We've listed a few commonly heard film terms, that are specific to film.
Blocking is planning out where your actors move to in a scene
Or the director of photography (D.P or D.O.P): the artist and technician responsible for the film's lighting and photography
Usually refers to the individual video file stored on your hard drive, or a single shot without any cuts in it on the timeline
See tracking
An extremely fast zoom in, usually done with the manual zoom.
definition (a) Any straight join between two pieces of film
definition (b) The director's call to the crew to stop filming)
A shot briefly interrupting one action, to provide a glimpse of something else
A transition between two shots, with one fading into another, often used to indicate the passage of time between scenes - sometimes called a mix
See tracking
Adding the sound to your programme. Because we now do so much of the laying of sound down in the edit suite doing an 'audio dub' seems less common but the term is still used. Most people are aware of its other use in a dubbed 'foreign' language film. A 'dub' also means a copy
Usually a wide shot (long shot) giving an overview of the scene so the audience is not confused about what is happening and where
Recording all the background sound in a shot eg. a woman walks along a gravel path, turns a key in a locka nd opens a creaky door. The footsteps, jingle of keys and creak of hinges can all be dubbed onto the film in post production
For a larger glossary and to find out more about film words, Google: glossary film terms or try this site
definition (a) see 'framing' below.
definition (b) In animation to 'take a frame' is to record one stage of movement, it originates from the days of recording onto film, where each image existed as a separate frame on the celluloid strip.
Is composing your shot - hence the term 'framing up'
A sequence of shots which builds an impression of something; usually through the variety of the shots
Point of view shot, where the camera sees what the character supposedly sees. A very useful cinematic tool
An insert shot or cutaway in medium shot or close-up, showing how a key character or a group of people are reacting to whatever we have just seen
Searching for appropriate locations to film at
Refers to the process of applying a chosen effect to each individual frame of your movie, with complicated effects, this can take quite a while
The original, raw unedited material you have filmed
A special hand-held camera system which allows the operator to take smooth shots while following the action
Sound synchronised and in time with the image (in synch)
Timecode is similar to the frame counter on your camera that tells you how much tape you've used (usually 00hours 22minutes 33seconds and 12frames would be expressed 00:22:33:12) The great difference about timecode is it is embedded on the tape. So now the computer can remember where bits of video are on the tape. So if you ever need to recreate a programme from scratch using batch capture (hope you don't) or find a clip on your original rushes tape the timecode will tell you exactly where it is
A tracking shot moves the camera on some kind of trolley (dolly), often following a character. This can be on specially laid tracks or over an existing or prepared flat surface. A 'crab' is the same sort of thing but the camera moves sideyways