FILM LANGUAGE. Flashcards
(25 cards)
shots.
r. A shot is simply a piece of motion
picture film that has been exposed in a camera in a single, uninterrupted run
frames
Within every shot or individual
pictures.
transition
r. Every shot begins and
ends with a transition linking it to the preceding or following shot;
these transitions include
e the cut, the dissolve, the wipe, and the fade-in and fade-out.
A long shot
the camera appears to be at a long distance from the subject.
A medium shot
s taken from
a somewhat closer position.
a close-up
s taken from a very close position.
high-angle shot
taken from above the subject,
low-angle shot
below the subject,
eye-level
taken straight on
A two-shot
two people, either in medium shot or close-up
a three-shot
s three people
a master shot
reveals the entire
space of the scene including all of the characters. (can go into medium/close up daadada…)
panning shot or pan.
rotating the camera horizontally
a tilt.
y rotating it vertically
tracking shots. or dolly shots
shots containing forward,
backward, or sideways movement of the camera
crane shots.
Motion picture cameras are not compelled to stay on the ground. They
may be placed on long, swinging, mechanical arm They also enable the camera to follow a character
smoothly up or down a flight of stairs without the use of cuts, or to peep into
a second-floor window, or perform any motion involving shifts in height
Hand-held shots
move anywhere a human being can move simply
by virtue of a camera operator’s ability to hold the camera in his or her hands.
Steadicam
shots,
taken with a patented device that fits around the camera operator’s
waist, eliminate the inadvertent bumps and allow the operator to walk, run,
or maneuver through rocky ground without disrupting the flow of the shot.
zoom
lenses create the impression of movement even though the
camera does not in fact move. Zoom shots or zooms are taken with a lens
with a variable focal length, shifling in the same shot between wide-angle and
long-focus or telephoto.
Matching on action
the use of motion to create a visual bridge between
shots. For instance, shot A is a shot of a pole vaulter going over the bar from
left to right and beginning to fall out of the image, and shot Bis a shot of the
vaulter falling into the image and hitting the padding
Graphic matches
are
made according to the shapes and positions of the objects being filmed. For
example, characters in conversation with each other tend to remain in the
same positions onscreen. If character A is on the right side of the screen and
character B is on the left, graphic matches ensure that they will remain so in
subsequent shots. (Consider the opposite: if the characters did not maintain
the same graphic position in the image, they would appear to flip back and
forth.
eye-line matches
s maintain continuity between shots by way of
the direction of characters’ lines of vision. Shot A contains a woman on the
left of the image; she is looking down at something she is reading, but then
suddenly looks up, offscreen, to the left. Shot B contains another woman, also
on the left of the image. For the woman in shot B to appear to see the woman
in shot A, in which direction must she look? (Note that these shots are not
matched graphically; both characters are on the left of the image. Instead, the
shots are matched on the basis of the direction the characters are looking.) The
correct answer is that the woman in shot B looks to the right of the image.
transitions
: the cut, the fade-in or fade-out, the dissolve, the iris, and the wipe.