Film Studies
Mr. Ryan
Film Studies
Vocabulary: Photography
1.
Bird’s Eye View Shot: A shot in which the camera photographs a scene from directly overhead.
2.
High Angle Shot: A shot in which the subject is filmed from above.
3.
Eye-Level Shot: The placement of the camera approximately five or six feet from the ground,
corresponding to the height of an observer on the scene.
4.
Low Angle Shot: A shot in which the subject is filmed from below.
5.
Oblique Angle Shot: A shot photographed by a tilting camera. When the image is projected on the
screen, the subject itself seems to be tilted on a diagonal.
6.
Crane Shot: A shot taken from a special device called a crane, which resembles a huge mechanical
arm. The crane carries the camera and can move in virtually any direction.
7.
Handheld Shot: A shot taken with a moving camera that is often deliberately shaky to suggest
documentary footage in an uncontrolled setting.
8.
Pan: A camera movement with the camera body turning to the right or left.
9.
Tilt: A camera movement with the camera body swiveling upward or downward on a stationary
support.
10. Backlighting: When the lights for a shot derive from the rear of the set, thus throwing the
foreground figures into semi-darkness or silhouette.
11. Overexposure: Too much light enters the aperture of the camera lens, bleaching out the image.
Useful for fantasy or nightmare scenes.
12. Rack Focusing: The blurring of focal planes in sequence, forcing the viewer’s eyes to travel with
those areas of an image that remain in sharp focus.
13. Multiple Exposure: A special effect which permits the superimposition of many images
simultaneously.
14. Fast Stock: Film stock that’s highly sensitive to light and generally produces a grainy image. Often
used by documentarists who wish to shoot with only available lighting.
15. Slow Stock: Film stocks that are relatively insensitive to light and produce crisp images and a
sharpness of detail. When used in interior settings, these stocks generally require considerable artificial
illumination.
16. Tracking (or Dolly) shot: A shot taken from a moving vehicle.
17. Long Take: A shot that continues for an unusually lengthy time before the transition to the next
shot.
18. Extreme Long Shot: A panoramic view of an exterior location, photographed from a great distance,
often as far as a quarter-mile away.
19. Long Shot: A shot that includes an area within the image that roughly corresponds to the audience’s
view of the area within the proscenium arch in the live theater.
20. Full Shot: A type of long shot that includes the human body in full, with the head near the top of the
frame and the feet near the bottom.
21. Medium Shot: A framing in which the scale of the object shown is of moderate size; a human figure
seen from the waist up would fill most of the screen.
22. Close-up: A framing in which the scale of the object shown is relatively large; usually a person’s head
seen from the neck up.
23. Extreme Close-up: A minutely detailed view of an object or person. An extreme close-up of an actor
generally includes only his or her eyes or mouth.
24. Establishing Shot: A shot, usually involving distant framing, which sets the scene.
25. Shot/Reverse Shot (also called an Over-the –Shoulder Shot): Two or more shots edited together
that alternate characters, typically in a conversation.
26. Point-of-View Shot: Any shot that is taken from the vantage point of a character in the film,
showing whatever the character sees.