Chapter 1. Message and Medium

In this chapter we’re going to focus on giving you the facts, just the facts—the basic information you’ll need to get started on your first video production. Over the next several chapters we’ll be layering in more topics that will add to your knowledge, your experience, and the richness of your projects.

But just so we can get you up and running as soon as possible, we’re going to introduce some basic topics for you to consider before you jump in.

First, about the title of this chapter—“Message and Medium.” This is one way to break down the essence of the process you’re about to engage in: What do you want to say, and how are you going to say it?

After all, that’s what it’s all about.

When you make a media piece—any media piece—you are choosing an image or series of images and accompanying sounds to show something to an audience, which could be your best friend or the entire world. When your audience watches your piece, they will immediately begin to try to decode your meaning. You may not think you are “telling a story” or anything so grandiose if what you are filming is your friend’s skateboard trick.

But you are.

Even in the 20-second video of a skateboard trick, there’s a progression; something is attempted, and success or failure may result. The lowest rung of hell of content creation is probably the Cute Kitten Video. Even here in the lowest depths of media creation, your audience of cute kitten enthusiasts is going to wait and anticipate the cute thing that kitten is going to do.

Before jumping into an adventure filled with gadgets, gear, and gizmos, we’d like to share a fundamental truth about telling a story through the medium of video: It’s not about the gear you use; it’s about how you use it to tell your story effectively and convincingly.

You could have the latest, most expensive pro camera on the market, but if you don’t have a good story to tell and don’t know how to use the camera, your project will be no better than the average YouTube video. Mobile devices have brought high-quality video tools into a lot of people’s pockets. A high-quality camera alone does not make a pro videographer.

Here is a general list of the intangible requirements to create successful, professional video:

An understanding and working knowledge of the controls of your equipment

A well-organized plan of attack

An ability to problem-solve calmly under pressure

An eagerness and curiosity about how things work

A devotion to detail

An understanding of the value of safety

A commitment to reliability and dependability

Most of the items on this list can be acquired only through practice and experience, but it’s not too early to get started at trying to be the person who possesses those skills and qualities.

The lowest tier is consumer-level products (see FIGURE 1.2) designed for mass market that have a cheaper price tag. Consumer equipment has most of its controls under the hood, through automatic functions that allow the user to easily plug and play without a steep learning curve.

Consumer equipment tends to produce a lower-quality product but has the advantage of having more resources for support through online tutorial videos created by other users and more responses in support forums.

In between, there are prosumer-level devices (see FIGURE 1.3), hybrids of professional and consumer-level equipment. Prosumer gear hits that sweet spot of high-end features and quality, with moderate prices. Equipment in this category definitely holds back on some controls that professional work demands. Whatever this gear lacks in controls can usually be handled by a workaround. Prosumer equipment has allowed enthusiasts and educational programs to create professional-level work without paying a hefty price tag or sacrificing control.

Each camera has a tally light that indicates which camera angle the program is switched to so that the operator and the talent are informed. A large viewfinder display allows the operator to better detect the focus of their shot and have increased mobility.

The camera supports used for studio cameras include large tripods to support their weight and pedestals that use air or hydraulic pressure to allow the camera to easily move up and down.

Unlike studio cameras, ENG cameras have a built-in recording mechanism. Before it was possible to use memory cards to record video, these cameras recorded video to cassette tapes, which made the size and power requirements of the camera much larger than any consumer camera made then or now.

Even as video formats transitioned from analog to digital, ENG cameras still required tape to record the picture and sound until tapeless acquisition became practical and affordable.

To complete the all-in-one design, ENG cameras use professional-grade microphone inputs to record audio, which is a function that is not necessary or available for studio cameras or film cameras.

Historically, their disadvantage was only one person could monitor what the camera was capturing. The invention of the video assist, or video tap, which is a small video camera built into the camera to tap into the view of the lens, allowed directors to also monitor what the camera operator was seeing.

Digital cinema cameras (see FIGURE 1.7) don’t require a video tap since they are basically a type of video camera. The use of digital cameras in cinema production started with models that looked and functioned like ENG and broadcast cameras. Early use of digital cameras in feature-film production came along with the increase in quality of smaller digital tape formats and the ability to record higher-definition images in the standard frame rate for cinema production.

Cinema cameras have begun to move away from the systems and formats of broadcast video and use new acquisition formats that take advantage of the workflow of feature film production (see FIGURE 1.8) and emphasize the need for higher-resolution images that capture a larger spectrum of light and color.

Images acquired in raw image formats and new digital cinema color spaces necessitate color correction before being delivered to a viewing audience. This extra step in the workflow makes for higher-quality images than footage shot directly in standard video formats.

A feature that distinguishes film and cinema cameras from most other types of cameras is the ability to easily switch out wide and telephoto lenses (see FIGURE 1.9). ENG and studio cameras have a single lens, usually a zoom lens, to use for every shooting circumstance. In recent years, manufacturers have begun to add the ability to switch lenses to some prosumer and consumer cameras.

Unlike ENG cameras, camcorders are too small to rest on the operator’s shoulder and include many more automatic functions to make operation easier for novice users. A feature that originated in camcorders and has made its way to ENG cameras is the swing-out LCD viewfinder screen. Touchscreen controls on LCD viewfinders have migrated from the consumer camcorder to professional digital cinema cameras.

Like digital cinema cameras, a certain class of camcorders has come to market that allows the switching of lenses. In video production, familiarity with various types of lens mounts and features was not required knowledge before the introduction of video-capable DSLR cameras.

A major advantage of using a DSLR to capture video is the price of the camera. With prices comparable to—and often lower than—the price of camcorders, these cameras can reproduce professional-quality cinematic images far beyond what most camcorders can deliver. (When pricing a DSLR, keep in mind that the accumulated cost of lenses can drive up the price far beyond the “body-only” price of the camera.)

The DSLR’s ability to record audio does not match that of camcorders or ENG cameras, so the use of dual-system sound, as used in cinema production, is required for professional-quality audio. Recording audio on a separate recorder in a dual-system sound setup requires considerations for synchronizing the audio with the picture in the editing process.

Unlike other video cameras, DSLRs lack the ability to control the zoom lens with a motorized switch, and many have limited or no automatic focus control. For the price, the quality, and their capabilities (or lack thereof), DSLR cameras make for great training cameras. Using a DSLR demands that the user have an understanding and active involvement in manipulating its controls to capture professional images.

Sports and action cameras are by-products of the scale of pocket cameras and are used for capturing virtually any kind of sporting activity. They’re also used in professional cinema and television production for stunts and tricky angles. Sports and action cameras specialize in capturing in high frame rates that make movement look clearer and sharper and, when played at slower frame rates, really help demonstrate aspects of the physical world that real-time video doesn’t.

Consumer mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets (see FIGURE 1.12), have cameras that take wonderful snapshots and impressive video images. Apps dedicated to adding complete manual and custom control to mobile cameras are making it possible to consider using mobile cameras exclusively for many types of video productions. Accessory manufacturers are creating cases and mounts that convert mobile devices into cameras capable of producing sophisticated projects.

Smartphones and tablets that run apps can edit and upload video to online video-hosting services. With a single device you can write, shoot, edit, deliver, and present a video production, without introducing a single other piece of equipment into the process. The ease and low cost of doing so makes it possible for anyone with such a device to use video to deliver their message to the world.

If your camera does not have enough audio inputs or the kind of inputs to fit the microphones you want to use, consider getting a portable digital audio recorder that records audio on memory cards, has professional microphone inputs, and even has a built-in microphone. Some portable audio recorders can be mounted directly on a camera with an output to record reference or backup audio directly to the camera.

There are even apps that let you use your phone or tablet to record high-quality audio files in the same uncompressed format that is used professionally. We guarantee this will not be the last time we mention what there is an app for.

Camera stabilization tools such as a tripod, monopod, a shoulder mount, or a gimbal-based device (like a Steadicam, Glidecam [see FIGURE 1.14], or M VI) can take a novice production from looking like shaky home video to smooth, precise, high-end work.

When choosing a tripod, consider the weight of your camera. A $10,000 150mm tripod designed to hold a pro camera would be overkill if you’re mounting a smartphone on it. On the other side, a $10 photo tripod will definitely not allow you to make smooth movements with a heavier camcorder.

You never know how important batteries for your camera and audio gear are until you forget to have enough charged ones for your shoot. Never settle for the battery that comes in the box with your camera; always buy more than you think you need, and always keep them charging. Did a battery die on a shoot? Put it on the charger now.

Media such as memory cards or cassette tapes (if you’re still shooting on that stuff) is like gold. Memory cards of a high class ensure that the camera will be able to effectively write the fast stream of video data being jammed onto it. Tape is cheap; don’t reuse tapes unless you like glitches and corruption in your footage.

A clapboard, or slate (see FIGURE 1.15), is a tool that has two purposes: to visually label or slate your shot for identification during the editing process and to have a matching visual and auditory reference to synchronize picture and sound if they were recorded on separate systems. Slates are usually made of acrylic for use with a dry-erase marker, but there are even apps available so you can use your mobile device as a slate.

Other useful expendables and accessories include the following:

Gaffer tape (cloth tape used in lighting)

Gloves (slang: hand shoes) for protecting your hands from hot lights

A flashlight

A multitool

Pens, pencils, markers

The great composer Mozart wrote his operas and concertos in ink, supposedly never needing to change a note. Thankfully, we have text-editing programs with undo and delete keys, and when we edit on nonlinear editing (NLE) systems, we can drop in and pull out clips at will.

Don’t stress about getting it perfect. Just get it.

Here are a few things to consider as you get started.

The main character, also known as the protagonist and sometimes the hero. In our examples, they are your friend the skateboarder and the cute kitten.

The goal they go after—whether it’s the great trick (the skateboarder) or, say, a ball of yarn (the kitten).

Obstacles to that goal, such as a lack of motor skills or the yarn rolling away.

Everything we watch comes down to these three things. There are a lot of other elements, of course, but these three elements form the skeleton that everything else hangs off.

Whether you’re discussing a Jane Austen novel, The Avengers (2012), or an episode of Jackass, the universal experience of watching media is tracking something that has been established by the content creator to watch. The next time you view anything, see how long it takes for you to understand what you’re tracking.

This works differently, of course, depending on various other factors such as the length of the media. For a television show such as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990–96), the whole series will track something—how street-smart Will Smith handles the changes in his life when he moves from his tough Philadelphia neighborhood to the wealthy neighborhood of Bel-Air.

Every individual episode will track this development in a general way. Additionally, it will track an individual storyline more specifically. The conflict always raises a yes or no question—say, will Will make it onto The Oprah Winfrey Show? It gives the audience something specific to root for and against. Let’s look at our three basic elements in a little more detail.

Sometimes the protagonist in a media piece is not immediately apparent. At first glance, Frodo Baggins appears to be the main character of the Lord of the Rings series of books by J. R. R. Tolkien and films by Peter Jackson, when he has to decide how to dispose of the One Ring, a weapon of great power.

However, over a protracted series of adventures, Frodo’s pal and gardener Sam Gangee really fills out the role of the protagonist better than Frodo. Although Frodo ultimately has to get to Mount Doom to destroy the ring, Sam does pretty much all the heavy lifting to get him there across something like 8,000 pages of books. Frodo mainly wears a ring, which may be good enough for the protagonist of Project Runway but not Lord of the Rings.

One of the most important things do as a writer/creator is to let the audience know what kind of person (or fish, in Finding Nemo, 2003) your protagonist is. What do they care about? What are they good at? What are their weaknesses? Getting to know the main character is often the first thing that gets an audience interested in a story. You may notice, the next time you watch a show or film, that some aspect of the protagonist’s personality is showcased the very first time we meet them.

Often, the protagonist in a film or novel will have a special skill that will help him or her to achieve the goal. For example, Luke Skywalker in Star Wars (1977) is a great pilot, a skill he uses to try to destroy the Death Star. He also has The Force, which is like two special skills, so maybe he’s a little greedy in the special skill department.

The hero of the story may be the protagonist and the protagonist may be a hero, but not always. In Lord of the Rings, the most traditionally heroic character (brave, good fighter, good-looking, and so on) is Aragorn, but he is not the protagonist because he is not the one we most identify with or the most central driver of the mission. Walter White in the television show Breaking Bad (2008) and Tony Montana in the film Scarface (1983) are not heroic, for the most part, but they are definitely the protagonists of their narratives. Protagonists don’t have to be “good guys/girls”; they just have to be relatable and interesting.

For instance, Luke Skywalker’s initial goal in Star Wars is to save Princess Leia. Once the pursuit of that goal concludes, around halfway through the film, the story could be over, except that the quest to rescue her has uncovered a great and immediate threat to freedom throughout the galaxy (bigger and more intense goal).

In Breaking Bad, Walter White starts out making and selling drugs to provide money for his family after he dies from cancer (immoral albeit arguably noble goal). When his prognosis improves, he continues building his drug empire anyway because this new quest delivers him the respect and greatness he has been denied in life (a selfish albeit interesting goal).

Most goals in stories are surprisingly simple, though they don’t always start out seeming that way. They’re usually things that a large portion of the audience (if not the whole audience) also might want—money and treasure, of course, but also deeper things—love, respect, a purpose in life, freedom.

Goals can generally be broken down into external and internal goals that can come from the same result. For instance, in the film Rocky (1976), Rocky Balboa wants to “go the distance” in his fight against Apollo Creed (external goal) because that will give him back the self-respect he has lost (internal goal).

Most writer/creators like to have at least a pretty clear picture of who their protagonist is, what their goal is, and what the obstacles might be before they start writing their stories out in detail. Once you have all three of these things, you can begin to generate empathy for your main character. If farmers are in the business of producing crops or dairy products, storytellers are in the business of producing empathy.

The writer, director, actor, and everyone directly involved with the project make us feel that we know the character or even that we are the character. The more we identify with the protagonist, either because they are like us or they are what we aspire to be, we don’t go to movies to watch other people go through things; we go to experience these things ourselves. This, above all, is the magic trick that propels us out of our seats and into the screen or at least the theater.

Some of the most common ways the writer and director create empathy for the main character include the following:

Having the main character go after a goal that is almost impossible. Examples include Luke Skywalker taking on the Empire, El Mariachi having to fight dozens of hit men in El Mariachi (1992), and Rocky wanting to last 12 rounds against the heavyweight champ of the world.

Sometimes in our own lives, reaching our goals seems impossible, so we identify with a character who charges ahead against serious odds like we want to do ourselves.

Having the main character experience a great loss. For example, in Spider-Man (2002), Peter Parker loses his beloved Uncle Ben. El Mariachi loses his great love.

In the course of our lives, the most traumatic moments are frequently the most vivid and memorable. Most of us become better friends with others by choosing to open up about losses we have endured. Just so, we identify with characters in narratives when we see them go through loss because we all know what it means to experience loss in our lives.

Having the main character experience a great need. Examples include Rocky’s need for self-respect. In The Sixth Sense (1999), the protagonist is a child psychologist who has a great need to redeem himself for a past mistake.

Having the main character be brave, like Ana Garcia in Real Women Have Curves (2002) when she chooses to defy her mother; funny, like Austin Powers in the Austin Powers franchise of films; or decent, like attorney Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) are the kinds of personality traits we respect in each other.

Having a puddle splash up on the main character. We all have bad days.

Empathy creates engagement and identification between us and the protagonist. It locks us in with them for the rest of the story. Vince Gilligan, the creator of Breaking Bad, as well as the producers and distributors of that show, took great risks by having Walter White act more villainously than perhaps any protagonist in history.

They risked having the audience lose empathy and turn against their character and their show. But their gamble paid off, and the result was one of the most ambitious, successful, and talked-about series in the history of television.

As we stated earlier, you definitely want a protagonist for your audience to identify with as they pursue their quest. That is a job that definitely needs to be done in your story.

But there are other jobs that routinely need to be done as well. One way to develop your project is to think of a “Now Hiring” board. Ask yourself, what kinds of characters does your story need? The following are some suggestions for your jobs board.

Can the villain be the protagonist? There have certainly been lots of cases where writers and directors have switched it up. Anti-heroes are villains we root for despite their illegal or immoral activities, and they include some of the richest characters in media history, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather series, Walter White in Breaking Bad, and pretty much every protagonist in the genre of film noir.

Even the relatively innocent genre of family films have explored the anti-hero in Despicable Me (2010) and Megamind (2010), where traditionally villainous characters take on the role of the hero, usually attempting some sort of redemption.

One of the most interesting mentors ever is Hannibal Lector, who some misremember as the antagonist of The Silence of the Lambs (1991) because he was more villainous than the actual villain (serial killer Buffalo Bill). But Lector actually illuminated the thought processes of the antagonist for the protagonist, FBI agent Clarice Starling. The Lector character proved so popular, in fact, that he graduated to the position of antihero in later films and a television series.

Mentors frequently die once they have dispensed their learning to the protagonist, reflecting the essential circle of life. We learn from our elders, and then our elders are gone, and we live on as they have taught us. As in life, so in media. Deep, right?

Han Solo is a mirror character to Luke Skywalker. Eddie Brock is a mirror character in Spider-Man 3 (2007). Like Peter Parker, Eddie is a photographer for the Daily Bugle; also like Peter, he is transformed into a superbeing, the villainous Venom.

One of the most interesting mirror characters in literature and film comes from No Country for Old Men (2007), based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy. The seeming protagonist Llewelyn Moss is shown to be the mirror character in one of the most staggering sequences in cinema history, forcing us to rethink the entire story.

Traitors can go both ways. Mini-Me starts out as a henchman for Dr. Evil in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), but after a squabble, he joins the hero’s side as Mini-Austin.

Pretty much all police captain characters, most judges, and all DMV workers represent the bureaucrat character. Die Hard (1988) alone has several great bureaucrat characters: Dwayne Robinson, the Deputy Chief of Police; Thornburg, the reporter; and FBI agents Big Johnson and Little Johnson. This gives protagonist John McClane ample opportunity to be, as he says, “just a fly in the ointment, Hans. The monkey in the wrench.”

As we indicated earlier, characters can “change jobs” throughout a story, more than once as the writer/creator sees fit. One of the most interesting examples of this is Quentin Tarantino’s omnibus masterpiece Pulp Fiction (1994), which is made up of several stories involving the same characters. In one storyline, hit man Vincent Vega is the protagonist; in a second, he is the sidekick; in a third, he is a henchman.

Once you have considered the characters you want to populate your story with, as well as their goals and obstacles, you will need to organize all the steps of the quest the protagonist will undergo to achieve their objective.

The first rule of the three-act structure is that all stories can be broken down into three separate and distinct parts—previously, you may have referred to them as the Beginning, Middle, and End, but here they shall be known as follows:

The first act (usually around the first 25 percent of the story)

The second act (approximately the middle 50 percent)

The third act (the final 25 percent)

In the next three sections we’ll define the three acts in a traditional narrative structure.

In the first act we meet and learn important facts about the life and personality of the protagonist, especially their strengths and weaknesses. In Titanic, Jack is poor but full of life, while Rose appears wealthy but feels dead inside. In Die Hard, John McClane is a tough cop who won’t give up in, but he desperately wants to get back together with his wife and children.

We also learn what the goal will be and get a hint at least of what threat or problem might prevent the protagonist from achieving it, such as a plague, an asteroid, a serial killer, or an iceberg. Also, we either meet or learn about the villain or antagonist or a bureaucrat on whom we can focus our dislike on when the “villain” is a volcano or an asteroid.

You can also think of the threat as the antagonist’s goal, which is usually the opposite of the protagonist’s goal. For example, in Speed (1996), the threat is that a bus will blow up if it goes below 50 miles per hour; therefore, the hero’s goal is to make sure that doesn’t happen so he can save the passengers.

Once we’ve met the protagonist and we know what the goal will be, we’re ready to move from the first act into the second act. The moment when the protagonist accepts the challenge of achieving the goal is called the first act break. Examples include Luke deciding to leave his planet to try to save Princess Leia in Star Wars; Rocky agreeing to fight the heavyweight champion of the world, Apollo Creed; or the terrorists taking over the building in Die Hard (which forces John McClane to try and stop them).

The first act break is the moment when the main character becomes locked into their path and the audience knows what the rest of the movie is about and what the goal/threat is.

The loss or death of family/mentor/allies: Dr. Crowe, the child psychologist, grows apart from his wife in The Sixth Sense; Luke loses mentor Obi-Wan in Star Wars.

Personal injury, either physical or mental: El Mariachi loses his hand; Luke also loses his hand in The Empire Strikes Back (1980).

The threat turns out to be much worse than originally thought: The shark in Jaws is much bigger than expected; the computers in The Matrix seem omnipotent; the Death Star in Star Wars is the greatest weapon the universe has ever known.

The original method of defeating the villain/threat doesn’t work and/or only makes the threat more serious: The shark overwhelms Sheriff Brody and his team at first in Jaws because the sheriff has underestimated it; first the Air Force and then nuclear weapons fail against the aliens in Independence Day (1996).

As you’ve probably noticed, the two emotions that successful stories activate in the viewer are hope and fear. We hope the protagonist will achieve their goal, and we fear that they will not.

The second act usually involves a series of ups and downs in which some events (new information/training/a fresh ally) will bring the protagonist closer to the goal, while other events (loss of the clue/a betrayal/an injury) will push them further from the goal.

The ups and downs of the story are most often reflected through a series of twists, reversals, and false hopes. When the U.S. military brings in nuclear weapons in the film Independence Day, it gives the audience a false hope that, at least by using such an extreme measure, the aliens can be defeated. In The Sixth Sense, when we realize that a major character has been dead all along, this is a twist that changes what we have believed so far to be true. When El Mariachi gets knocked out and taken to Moco, his situation is reversed; he goes from being on top of the situation to a captive.

The main thing about the second act is, things get tougher for the main character, whether they are looking for love or trying to save the world. Our empathy for the main character grows as their situation gets worse.

They try to solve the problem, but their first solutions don’t work for whatever reason, and now when things get worse, we get to see what our heroes are really made of. As they continue to try to achieve their goal when it seems more impossible than ever, we really like them, and we want them to succeed.

Eventually, though, some combination of perseverance, resourcefulness, smarts (the main character’s strengths), and sheer luck, the main character catches a break that will enable them to possibly defeat the antagonist or resolve the conflict. This moment in the story is called the second act break. It usually happens around 75 percent of the way through the story, and it takes us from the forward momentum of the second act to the even faster momentum of the third act.

The second act break might feature any of the following:

The main character finally figuring out how to stop the antagonist/threat. For example, Luke and his crew find a weakness in the plans for the Death Star.

The protagonist figuring out when the threat will climax—for instance, when will the lava hit midtown L.A. in Volcano (1997)? This is also called a “ticking clock.”

If the hero’s goal intensifies during the second act (Star Wars) or changes because of a new understanding of the circumstances (The Sixth Sense), the second act break is the moment when the last piece of the puzzle is in place and the protagonist knows what they must ultimately do—for example, help a young boy cope with his abilities in The Sixth Sense, or fly onto the Death Star and destroy it in Star Wars.

At this point, the audience knows what, when, and usually where and how the big scene/“big showdown” will occur.

The pace picks up as the second act break takes us from the second act into the third act because this is the first time the protagonist has been sure of what they need to do to finally achieve the goal.

Often the showdown, also called the climax or climactic scene, will involve the hero overcoming a weakness that’s been discussed since the first act. In Jaws, Sheriff Brody, who is afraid of water, gets dumped in the ocean to fight the shark in Jaws. In Die Hard, John McClane must do the only thing he finds impossible: opening up to his wife. Superman must overcome kryptonite.

Sometimes, the hero must make a great sacrifice in order to achieve their goal: El Mariachi loses his hand, Jack sacrifices himself to save Rose in Titanic, driller Harry Stamper gives his life to save the earth in Armageddon (1998).

After the climax, the hero has won or lost (usually won), and there’s been a resolution or result, most likely the accomplishment of the goal or perhaps a new understanding or enlightenment. For example, when Luke blows up the Death Star, the resolution is, the Rebels are saved. When Jack sacrifices his life in Titanic, the resolution is, Rose is saved and will remember him always. When Austin Powers defeats Dr. Evil, he doesn’t get his mojo back, but his story is resolved because he realizes he doesn’t need it after all.

Occasionally, there is a difference between what the protagonist is trying to achieve and what the writer/creator (and the audience) feels they need. For example, we never believe that Lloyd Christmas should wind up with Mary in Dumb and Dumber (1994), though that is his stated goal. Yet, this does not make us lose empathy for Lloyd. Remember, empathy is based on our hope for the main character, so in this situation, we hope Lloyd will realize what he truly needs, which is to be honest with Harry and appreciate his good friend.

Finally, after the climax, there’s usually a shot or scene that lets us know things will be okay going forward. We get to enjoy a little downtime with our new best friend, the protagonist. For example, Hooper the shark expert and Sheriff Brody paddle back to shore in Jaws amid bits of exploded shark; the survivors back on Earth mourn Harry Stamper in Armageddon.

This final wrap-up after the conflict has been resolved is called the denouement.

For those who have never considered doing any of these jobs, in most cases we are going to suggest the personality type that typically suits the job. None of these is an absolute or exclusive precondition for any job described, but they should help get your process started finding the best job for you.

Personality type: The executive producer, like a writer, must have or choose a story or big idea that will take over their lives for a substantial amount of time. They should be active readers and viewers and have a sense of the audience or marketplace for whatever project they are choosing to focus on. They must have the business sense to analyze whether the project they have chosen to develop will be competitive in whatever arena it will screen in, as well as the drive to put together the best possible team to produce the project.

Assigning responsibilities to individual crew members and checking to make sure they will complete tasks correctly and on time

Arranging the shooting schedule location by location

Making sure everything needed to film is ready on schedule

Personality type: The producer needs to be extremely organized and able to juggle several issues at once. They must have good planning skills and predict where challenges to their success will come from, solving problems before they erupt.

Personality type: The writer needs to have a good vocabulary and a visual, descriptive imagination.

Transforms the script into a series of images or shots that can be filmed and turns thoughts and ideas into pictures and performances. They have to hold the whole project in their head to make sure everything that is filmed will all work together well.

Creates or oversees storyboards and shot lists to let crew members know what the shots are.

Casts actors who can give the necessary performances.

Rehearses the actors and crew, giving them constructive feedback

Oversees the creative process of the film from preproduction through postproduction

Personality type: The director needs to be a natural leader, visually and verbally creative, and focused on getting the job done; they must also supportive of people they work with. They deal mostly with the actors, director of photography, camera operator, and producer. All other work on the production is channeled through the director.

Creating a character including a backstory for their character, or the life that the character lived before the project began. Actors are responsible for developing their role both in the way they look and in the internalized thoughts and emotions they have, reacting spontaneously and believably as the character.

Practicing and memorizing all dialogue.

Practicing and memorizing their scenes, including their movements or blocking.

Personality type: Actors must be really focused to shut out all the “noise” and stress on a set and just let themselves become that other person they’re playing. They should have good memorization skills and commit themselves, in a mature way, to the things they do. Good actors, like good writers, have active imaginations and love coming up with new things every time they take on a new role. Actors interact mostly with the director and other actors.

Personality type: The script/continuity supervisor must be observant and take good notes.

Personality type: This crew member must be tough and have good discipline and natural leadership skills and be a good motivator to help eliminate problems that can slow a crew down. The 1st AD deals mostly with the director and the producers.

Personality type: The DP must have good visual imagination and be visually creative and artistic.

Personality type: The camera operator must be responsible and reliable and like working with and learning new gear, as well as steady and focused.

Transporting the camera gear (camera, boom pole, microphone, slate, and so on) to the location and back

Making sure they have all camera gear including slates, dry erase markers, lens cleaner, and so on

Marking the slate before each new take

Pulling/changing focus during the take for the camera operator, as needed

Making sure camera batteries are charged

Personality type: The camera crew must be reliable and responsible and like learning how to use complicated equipment.

Personality type: The gaffer is like Batman on the set. They both wear gloves, feature an amazing tendency to get the impossible done, and have utility belts. Only gaffers’ utility belts feature a lot of tape, including gaffer’s tape. How cool is it that your job has its own kind of tape?

Personality type: Grips get it done; they set it up, and then they break down the riggings and other lighting gear, which can be hung far above the stage or set. Grips are primarily involved in assuring the safety of everyone on the set. They listen well and ask what needs to be asked.

Personality type: The production designer and art director must have good visual imaginations and be especially demanding before saying that something is right for the film.

Personality type: These designers must like shopping and have good visual imaginations and be especially demanding before saying that something is right for the film.

Personality type: Make-up and hair stylists in media are extremely competent and passionate about what they do yet generally upbeat and pleasant to work with. They are often the ambassadors between the crew and the cast and must keep themselves familiar with trends in make-up and hair but also be knowledgeable about different styles through history and different cultures. They must be ready to style characters from different eras and ages. This is a lucrative discipline where those with a personal interest should consider a program to learn how to develop into a professional.

The boom operator collaborates with the production sound mixer, wearing headphones so that they can hear the recorded sound and holding the boom pole and microphone over the actors’ heads while they are saying their lines at such an angle pointed down at their mouths so that their voices are clear and easy to understand.

Personality type: Both these positions require good hearing; additionally, the boom operator should have strong arms as they may have to hold the boom pole over their head for several hours a day while focusing on the sound quality.

When possible, the editor should watch on the set to make sure the director is giving them footage they can cut together well.

Personality type: The editor must have extremely high and exacting standards and a lot of patience to look through hundreds of takes of shot after shot trying to find “it”—the perfect balance, rhythm, and cut point to perfect the scene. Editor is one of the main jobs that leads to directing.

Personality type: The assistant editor likewise must have a lot of patience and concentration and be detail-oriented. On a two-hour feature film with a 10:1 shooting ratio (footage shot, length of piece), assistant editors have to log (list) and maintain a mere 20 hours of footage, but assistant editors on reality shows must sort through massive amounts of material, with ratios of 40:1 to 100:1 or more.

Personality type: Sound editors, like video editors, must like working with computer programs. They often have little interaction with the rest of the crew except for the director.

Music is a key component of a successful project, often conveying the emotion that the script or performances sometimes hold back on.

Personality type: The music supervisor or composer must have a sharp ear and a keen sense of how to choose or compose music that captures and amplifies the tone of each scene.

Over the last 15 years, social media has become key to successful promotion of a media piece, with most sizable productions creating a website that users can link to through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or some other well-trafficked site. The publicist might also organize parties or other social events to promote the project.

Personality type: Publicists should be visually minded and active in social media, and familiar with Adobe Photoshop and other design-oriented software.

Personality type: A good production assistant is reliable and always looking for something to do to help their movie.

Writing the script

Budgeting the entire production

Scheduling the shoot

Fundraising to meet the budget

Hiring the crew

Casting the talent

Scouting locations

Designing and building sets

Rehearsing

Renting equipment

Additional photography, in the form of reshoots and pickups, is also part of production. Reshoots are done if there is an error or a change to a scene that can’t be fixed by any means other than to shoot the scene all over again. Pickups are additional shots that are necessary for the scene that were not captured when the scene was originally shot. Reshoots and pickups can occur as part of principal photography or during postproduction.

Picture editing is the first phase of post, and in most circumstances (live production excluded) takes a longer time than production. Simple projects that have little to no visual effects (VFX) have a smaller number of people working than the production stage requires. A project that has visual effect shots, such as adding background elements over a green screen or animations in the foreground, requires more crew members in post.

Postproduction also includes work on audio, titles and graphics, and color correction.

Once the camera is placed, the grip and electric department get to work on lighting the shot. In cases of large or complicated lighting setups and shooting in a studio, the set is prelit for efficiency.

As final tweaks are done to the lighting, the sound crew can position their microphones, making sure they are not seen by camera nor cause any shadows in the shot.

A full camera rehearsal takes place for all elements to be blended together before cameras roll. The talent aren’t the only ones who have a script with lines to say, the crew does, too! Once everything is working in full rehearsal, the director calls out, “Lock it up.”

The 1st AD says, “Quiet on the set, picture up!”

“Picture up” is short for “the picture is up,” which means the cameras are about to roll.

At this point a camera assistant holds the slate or clapboard in the shot with the sticks open, ready to mark.

Once the set is quiet, the 1st AD calls, “Roll” or “Roll sound.”

The sound mixer (or recordist) starts recording and says, “Speed!” That means the audio recording machine has taken up speed. This is a holdover from the days of analog audio recording where a reel-to-reel recorder took a moment for the motor to get to its proper recording speed.

The camera operator starts recording and also calls, “Speed,” “Camera rolling,” “Camera rolls,” or just “Rolling.”

The camera assistant then verbally slates the shot by saying the scene number and take, for example for scene 3B take 2, the AC would say, “Scene three-baker, take-two.”

Before hitting the slate, the AC says, “Marker.” If there are separate slates for different cameras, the AC will say, “A-camera mark” or “B-camera mark” before hitting the slate.

The marker is called before hitting the slate, not after, and certainly not during. The purpose of the slate is to synchronize the picture and audio. The sound of the clapboard needs to be clearly heard so the editorial team can match it up to the picture frame where the sticks meet each other.

If there is no audio being recorded, the AC holds their fingers between the sticks to show the editing team that there is no associated audio to search for. Shooting without synchronized audio is called MOS.

If talent or crew are still a little antsy, the director might call for everyone to “settle” before calling, “Action!”

Then the magic happens. When the take is done, the director calls, “Cut.”

To keep things moving, it’s important that the director immediately state their intentions to either shoot another take or move on to another shot. To shoot another take, the director says, “Back to one,” which means back to first position, where everyone was when the shot started. If the take is good and no other take is needed, even for safety, the director or 1st AD can call, “Moving on.”

Then the cycle continues again and again, until the last shot of the day, which is called the martini shot. We’ll leave it up to you to figure out why it’s called that.

These days, media creators use the camera in countless ways to add energy to a scene or to comment on the action. Here are some things to think about when deciding where to put your camera.

A shot here is defined as a camera angle—move the camera or change the lens and you’re changing the shot—and it can be defined in many different ways as you will see. Here are some preliminary definitions and categorizations.

A crane is a device that will raise your camera up over a scene or drop it down. The shot at the end of many films where the hero walks through a devastated Las Vegas cradling the newborn he just saved as the camera lifts up over the scene is a crane shot. A slider is tripod or tripod-crane hybrid that moves the camera around and up and down as an alternative to using the dolly or going handheld.

The camera might zoom in on a character during a moment of surprise or intense emotion, for instance when he finds out it’s not really his baby on a soap opera.

Some directors don’t like to use zooms because wide-angle and telephoto lenses photograph space differently, and this can throw an audience off. Telephoto lenses flatten space; wide-angles emphasize space.

1. A CU of someone’s eyes

2. What they are seeing

3. Their reaction

Although the freeze frame at the end of Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups) (1959) at the end of a very long tracking shot purportedly came about by accident, the freezing of the face of Antoine Doinel, the boy protagonist, at the moment when he has realized his life’s goal, which is to reach the ocean, leaves us moved and wondering what life has in store for the troubled youth.

For example, in The Godfather (1972), a horse is killed to send a message to its owner, and then the director superimposes an image of the man who ordered the horse to be killed over that scene, connecting the two images graphically, even though the events occur far apart in cinematic space.

Some directors, like M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense; The Village, 2004) prefer to design a master shot and move the camera around to show whatever they want the audience to see instead of cutting to it. If you watch Shyamalan’s work, you’ll notice a lot of scenes are filmed in only one or two shots. This style of shooting is called mise-en-scène.

Every scene in a project has one master shot and then however many shots of coverage of that master as the director feels they need or can afford to get.

To understand coverage, think of the scene you’re shooting as a jigsaw puzzle. As a director, the first thing you plan is the master shot. At least with that, you should have a recording of the whole scene.

Then ask yourself, what else do I need to show to get the right effect from this scene? Two over-the-shoulder shots? A reaction shot from the guy down the hall who hears the conversation? An insert shot of the clock?

Every other shot or camera angle besides the master is coverage of the scene. And it’s not just the scene that’s covered; it’s you, as the director or producer, protecting your scene from boring the audience.

This illusion is a continuity of time and space created on film or video as a mirror image of our real three-dimensional world. Editors, who cut the picture together, must look at the storyboards and work with the director to make sure the shots will work together to create this alternate world.

If the shots don’t work together and there seems to be a jump forward or backward in time, this is referred to as a jump cut. Sometimes, in a music video, fight scene, or chase scene, editors use jump cuts on purpose.

The following are some rules for maintaining temporal (time) and spatial (space) continuity.

When the director envisions a scene, they have to be aware of all of the space in the scene, including the part in front of the camera and the part that is happening offscreen as well.

In some scenes—for instance, a party scene in a Woody Allen film—action is progressing in various areas of the scene simultaneously and is covered by different shots. The director must rehearse the scene in its entirety, remembering which moments on one side of the room are happening simultaneously with other moments across the room so that the character positions, background action, and overall continuity match from shot to shot. Characters should be able to walk out of one shot into another shot, and this all has to cohere with integrity and continuity.

The editor will have to match the action from shot to shot by finding a cut point, a frame (still image) in which to cut out of Shot A and another frame to cut into Shot B that will hide the edit and maintain the action with no break in time or ellipsis. The goal of the editor as they review the footage is to find a seamless cut. Seamless cuts are also referred to as transparent continuity, which means that if the editor does their job well, we don’t even notice the cuts.

The rule of the stageline, also known as the 180° rule, states that once the line is set, all shots—CUs, MSs, WSs, whatever—must be taken from the same side of the line in order to maintain the viewer’s orientation of left and right.

Let’s say you’re shooting a dinner scene. If you want to cover (get coverage of) the scene with two matching over-the-shoulder (OTS) shots, you must make sure to shoot them from the same side of the stageline. You can see below how these shots balance each other.

When cut together, it will look like the man and the woman are actually talking to each other. Note that he stays on the left and she stays on the right side of the screen even though you have changed the camera angle.

Compare this to an example in which the stageline is crossed. Imagine what the scene will look like when these two shots are edited together. The man and the woman are now both on the same side of the screen—they will “pop” on top of each other on every cut!

Once the stageline has been set, it can be changed any of the following ways:

Moving/dollying the camera across the line during the shot, which will establish a new stageline

Moving the actors during the shot, which likewise will establish a new stageline

Cutting to an insert shot (such as a clock) with no left/right orientation, which sort of reboots the orientation in the viewer’s mind

To suddenly see the object moving from right to left will upset the audience’s orientation. They might think it’s a different object headed toward the first object. They might believe time has passed between Shot A and Shot B. They will try to make sense of it, but their explanation may not be accurate.

As you can see from the diagram below, if we follow the rule of the stageline, we will maintain correct screen direction. Crossing the stageline will reverse screen direction. Not maintaining correct screen direction is a common problem for new directors.

When filming a car chase or conversation around a lunch table, or any scene involving more than two characters, it’s not uncommon for directors, camera operators, and script supervisors to discuss eyeline—“What was the eyeline of the last scene, left or right?”—to make sure characters are looking the right way off-screen toward each other.

During the bathtub scene in El Mariachi, there is a mistake in eyeline that is corrected during the scene.

The director rehearses the blocking with the actors and camera operator because, even though the actors’ movements should look spontaneous, the actor needs to “hit their mark” on every take so they’ll be in focus. Likewise, the camera operator’s moves must be equally rehearsed.

If either the actor or cameraman is out of step or misses their mark, either the shot will be out of focus or the composition will be ruined. For instance, a head may appear in front of another head instead of next to it.

Symbols are something, usually visible, used to represent something else, usually invisible—for example, a heart for love or a four-leaf clover for luck. The classic film Sunset Blvd. (1950) is full of symbols. The title itself could refer to the end of a career or the end of a life. An attacking microphone represents the technology that ended a silent film star’s great career.

Irony is a humorous twist in our expectations, such as a swimming instructor who drowns. In the film Citizen Kane (1941), a woman says to the protagonist, “Well, you know what mothers are like” and he smiles, precisely because he doesn’t know that and therein lies the heart of his problem. In dramatic irony, the audience knows something the characters don’t. In Kane, everyone is searching for the identity of “Rosebud,” but only the audience is allowed to learn what “Rosebud” really means.

Planting and payoff, like foreshadowing in a novel, means giving the audience a clue as to what will happen later. One example, the compressed air tanks in Jaws are introduced as a very dangerous item, which will be meaningful later in the story. In Citizen Kane, the first image we see in the front of the main character’s mansion says “No Trespassing.” When that sign reappears at the end of the film, we understand that the filmmakers believe that the truth of a man’s life is very difficult to know.

Subtext refers to what is really being said or meant beneath the dialogue. For example, in Sideways (2004), the protagonist is asked why he loves pinot noir wine and when he responds that the grape is hard to grow and temperamental, we understand that he is really talking about himself. In the film Annie Hall (1977), the filmmaker actually writes the subtext onscreen as subtitles as if it is a foreign language.

Repetition and variation occur when some element in the story is repeated but varied or seen in a different way to reflect some change in the story. Many elements and themes from the film The Godfather return in The Godfather Part II (1974), but they have grown darker, reflecting the moral disintegration of the protagonist Michael Corleone. This repetition is also referred to as a leitmotif.

Contrasts help the audience focus on some aspect of your scene or character by focusing on its opposite. To help us concentrate on a character starving, you might show him watching a group of people happily eating a meal.

Misdirection is when the writer and director make us think something will happen and then insert a twist, as in a murder mystery when we think that the butler did it because he has a bloody knife and then he licks it and we find out it’s strawberry jam.

Flashbacks are an example of how to use nonlinear storytelling effectively in filmmaking. Stories by default proceed forward in chronological order. Sometimes the storytellers will break the timeline and send us back, via a flashback, to see something earlier that is relevant to the current storyline. Citizen Kane is told almost entirely through flashbacks from the perspectives of several characters who know a man who recently died.

A general workflow for postproduction looks like this:

1. Ingesting and organization

2. Assembly (rough cut)

3. Feedback

4. Revision and trimming

5. Final cut

6. Audio sweetening and mixing

7. Titles and graphics

8. Color correction

9. Delivery

Once ingested, the media is represented in video-editing applications as clips. Before any editing is to begin, each clip needs to be identified and labeled to be easily located.

The more footage to be ingested, the more critical the need is to label and organize footage. In traditional video-editing applications, clips and other media assets are organized in bins. Bins are just like folders or directories in a computer file system and take their name from the physical cloth-lined bins that were used in film editing.

All digital video is encoded with some compression type or another. A compression type or codec (short for compressor/decompressor) is chosen based on the purpose of the video.

Mobile devices tend to record video in the same codec that is used to deliver directly to the Web by keeping the file size low. H.264 is one of the most commonly used codecs for web video and acquisition on both mobile devices and DSLR cameras. Compression of this type tends to be heavy and can produce loss of image quality.

Most editing software can work with footage that was acquired in codecs that have heavier compression. Doing so demands more processing power from the computer. There are other codecs available that editing software prefers to work with that are higher quality and less demanding on the processor but that create larger file sizes.

The conversion of media from one codec to another is called transcoding. Depending on your choice of editing software and the power of your computer, you can either manually transcode your media, allow the software to automatically transcode in the background, or not transcode at all.

Feedback is required, especially when working with a client, to get different critical perspectives on the work. The editor can receive notes from the director, producers, the client, and even executives for changes to the cut.

The project goes through revision and trimming according to the notes received. With each new cut, another round of feedback occurs until the program is ready to be called a final cut and the picture is locked.

A picture lock is the point at which picture editing is complete and the project moves onto work that doesn’t affect the running time or duration of the project. If changes to the picture that affect running time need to be made after this point, it’s possible to make those changes, but this can upset the multiple processes occurring simultaneously afterward, particularly in sound/music editing and visual effects.

Audio mixing and sweetening in professional video productions are done by a separate post audio crew once the picture is locked. At this stage, any audio elements not added by the editor, such as sound effects and music, are edited into the project.

Just like with the process of transcoding media for editing, conversion to a more compressed codec for Internet delivery such as H.264, called encoding, is needed to keep file size down for quick transfer. Because of the nature of the encoding process, compressing media into a smaller file size while maintaining an acceptable quality can be time-consuming, especially if you have a long program.

Once compressed, you will have a single file, containing all the edited clips, titles, graphics, effects, and audio in one neat compact stream, ready to be delivered through the Internet, stored on the cloud, or copied onto a flash drive or external hard drive.

If a shot needed to be added to an early part of a program, the rest of the program from that point on needed to be edited again. The editor had to have a clear game plan on how the program and each shot should be laid out. Creating a simple effect like a dissolve required the second shot to be copied on another video tape to be played back on a third videotape player to be played back simultaneously to perform the effect.

Editing on a computer in a nonlinear editing (NLE) system allows the editor to move shots around in any order they need without losing any previous work. Working on an NLE must have felt miraculous to those who edited on linear editing systems. To those who lived through the struggle, we salute you.

In the 1990s, the film and television industry began to adopt editing on NLEs. The two most popular editing systems at the time, which were the Coke and Pepsi of postproduction, were Avid and Lightworks. Avid Technology, Inc., still holds the title of the standard for professional editing systems in film and TV production.

Lightworks is also still around, and although not as popular or widely used as Avid Media Composer (see FIGURE 1.39), it is one of the most affordable pieces of software and is the system of choice for master filmmaker Martin Scorsese (Raging Bull, 1980; Hugo, 2011) and his multiple Academy Award–winning collaborator and editor, Thelma Schoonmaker.

In 1999, Apple, Inc., released Final Cut Pro (see FIGURE 1.40), an NLE designed to work without any additional software. Digital video (DV) cameras could be connected to a Mac computer using a FireWire cable to capture picture and sound without any loss of quality.

Final Cut Pro was sold at a fraction of the price of the established competitors, which caused a disruption and a bit of a divide in the industry. Video production companies and documentarians used Final Cut Pro because of its affordability and ease of use, where TV and film editors continued to use Avid’s editing applications because of their established base, support, and reliability.

The same year Final Cut Pro was released, Sonic Foundry released Vegas Pro, a Windows-only NLE, which was acquired by Sony in 2003.

The team that originally created Final Cut Pro was hired by Adobe Systems, Inc., to create another entry in the competition, Adobe Premiere (now Adobe Premiere Pro), which was released in 2003.

The adoption and use of each video-editing solution ebbs and flows as each system comes out with new versions with new features. It is difficult to say which solution is the right one to use, since factors such as budget and choice of operating system apply differently for each user and each production.

To add yet another set of options for editing your project, mobile apps for phones and tablets are becoming more powerful and capable of handling high-quality video to create professional-level projects. Apple iMovie for iOS (see FIGURE 1.41) becomes more feature-rich with each update. Film editor Dan Lebental, A.C.E. (Iron Man, 2008), developed TouchEdit, a video-editing app used on professional productions and fitting into established workflows. Adobe recently announced its own editor for the iOS platform, Premiere Clip.

The market for the tools to deliver your message using video is being flooded by new and creatively designed solutions. It can be overwhelming.

Ultimately, if pursuing a professional career in postproduction, we advise you not to familiarize yourself with just one platform. Learn as many as you can because the evolutionary history of postproduction tools proves that nothing settles and unexpected change lurks around every corner.

1. Write a list of the ten things you feel describe you and that you identify with.

2. Reorder the list so that it reads like a countdown to the most important item on the list or the one that you most closely identify with.

3. For each item on the list, describe a shot that you plan on creating to represent each item on the list. Be specific about the shot size and type of angle, such as “A high-angle full shot” or “An eye-level medium close-up.”

4. Using any camera you have access to, stage and shoot each image on your list at least three times so you have some options to choose from when you edit. You can capture the shots in any order that’s practical.

5. Using the camera microphone, record a self-interview shot where you list off the ten items and why you identify with them or how they relate to your self-identity. Be brief; you have only 60 seconds.

6. Using any editing software you have access to (desktop or mobile), assemble your shots together in the order you listed.

7. Add some music to the edit—your own if you’re a musician.

8. Export the video from your editing software and share it with the world on the online video-hosting service of your choice.

act break

actors/talent

ally

antagonist

anti-heroes

art director

assembly

assistant editor (AE)

best boy

bins

blocking

boom operator

bureaucrat

camcorders

camera assistants/assistant camera (AC)

camera operator

camera rehearsal

camera stabilization

capturing/digitizing

cassette tapes

clapboard/slate

climax/climactic scene

clips

close-up (CU)

composer

compression type/codec

consumer-level

continuity supervisor

contrasts

costume designer

coverage

cut point/edit point

denouement

digital cinema cameras

digital single-lens reflex (DSLR)

digital video (DV)

director

director of photography (DP)/cinematographer

dolly

dolly zoom

dual-system sound

editor

electronic news gathering (ENG)

encoding

establishing shot/extreme wide shot

executive producer (EP)

extreme close-up (ECU)

eye-level

eyeline

fast-motion/undercranking

feedback

film cameras

final cut

first assistant director (1st AD)

flashbacks

freeze frames

gaffer

gaffer tape

gimbal-based device

gimbal-based stabilizer

goal

H.264

hair stylists

hand shoes

handheld

high-angle shot

high-definition (HD)

image stabilizer

ingesting

insert shot

irony

Jonesy

jump cut

key grip/grip

long shot (LS)

love interest

low-angle shot

main character

make-up artists

martini shot

master shot

medium (MED) shot

medium close-up (MCU)

megapixels

memory cards

mentor

mirror

misdirection

mise-en-scène

monopod

MOS

music supervisor

nonlinear editor (NLE)

notes

oblique/Dutch angle

obstacles

optical reflex viewfinder

orientation

over-the-shoulder (OTS)

pan/tilt

pedestals

pickups

picture lock

point of view (POV)

postproduction/post

preproduction

prelight

principal photography

producer

production

production assistant (PA)

production designer

production sound mixer

professional-level

prop master

prosumer-level

protagonist

publicist

pushing in/pulling out

rack focus

raw stock

reaction shot

repetition and variation/leitmotif

reshoots

resolution

reverse angle

revision

safety take

screen direction

script supervisor

shoulder mount

shot

shot lists

sidekick

slow disclosure/reveal

slow motion/overcranking

sound editors

sports and action cameras

stageline/the line/the 180°/the axis

standard definition (SD)

storyboards

studio/broadcast cameras

subtext

superimposition

symbols

tally light

telephoto lens

three-act structure

traitor

transcoding

trimming

tripod (sticks)

video assist/video tap

victim

video blog (vlog)

viewfinder

visual effects (VFX)

wide (WS)

wide-angle lens

writer

zoom