film and video done in the field, this allows productions to use only one take, but get the action from more than one angle.
Multicamera / Narrative Studio - Made famous by "I Love Lucy," and the common method of making soap operas, multicamera narrative allows scenes to be produced using multiple cameras for shot coverage, but also allows for a studio and possibly an audience to help the actors gage timing.
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Neutral Density Filter – Filter which blocks light but does not block color, found as either a filter on a camera or a gel for lights.
Neutral Wire - The grounded conductor wire in a cable that completes a circuit by providing a return path to the source. Always identified by white or gray insulation.
Nose Room - When shooting a subject in profile, nose room is the space between their face and the edge of the picture. Try this experiment. Stand with your nose pressed against a wall in a crowded room. If you are noticed and people think you are not right in the head, then you have just proven that nose room causes people discomfort.
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Object Shot - When a character looks at an object the editor can cut to a close-up of the object into order to establish a special relation between the person and the thing.
Omnidirectional Microphone – Microphone with a wide pickup pattern.
Online – Generally means working on a facility that can be broadcasted, but later used to mean high quality. It can also mean that a piece of equipment is being used currently, so a VTR which is only is playing back live or live to tape, a camera online must move carefully because its moves are being currently recorded.
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Pan - A horizontal camera move, from right to left or left to right. Distinct from a dolly which moves the entire camera mount along an axis, a Pan essentially is a 360 degree move on a single point in space.
PAR Light – A lighting instrument with an aluminum reflector, sometimes racked into large banks.
Parallel Editing - Cutting between two simultaneous stories or scenes.
Ped – Raising or lowering the column of a pedestal.
Pedestal – The setup or black level of a image.
Persistence of Vision – The process that makes film and video possible. The human brain polls the eye around 20 times a second for information. If an image flickers fast enough, it misses these pollings and appears to be “moving.” With electronic processes the image needs to move even faster, and if the image is close to you face faster still.
Plane of Focus - The plane where the optical focus is resting, or where the psychological focus rests.
Pipe Grid – Grid hung over a professional studio designed to hang lighting instruments from.
Play Head – In nonlinear editing, the play head is where the viewer or canvas monitor has stopped at in a video or sequence. It allows you to visually tell where you are.
Pixel Element – Or pixel. A single piece of an image on a CRT (television set) or in a digital image. Each pixel is actually made up of three elements in color media – a red, green, and blue element.
Pixelation – When individual pixels in a digital image become apparent, usually because the image is being digitally “zoomed” in on.
Point of View (POV) Shot - A shot from the perspective of a subject. For example, a shot looking out a window can be a POV if coming from an angle of someone sitting in a chair looking out. Often, a POV shot is connected to an establishing shot that shows the audience where the POV will occur from, but in some famous instances such as the famous M.A.S.H episode shot entirely POV, this can be discarded.
Post Production – Taking footage shot in the field and turning it into a final production.
Practical – Any lighting device used in a shot. A practical can be a reading lamp, candle, fire place, computer scene, or anything else that is part of the composition of a scene. Anytime a device generates illumination on set, it has to be accounted for in the lighting and photographic plans of the production.
Primary - A fixed angle of view lens. Used for precision shooting because the lens has a higher quality image at a given weight and expense than a zoom lens, with a wider capacity to handle light.
Pre-Production – Planning a production. The most important step in the production process.
Preroll – The amount of time needed to bring a VTR up to speed before recording can begin, or before playback has no glitches. As a habit, many shooters still give 5-10 seconds of preroll to a tape, when most equipment does not need this much time to get working. In studio productions with good VTRs, it is now common to have tape operators work with instant roll, meaning the tape starts in only a few frames from when the play button is pressed.
Producer - Responsible for all segments of the production, and usually the first one in on any shoot. Their job include development of the production idea, hiring the crew, and acting as a go between for the clients and the director.
Production Assistant (PA) – The true gofer on set. They often work for the (skilled) grip crew, do any odd jobs, and provide labor where needed.
Production Designer - A senior artist who develops the look and feel of a production/ Often works closely with an art director, and employs a large staff of production artists.
Production Manager - The person who sees that equipment is rented, budget is cared for and accounted, accommodations are arranged, and a whole raft of vital tasks to a large production. In smaller houses, production managers will schedule crew and buy supplies.
Property – Or props. Property is all of the stuff needed to dress a set. This can be the heroes cowboy hat or the heroines mark 5 blaster. It can be a pack of gum, lamps, costumes, furniture, almost anything that shows up in front of the camera.
Property Master - Purchases and handles property. Property, or props, are devices used on set during shooting to add atmosphere to a production.
Property Storage - The location of props, risers, and background.
Psychological Focus - Point on the screen which “draws the viewers eye.”
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Rack Focus – Changing focus while shooting. A rack is used either to shift attention from one subject to another on screen, when those two subjects are not in the same focal plane. A rack can also be an effect or transition, when a rack is used as a form of dissolve.
Radio Frequency Interference – Radio waves that interfere with audio equipment, causing either cross-talk or hum, especially in poorly grounded cables.
Reaction Shot - Shows a reaction to an event, or comment. Can be as simple as a nod of the head, or as dramatic as diving for cover from an explosion.
Redressing – Changing a set to make it appear different by removing or changing property or relighting.
Re-establishing Shots - In long scenes there is often a need to show the audience again the arrangement of the environment around the characters they are watching.
Reflective Light Reading – Measures the amount of light bouncing off a subject.
Reflector – Device that reflects light. This is done for three reasons. First, a reflector can provide fill light when set opposite the sun and directed at a subject. Next, it can provide soft light when a harsh light is bounced off of it. And finally, it can be used to get light in hard to reach places, such as when you put a white card in a talent’s lap to hide their chin shadow (talent object to having thousand degree quartz lamps setting their polyester pants suits on fire.)
Render – The process of generating previously designed special effects.
Rendering Time – Of importance to all digital editors, rendering time is how long the computer has to work to finish a special effect. With software rendering this mean that the processor much crunch numbers until it has built the effect. With hardware rendering, this is done on a specific piece of hardware. Software rendering is slower, but does not require expensive hardware that can go out of date. Hardware rendering is faster, but the hardware can be very expensive, and the company can decide not to support it any more in the near future.
Reporter – A news gatherer. Reporters are usually “on air talent,” meaning that they report the news on camera. A television reporter that is not assigned on air duties is usually called a producer or a line producer.
Resolution – The accuracy of digital reproduction. In an image, the more pixels are used, the higher the resolution, and the higher the accuracy of reproduction.
Reverberation – Called reverb, this is the acoustical signature of a sound in the form of echoes. Sound in nature comes to our ears after having reflected off of many objects, and thus has a tonal quality that adds depth and character to it. Often, man-made sounds in a digital environment, lack this tonal quality. Reverb can be used to replace this quality.
Reverse Shooting - Shows one character from a second character’s perspective, and then shows the second character from the first perspective. Used during the interaction between two characters. When the shot includes the head and shoulder of the opposite person, it is called an over the shoulder shot. Remember, a reverse shot should not violate the 180 rule.
Rich Media – Media that includes interactive elements.
Roll – To start a video source, either to record, or to play back. Also a graphic that starts moves up or down screen. Many end credits are rolls for efficiency.
Rotoscoping – Combining live video with animation.
Rule of Thirds – Composition rule that divides the working image into nine parts cut apart by four dividing lines. Where the lines cross, there is a point of photographic strength which naturally draws the eye.
Rough Cut – A temporary stage in editing. Often a rough cut is one in which elements of the production are missing, but where the general flow of the show and its narrative can be judged.
Run-Through – An onset rehearsal of all main crew and talent.
Rundown - Abbreviated scripting format that lists show segments.
Running Shot – A shot in which the camera has to move through out the action.
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Safe Area – The area of an image which can be used for useful reproduction of images. Most transmission systems and monitors cut off a little of the edges of an images. Understanding this, a good director plans to shoot taking into account this loss of “real estate.” Particularly troubling is getting a computer image to video. If you are in doubt, hook the oldest, nastiest consumer monitor up to the computer you can and see where the image ends up.
Safe Title Area – This takes into account the normal safe area, and adds some extra so words don't butt up against the edge of the screen where people sitting at an angle to their televisions will have problems reading them.
Sample Rate – The number of times per second a sound is measured when being converted to digital. The more times it is measured per second, the more accurate the reproduction. For example, an audio CD has sound that is sampled at 44,100 times per second per channel.
Sandbag – Usually, a cloth bag with sand or shot inside, used to weigh down objects that are top-heavy or unstable. The term is also sometime used to describe the process of creative lying used to get a point across.
Saturation – Dilution of a hue by white light. A highly saturated color is one that is strong, like fire engine red. A low saturation color is one that is weaker, like pink.
Scene – A sequence of shots connected together thematically.
Scratch Track – Audio recorded when sound is not normally useful simply as a guide for the editor. For example, it may not be possible for audio to be cleanly captured when shooting in a factor, but it may be possible to collect the right audio at another location. The videographer may still record audio so that an editor can tell things like sound to action sync, in order to rebuild the scene later.
Screenwriter – Develops original or adapted scripts, called screen plays, for television or film.
Scrim – Device to reduce light thrown on set.
Script Supervisor – Works with continuity when there is no specific continuity person, keeps track of the script, makes changes when called for, and tracks which page is beings shot when.
Scripted Studio - Scripted studio shoots are any that rely on traditional scripts directing action and dialog.
Second Unit - A crew that is responsible for shooting less important shots, allowing the “First Unit” to work on other parts of the production. There can also be a second, third, or fourth unit.
Segment Time – The run time of a portion of a production.
Selective Focus – Choosing to focus on one part of a scene instead of another, usually when the photographer has chosen a narrow depth of field. For example the camera can focus on a heroine holding her Mark 5 blaster rather than the cowering hero, in order to make sure the audience sees her instead of him.
Selects – Takes that are selected for editing. In nonlinear editing, limits on disk space often result in some clips not being captured for editing. And editor will instead go through and choose only video which will be used in the final edit. These are called selects.
Semi-Scripted Program - Productions that use minimal scripting, instead relying heavily on a rundown.
Sequence Mapping – Adding live video to an animated sequence.
Shooter – A photographer that uses still images, video, or film.
Shooting Ratio – The amount you shoot versus the amount you use, expressed as a ratio. A production may shoot as high as 100-1 to get the shots they want, but most productions shoot much less, and student productions tend to shoot too little. One of the most famous directors prided himself in shoot so tight that he could not be edited in any other way than he planned – he was Alfred Hitchcock.
Shot – A single take. The time between starting a camera and stopping it. Often, a subset of a scene, where a scene is many camera angles, and each angle is a shot.
Shotgun Microphone – A highly directional microphone that rejects sound from its sides either mounted on a camera, a fish pole, or possibly on a boom. Used to get conversations and quality audio from a (small) distance. Shotgun microphones are not magic though, they cannot pick out one person’s voice from a crowd, or listen to what you boyfriend is saying from across the quad.
Shuttle – A device on a VTR or nonlinear editor that allows a video to be rapidly or slowly searched. Usually a shuttle is constantly variable.
Single Camera Narrative Studio - Traditional movies and TV series shot in the studio using one camera techniques. Many TV shows are produced using traditional film techniques but in the controlled environment of a studio (House M.D)
Signal-to-Noise Ratio -
Shot – Technically, the video or film recorded in a single take. But a shot can be any video or film clip. Shot is often interchanged with the term scene, although often the term is not used in the same manner.
Slug – A clip of video that is used to hold a place in a sequence, but is not intended to be seen by the audience in the final airing of a show. For example, television shows are editing with black slug where commercials should be, so that local stations can insert their own commercials.
Snoot – Long tube placed on the light to prevent spill outside of a set area.
Soft Light – Diffuse lighting instrument, or light that is diffuse.
Sound Bite – Short clip of audio, often with video, that gets appoint across. Term used in news to signify a short comment by a news subject.
Sound Editor - Person who manipulates the sound track of a production in post.
Soundscape - The auditory space developed by an audio engineer that makes viewers of a production think they are realistically in the scene being watched.
Sound track – The sound portion of a program, sometimes only referring to the music, but it can refer to the entire audio package. If someone says they want to listen to the sound track, they are probably talking about the sound track.
Specifics – Sound effects directly relate to an action or image on screen. You see a gun fire, and hear the sound. Background noise or off screen noise is not a specific.
Speed – Term to designate when a video sourcehas locked up, and is recording or playing correctly.
Spun - Spun glass diffusion material. Used as a diffusion material.
Spreader – On a tripod, a three arm gadget attached to the three legs and meeting in a central hub, which keeps the tripod’s legs from collapsing outward. Can be mounted at the center of the legs, or sometimes at the very base. Often can be removed for low angle, wide spread shots.
Suspension of Disbelief - Process where the audience identifies so much with a production that for a short while they are in the action with the subjects. This can allow a skilled artists to play tricks with subjective reality, creating story lines and situations that are believable and identifiable to the audience. Most forms of visual media have suspension of disbelief involved with the, from football games, to films, to the news.
Stand-In - Talent can be very expensive, and their time is usually best used to study their lines and get in character. In addition, their makeup can be very fragile and difficult to apply. For that reason lighting crews use stand ins to light scenes while talent are in rehearsal or makeup. Ideally, this person will look like the talent and have the same costume. Often they are just some truck driver or PA who does not get out of the way of the
Steadicam - A servo powered camera positioning unit balanced by a powered gyro and worn by a camera operator. This allows steady moving camera shots in situations where track is difficult to use, and where jibbing is not needed. Steadicam is actually the name of a company. Like Xerox, it has gone generic.
Steadicam Operator - Operates a steadicam. Duh.
Steve-a-Door – A hand cart. I have always been very flattered.
Sequence - Segment of a larger project that has some unifying aspect. Also used in nonlinear editing and meaning about the same thing, except that several sequences can be married together to form an entire production.
Still Photographer – Someone who takes still pictures with a standard camera. Sometimes called photogs, but this can get confusing since video photographers (videographers) are also called from time to time photogs.
Sticks – A tripod, or particularly the legs of a tripod.
Stinger – Heavy power cable, at least 14 gauge but more usually 12 gauge, capable of being used on set without burning up even when pulling 20 amps, and with all three of its tines attached. The third tine, or blade, different from the other two, is the ground, and is absolutely essential for electrical safety on set. Only a fool uses a stinger with this item removed.
Storyboard – Pre-production device for visualizing a production by using inexpensive pictures married to written dialogue. Often used to sell a concept to a client.
Strike-Set – Break down the set at the end of the shoot.
Striking – Term yelled before turning on a lighting instrument to avoid light dazzling someone or getting injured when half blinded crew chase you across the set.
Studio Control - Where fixed studio equipment is kept installed. If there is no control room, then the studio is a sound stage only.
Studio Floor - Where the show is made. Usually is sound isolated, with quiet air handling, and has a set of electrics, a light grid, audio drops, and video drops.
Stunt Coordinator - Head of the stunt team, who works with the director providing the human element to film stunts.
Stunt - Bakes the place of an actor in a dangerous piece of physical action. They are suppose to look like the actor, but from time to time you get a stunt that looks like Sean Connery standing in for Granny Smith, and you only hope no one notices the hairy legs that grand mom has suddenly sprouted to match her protruding adams apple.
Super – A graphic image placed over another video.
Sweetening –
Swish Pan – A rapid pan that starts on one subject, then rapidly moves to another causing the image to blur until it arrives and stops. Used to create tension in a fast moving scene, and also to make the weak stomached viewer physically ill.
Switcher – A switcher is used to change or combine video images. When it is being used in production, it is known as a production switcher or special effects generator and it is often capable of a wide range of special effects. In its most plebeian form it merely switches video sources. Sometimes it can also handle audio sources. This is often called a routing switcher.
Sync – In video, this is horizontal and vertical timing. If two video sources are “out of sync” when you try to switch between the, then you will get a video roll.
Sync Sound – Sound that is recorded during shooting, usually recorded right to tape, so that the sound is associated directly to the video frames it is recorded with.
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T-Stop - Similar to an F-Stop, except that this term takes into account how much light the lens blocks, which is important for big lenses. T-Stop is usually marked in red where it is marked at all. Remember, T-Stop is just a setting that works with light exposure of the recording pickup device (film or video), not with the depth of field, so if you use T-Stop for lighting, you should still pay attention to F-Stop for depth of field.
Take – A cut in video is often known as a take. It can also mean multiple versions of the same shot in field production.
Talent - An actor. A talent need not have any talent, but for your sake, you hope they do. Some actors with pretensions of true art are offended by the term talent, as are some anchors, so just be aware. In reality it is a good neutral term that means anyone who is part of the production in front of the camera, as opposed to guests.
Target – In nonlinear editing, the track which video or audio will go to when an edit is performed. This is similar to linear editing, in that during an insert edit an editor can choose to record video, audio track one, or audio track two.
Target Audience - The intended viewers.
Technical Advisor – Someone hired to make sure some aspect of a production is true to life, such as the expert on Mark V Blasters that helps are heroine use one properly.
Teleprompter - Device for scrolling text by a talent so that they can read it without having to spend time memorizing the text. A much superior way of doing a stand-up if you can get away with it.
Teleprompter Operator - Runs the teleprompter. Likewise duh.
Three-point lighting – Quick method of lighting that is often used in news, documentary, and talk formats. It tries to simulated natural lighting by controlling exposure of the bright part of an image (using a key light) to the darker part of an image (using a fill light) while retaining depth with a back light.
Three-shot – A shot which gets three people in the frame. Used often in interviews like a two-shot.
Tie-In Box - A device for bypassing the breaker box and tapping directly into location power, as opposed to a drop box which usually is installed after the breaker box.
Titling – Including graphical text in a shot, usually superimposed over someone or something. A title is usually a name and sometimes called a lower third or super.
Tilt - A vertical camera move on an axis, up or down.
Time Code (TC) – Code which designates the frame location of a video image in a video tape, and expressed as 00:00:00:00, where the first pair is hours, the second is minutes, the third seconds, and the fourth frames. For drop frame time code, it would look like this, 00:00:00;00.
Timeline – In nonlinear editing, the timeline is a linear, visual representation of a video edit showing tracks, transitions, and shots.
Tone - A 1 kHz sine wave used at the beginning of a tape as a stable for reference for sound. Other people playing back the tape can set their systems to the same reference.
Total Run Time (TRT) – The total length of the production including all included material.
Treatment – Short discussion of the who, what, where, when, how, and why of a production that is used to start the ball rolling, get funding, interest talent, and get everyone above the line on the same page.
Trims – Outtakes of a few frames.
Tripod Head - The part of the tripod with the pan and tilt mechanism to which the camera is attached.
Truck Production - Sports is often produced in a truck that takes the studio into the field. The stadium then becomes the actual studio floor, the truck becomes the control room.
Tungsten – An instrument that uses Tungsten filaments in a quartz lamp. The color temperature of these lamps is 3,200 Kelvin on the color temperature scale. If you balance your camera for tungsten lighting and move outdoors, the shot will look blue. Likewise, if balance for outdoor 5,600 Kelvin light and move indoors under tungsten quartz lamps, the shot will look Orange.
Turnaround – Amount of time needed to strike one set and build another. Because turnaround can sometimes be lengthy, there are often A and B unit crews keeping ahead of the set requirements so that the expensive talent, director, and other creatives are not left idle.
Tweenie – 650 watt lighting instrument.
Two-shot - A shot, often used in news interviews, that includes two people in it. Establishes position, distance, and relation.
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Umbrella – Device used to diffuse and soften light. An umbrella looks like a rain umbrella, but is usually silver or white and is usually attached to the light that illuminates it.
Unidirectional – Microphone pickup pattern which rejects sound coming from behind or the sides while absorbing it from in front.
Unit Production Manager – See line producer.
Upstage – Toward the rear of the set or stage. Talent who fight for screen time or position are said to be trying to upstage each other.
Utility – Like a production assistant, a utility runs errands and performs various labor tasks. Many people get into production by starting as utilities to learn the ropes.
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Viewer – In nonlinear editing, the viewer is the screen which allows playback of clip material before it is set into a sequence.
Viewfinder – Monitor on a video camera that is used to sight the camera. In film, it is often optical.
Vignette – A scene that is complete in its construction so it could be cut out of a production and used on its own.
Voice Artist – A talent hired only for their voice. Usually has a distinctive or versatile speaking voice.
Voiceover – Narration or vocals over a scene or montage of images, when the narrator is not seen in the picture.
Voltage (V) - Pressure at which a circuit operates. Expressed in volts.
Voltmeter - An instrument designed to measure a difference in electrical potential in volts.
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White Balance – Method for adjusting the levels of red, blue, and green in a color camera so that the color is properly reproduced under a given lighting condition. It used to be, white balance was manual, and you would use a white card and a color chart, put a piece of tape on the green knob to avoid bumping it, and tweek the red and blue until you found where you wanted to be. Now we often use computer driven white balance in the camera.
Wild Sound – Room tone or environmental noise, often recorded with the cap on the camera. In film, term means non-sync sound, recorded without the camera running.
Wipe: A linear transition where one image replaces another by appearing to overlap the first, like rolling up a sheet of paper to reveal a sheet behind it. A wipe where the images actually move is called a DME or DVE effect.
Wrap – The end of shooting a project.
Writer – The starving looking bloke who hangs around set and starts crying when they see what you have done to their neat idea. After all, they wanted the scene to have 50,000 people running through it screaming in tribal Gan, but all you could afford is five extras and one of your PAs who knows Spanish. Writers, also called screenwriters, write the stuff that becomes movies, TV shows, and the like. In news, reporters and producers write their own stuff.
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Zip-Cord – Light weight consumer power cables which students love to buy for their dorms then use on productions. Since it is crap, it burns up and causes an impressive amount of smoke the first time anything larger than a 500 is somehow jacked into it. It does have a use on set – it is used to run practicals on set.
Zombie – OK, so I only included this term because I have always thought it was so funny. A zombie is a Unix program process that has not given up its place in the process entry table. A video person is likely to go their whole lives without hearing about this or even knowing it exists, even though all of the most powerful operating systems for media use are Unix based. So why did I include it? Just to cause trouble. So sue me.
Zoom – Changing the angle of view of the camera using a zoom lens.
Zoom Lens - A variable focal length lens. A zoom lens will have a third ring, besides ones controlling focus and iris, that will allow you to change the focal length within a range of wide to long.
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