Glossary
30° rule Moving the camera at least 30° off the axis of the previous shot is considered the minimum change of position to ensure smooth cutting when shooting traditional continuity coverage.
Actual time Time experienced subjectively in one continuously unraveling present that produces an accumulating past; what philosopher Henri Bergson calls duration (French: durée).
Analytical editing A dominant style of editing where the scenic space is first shown in an establishing shot to show the relative positions of significant elements, and subsequently broken down into closer shots or “analyzed,” ensuring that the viewer is spatially oriented. Often, if a character changes position or crosses the space, a wide shot is used to reestablish relative positions. Same as deductive visual approach below.
Applied media aesthetics The branch of aesthetics that deals with sense perceptions and how to influence them through the fundamental image elements of light and color, space, time/motion, and sound, with a focus on video, film and other electronic audiovisual media. Herbert Zettl, Sight, sound, motion (SSM).
Attraction Any striking aspect of theatre or film that can serve to stimulate the audience. In broad terms, the attraction for Eisenstein centered on both the visually expressive moment, and the immediate mental impact on the viewer seeing the violent, frightful or surprising action represented.
Axial cut A cut from one scope of shot to another – either wider or tighter – where the axis extending from the center of the camera lens does not change significantly.
Axis of action An imaginary line that connects the primary visual elements in a scene, typically two characters facing each other. The axis is used to position the camera on one side of the line so that screen direction continuity is maintained within a scene.
Caméra-stylo Literally “camera-pen,” the concept advanced by film critic and director Alexander Astruc in 1948 that film directors should use their cameras like writers use their pens, as an instrument of individual expression.
Complexity editing The building of an intensified screen event from carefully selected event essences. Complexity editing is used to create certain kinds of montage sequences (SSM).
Conceptual time Clock time, time divided arbitrarily into minutes, hours, days, etc.
Constructivism A modern art movement that emerged in Russia in 1913 that embraced abstraction, rejected the past, and sought to pare the work down to its essential elements. Constructivism advocated the creation of art that served social purposes and had the quality of factura, meaning the surface of the object should demonstrate how it had been made.
Converging vector Vectors that point or move towards each other (SSM).
Creating an event Building a unique event on screen that depends entirely upon the medium (SSM). (See Looking at an event and Looking into an event.)
Creative geography A form of narrative editing in which the shots taken in different locations suggest a spatial unity within a scene.
Crosscutting (parallel editing) Editing that alternates shots of two or more lines of action occurring in different places, usually simultaneously.
Découpage has three meanings: 1) the final form of a script, incorporating whatever technical information the director feels it is necessary to set down on paper to enable a production crew to understand his intention and find the technical means with which to fill it; 2) the more or less precise breakdown of a narrative action into separate shots or sequences before filming. . . called a “shooting script” in English; and 3) the underlying structure of the finished film. Nöel Burch, Theory of film practice (TFP).
Deductive visual approach Moving from an overview into event detail. (SSM). This approach relies on wider shots before moving to closer shots.
Dialectical materialism The Marxian interpretation of reality that views matter as the sole subject of change and all change as the product of a constant conflict between opposites arising from the internal contradictions inherent in all events, ideas and movements.
Diegesis A term for all that exists within the world of a film or play – characters, dialogue, sounds, music. Diegetic sound is sound that appears to be coming from the filmic space, as opposed to say, background or incidental music that is added to a scene in postproduction. Frank Beaver, Dictionary of film terms (DFT).
Dissolve A mix transition where the gradual fading out of one shot and the simultaneous fading in of another produce a momentary overlap between the two images. The dissolve usually represents a temporal ellipsis between the two shots.
Dominant The supremacy of one group of formal elements in an artistic composition, and particularly in film, the ascendancy of one group of elements in a sequence.
Editing The entire process of putting a film together into its final form, which includes the selection and shaping of shots; the arrangements of shots, scenes and sequences; the mixing of all soundtracks; and integrating of the final soundtrack with the images. Editing controls the order of shots, the frequency of shots, and the duration of shots. Ira Konigsberg, The complete film dictionary (CFD).
Elliptical editing An editing style that leaves out action without including covering shots or shot transitions. Such editing results in jump cuts from action to action or place to place (CFD).
External rhythm The rhythm created by editing and the length of the shots. Zettl calls this “tertiary motion.”
Eye-line The vector created by the direction in which a character is looking.
Fabula The story’s state of affairs and events, including all the explicitly presented events (i.e., plot) plus all the events we infer from the plot. A rough equivalent to “fabula” is “story.” David Bordwell, Narration in the fiction film (NFF).
Fade A mix transition using black as one source: it produces the gradual appearance of an image from black or disappearance of an image to black. The fade-in usually marks beginnings, and the fade-out marks endings, like the raising and lowering of the curtain in theatre.
Film narration The process by which the film prompts the viewer to construct the ongoing fabula on the basis of syuzhet organization and stylistic patterning. In a fiction film, narration is the process whereby the film’s plot and style interact in the course of cueing and channeling the spectator’s construction of the story. (NFF)
Film style The manner or group of conventions by which a motion-picture idea is expressed so that it effectively reveals the idea as well as the filmmaker’s attitude toward the idea (DFT).
Formalist film theory A theory of film study that is focused on the formal elements of a film –lighting, sound and set design, use of color, shot composition, editing, etc. – and how those elements reveal theme, or other interpretations.
Graphication A three-dimensional lens generated screen image that is deliberately rendered in a two-dimensional graphic, picture-like format (SSM).
Graphic vector A vector created by lines or by stationary elements arranged in such a way to suggest a line. Although graphic vectors are ambivalent to precise direction, they do indicate a directional tendency, such as horizontal, vertical, curved, uphill or downtown (SSM).
Head-on, tail-away A cut wherein a character (or object) moves close towards the camera lens and a cut is then made to the character (or another character) who moves away from the camera to reveal what is “behind the camera” (or to reveal a new scene). The head-on, tail-away movement relies on neutral z-axis action to create a smooth cut (DFT).
Index vector A vector created by someone looking for something pointing unquestionably in a specific direction (SSM).
Inductive visual approach Moving from one event detail to another to create the overall event in the viewer’s mind (SSM). This approach uses closer shot and moves to wider shots.
Institutional mode of representation (IMR) A standardized system of filmic narration aimed at maintaining comprehensible illusion of continuous time and space relationships using smooth cuts between shots of differing scope and placement (TFP).
Intellectual montage The highest order of montage in Eisenstein’s typology, this form of collision montage juxtaposes two shots to give rise to a third idea.
Internal rhythm The rhythm created within a shot by the movement of actors or objects or the camera itself. This term encompasses primary motion – everything that moves in front of the camera – and secondary motion – the motion of the camera and the motion simulated by camera zooms.
Invisible observer model of editing A concept of film editing claiming that cutting mimics the shifts in attention of an ideal observer who controls the flow of narrative information, and provides the psychological guidance of the viewer.
Iris-in Masking the outgoing shot off into a circle typically, (though diamonds, triangles and rectangles are possible) that decreases in size until the entire frame is black. If the incoming shot reverses the process to bring the incoming image from black to full screen, the transition is called iris-in/iris-out.
Italian neorealism A body of filmmaking from postwar Italy that rejected the well-made studio film for found stories of common people, shot in the streets for visual authenticity, often with non-actors.
Izobrazhenie Images/depictions are accumulated to create obraz, the overarching form or “artistic image” (See Obraz.)
J-cut A cut in which the sound for the incoming shot precedes the picture; an edit that “prelaps” the audio of the incoming shot into the outgoing scene. (See L-cut.)
Jump cut A shot in which some of the frames have been excised, typically creating an undisguised, measurable temporal ellipsis that shows time has been elided. In other cases, the jump cut simply rearranges temporal events.
Kuleshov effect The meaning and/or emotional impact derived from juxtaposing individual shots to create a context existing only in the editing itself and not inherent in any of the single pieces of film (CDF).
L-cut A cut in which the sound of the outgoing shot continues after the picture ends; an edit that “postlaps” the audio of the outgoing shot into the incoming shot. (See J-cut.)
Looking at an event Presenting an event on screen in order to clarify the viewer’s understanding of what is occurring; reporting the main elements of the event as it unfolds (SSM). (See Looking into an event and Creating an event.)
Looking into an event Presenting an event on screen in order to scrutinize it as closely as possible, to look behind its obvious outer appearance to probe into its structure and essence (SSM). (See Looking at an event and Creating an event.)
Match cut In the broadest sense, the term that refers to a cut where there is duplication in the profilmic material of the outgoing shot A and the incoming shot B. A match on action is a more narrow term that means the incoming shot B continues an action begun in the outgoing shot A. A graphic match (as opposed to a graphic contrast) occurs when the shapes, colors and/or overall movement of two shots match in composition.
Metric montage A term used by Sergei Eisenstein to describe an edited sequence wherein all shots are essentially the same length (duration). (See Rhythmic, Tonal, Overtonal and Intellectual Montage.)
Mise-en-scène A term that generally refers to the elements within a scene, that is, the physical setting that surrounds a dramatic action. In film criticism, mise-en-scène has sometimes been used to describe an approach to cinematic arts placing greater emphasis on pictorial values within a shot than on juxtaposition of two shots (montage) (DFT). In film, the term also includes lens usage, camera placement, and composition within the frame.
Montage has at least six meanings: 1) Montage = editing; 2) Sequential analytical montage: to condense an event into key developmental elements and present these elements in their original cause–effect sequence; 3) The Hollywood montage: a subset of the analytical sequential montage, where key elements of the narrative are compressed, often using traditional markers of time passing like dissolves; 4) Sectional analytical montage: temporarily arrests the progression of an event and examines an isolated moment from several viewpoints; 5) Idea-associative Comparison Montage: this type of montage “consists of succeeding shots that juxtapose two events that are thematically related in order to express or reinforce the theme or basic idea; 6) Idea-associative Collision Montage: the juxtaposition of two opposite events to express or reinforce a basic idea or feeling.
Motion vector A vector created by an object actually moving in any specific direction or an object that is perceived as moving on the screen. A photograph or drawing of an object in motion is an index vector but not a motion vector (SSM).
Motor-imitative response A primitive, reflexive mental response triggered in a subject simply by seeing a stimulus. When an audience sees an actor executing a movement, the audience reflexively repeats that action in a weakened form releasing emotion. David Bordwell, The cinema of Eisenstein (CE).
Non-diegetic insert A shot or a series of shots that shows things outside the space of the unfolding narrative. While the non-diegetic image insert is relatively rare, by comparison, non-diegetic sound is common: sound that has been created separately and added to the on-screen source sounds, like a musical score is ubiquitous.
Objective correlative To express human emotions, the artist must create a visible counterpart an object, a chain of events – that evoke that feeling in the viewer. (Also called “plastic material” by Pudovkin.)
Obraz Russian word for the overarching form, the “artistic image” or “felt concept” created by the accumulation of formal elements, or proper images/depictions (See Izobrazhenie.)
Overtonal montage A term used by Sergei Eisenstein to describe montage in which the primary attractions/primary movements no longer speak to the viewer, but rather secondary attractions/sensed vibrations that emerge begin to displace the primary movement. Like the sound of an organ, where stops have been engineered to mimic a clarinet, a flute, a piccolo, or a tuba, clearly the overtones control in large part how the pipes speak – the overtones displace the dominant tone. (See Metric, Tonal, Rhythmic and Intellectual Montage.)
Pacing The combination of internal and external rhythm, the felt experience of movement created by the rates and amounts of movement in a single shot and by the rates and amounts of movement across the series of edited shots.
Plan-américain A medium wide shot framed on the human figure from the knees up, which usually contains more than one character engaged in dialogue, arranged so that all are visible to the camera.
Plastic rhythm A pattern characteristic of visual arts where repeated objects or shapes recur in a regular arrangement.
Plotless cinema A style developed by Eisenstein that rejects the notion of plot as a series of consequences developing from the actions of an individual. The style favors perceptual and emotional shock over stringent realism, depicts the “mass protagonist” as the creator of historic change, uses motifs of significant objects and graphic patterns to develop thematic associations, and employs typage (CE).
Politique des auteurs Literally “a policy of authors,” translated in English by film critic Andrew Sarris as the “auteur theory.” The on-going argument that certain directors deserve to be called the author of their films, because their vision drives the artistic control of the film.
Primacy effect In a narrative, the tendency for early knowledge to form a frame of reference to which subsequent information is subordinated as far as possible.
Primitive mode of representation (PMR) An early style of filmic narration that uses the tableaux, action staged frontally along the x-axis that plays out in a single shot, using acting styles that rely on the grand gestures of bourgeois theatre, often with accompaniment by presenters or lecturers to explain the story unfolding on the screen to the audience.
Profilmic material Literally, the material “before the camera,” in front of the camera.
Proxemics In film, the effects of spatial relations between camera and subject on the kinetic and emotional impact of a scene.
Referential cut A figure of film style in which character looks towards a space outside the space of the frame, the shot holds for a few frames, and then cuts to what the character is looking at.
Rhythmic montage A term used by Sergei Eisenstein to describe editing that combines shots and determines the length (duration) based on their content; determining the external rhythm of a sequence not simply by shot length, but by taking into account the internal rhythm of each shot. (See Metric, Tonal, Overtonal and Intellectual Montage.)
Schema A pattern of thought or behavior that organizes categories of information and the relationships among them.
Screen space The space as contained within the borders of the screen, or the cumulative screen space of a shot sequence or of multiple screens (SSM).
Shot/reverse shot Two or more shots edited together that alternate characters, typically in a conversation. In continuity editing, characters in one framing might typically look left; in the other framing, right. Over-the-shoulder framings are common in shot/reverse shot editing.
Socialist Realism An official style of art codified in the 1934 Communist Party Conference decree that art must be relevant to the proletariat, realistic in its depiction of everyday life, and support the goals of the state.
Syuzhet The arrangement of explicitly presented events in the narrative text. A rough equivalent to “syuzhet” is “plot.”
Tonal montage A term used by Sergei Eisenstein to describe montage where “movement” is perceived in a wider sense, as all affects of the montage piece; a montage is based on the general emotional tone of the piece. (See Metric, Rhythmic, Overtonal and Intellectual Montage.)
Techné The principles and systematic knowledge employed in making something. Aristotle’s term for the unity of theory and practice within a skilled activity (CE).
Two pop A 1 kHz tone that is one frame long and placed 2 seconds before the start of a program as part of the Academy leader system to ensure synchronization between sound and picture in film or video.
Typage Portraying character through the external features of physiognomy, dress and behavior to indicate religion, region of origin and class. Casting for “type.”
Vector In media aesthetics, a perceivable force with a direction and in magnitude. Also any aesthetic that leads us into a specific space/time – or even emotional – direction (SSM).
Vector field A combination of vectors operating within a single picture field (frame), from picture field to picture field (frame to frame), from picture sequence to picture sequence, from screen to screen (multiple screens), or from screen to off screen events (SSM).
Vertical montage Eisenstein’s term for applying the principles of montage to the interaction of the visual image and sound. Vertical montage moves beyond reproduction — sync-sound — to create theme from polyphonic lines of meaning that emerge from techniques such as contrapuntal sound.
Windowing Editing by visual organization of materials within the frame, often multiple images simultaneously on screen. Zettl calls this “second-order space.”
Wipe A transition where the incoming shot moves across the screen to replace the outgoing shot, an overtly graphic transition that acknowledges the film image’s two-dimensional representation of space.