Film Appreciation Vocab

Allusion

a direct or indirect reference- through an image or through dialogue- to the Bible, a classic, a person, a place, an external and/or real-life event, another film or a well-known cultural idea

Camera Angle

the POV or perspective (including relative height or direction) chosen from which to photograph a subject. Various camera angles, compositions, or positions including front, behind, side, top, high (looking down), low (looking up), straight-on or eye level (standard or neutral angle), tilted (canted or oblique), subjective, ect.

Costume

refers to the garments r clothing worn by actors/ preformers in a film; a costume (or wardrobe) designer researches, designs, and selects the costumes to be appropriate to the film’s time period, the character, their location, and their occupations, whereas the customer (or stylist) is responsible for acquiring, selecting, manufacturing, and/or handling the clothing and accessories; costume drama is a film set in a particular historical time period, often with elaborate costuming

Dialogue

any spoken lines in a film by an actor/actress's; may be considered overlapping if two or more characters speak simultaneously; in film-making, recording dialogue to match lip movements on previously-recorded film is called dubbing or looping

Epiphany

a moment of sudden spiritual insight for the protagonist of a film, usually occurs just before or after the climax

Flashback

a film technique hat alters the natural order of the narrative; a flashback may often be he entire film; it takes the story order back chronologically in time to a previous or past event, scene, or sequence that took place prior to the present time frame of the film; the flashbacked story that provides background on action and events is often called the backstory; a contrast to flash-forward

Flashforward (or flash-ahead)

simply put, the opposite of flashback; a film technique that depicts a scene,event, or shot taking place (or imagined) or expected this is projected into a future time beyond the present time of the film or it can be a flashforward from the past to the present

Foil

an acting role that is used for personality comparison or contrast usually with the protagonist or main character, as a mean to show and highlight a character trait

Juxtaposition

in a film, the contiguous positioning of two images, characters, objects, or scenes in sequence, symmetry, and composition

Mise en Scene

a French term for “staging”, or “putting into the scene or shot”; in film theory, it refers to all the elements places (by the director) before the camera and within the frame of the film— including their visual arrangement and composition; elements include setting, decor, props, actors, costumes, makeup, lighting, performances, and character movements and positioning; lengthy un-cut, unedited and uninterrupted sequences shot in real-time are often cited as examples of mise-en-scene

Montage

a French word literally meaning “edited”, “putting togther” , or “assembling shots”; refers to a filing technique, editing style, or form of movie collage consisting of a series of short shots or images that are rapidly put together into coherent sequence to create a composite picture, or to suggest meaning or a larger idea; in simple terms, the structure of editing within a film; a montage is usually not accompanied with dialogue; dissolves, cuts, fades, super-impositions, and wipes are often used to link the images in a montage sequence; an accelerated montage is composed of shots of increasingly- shorter lengths

Non-diegetic Score

Non-diegetic sound, also called commentary r no literal sound, is any sound that does not originate from within the films world. The films characters are not able to hear a non-diegetic sound. All Non-diegetic sound is added by sound editors in post production (Ex.) the films musical score, the sound effects, and narration/ voice over)

Opening Credits/ Title (Sequence)

The presentation of the ‘opening credits’ (as an introduction to the audience about the film and including selected important members of the production) is known as the opening Credits sequence;