A Basic Glossary of Film Terms
Adapted from:
  1. Hayward, S. Key Concepts in Cinema Studies (London: Routledge, 1996)
  2. Monaco, J. How to Read a Film (Oxford University Press, 1981)

This glossary is divided into alphabetical order.


  1. Aerial Shot
  2. Backlighting
  3. Bridging Shot
  4. Camera Angle
  5. Cut
  6. Cross-cutting
  7. Jump Cut
  8. Continuity cuts
  9. Match cut
  10. Deep Focus
  11. Diegesis
  12. Dissolve/Lap Dissolve
  13. Dolly
  14. Editing
  15. ellipsis
  16. Eyeline Matching
  17. Extreme Long Shot
  18. Fade In
  19. Fill Light
  20. Flashback
  21. Flash-forward
  22. Focus
  23. Follow Shot
  24. Framing
  25. gaze/look
  26. Iris in/iris out
  27. Key Light
  28. Master shot
  29. Medium shot
  30. Montage
  31. Mise-en-scene
  32. Pan
  33. Point of view shot
  34. Pull back shot
  35. Rack focusing
  36. Reverse angle
  37. Scene
  38. Shot
  39. Subjective camera
  40. Story board
  41. Take
  42. Tilt shot
  43. Tracking shot/travelling shot/dollying shot
  44. Steadicam
  45. Swish pan
  46. Wipe
  47. Voice-over
  48. Zoom

Aerial Shot
A shot taken from a crane, plane, or helicopter. Not necessarily a moving shot.

The main source of light is behind the subject, silhouetting it, and directed toward the camera.

Bridging Shot
A shot used to cover a jump in time or place or other discontinuity. Examples are

Camera Angle
The angle at which the camera is pointed at the subject:

The splicing of 2 shots together. this cut is made by the film editor at the editing stage of a film. Between sequences the cut marks a rapid transition between one time and space and another, but depending on the nature of the cut it will have different meanings.

Literally, cutting between different sets of action that can be occuring simultaneously or at different times, (this term is used synonomously but somewhat incorrectly with parallel editing.) Cross-cutting is used to build suspense, or to show the relationship between the different sets of action.

Jump cut
Cut where there is no match between the 2 spliced shots. Within a sequence, or more particularly a scene, jump cuts give the effect of bad editing. The opposite of a match cut, the jump cut is an abrupt cut between 2 shots that calls attention to itself because it does not match the shots seamlessly. It marks a transition in time and space but is called a jump cut because it jars the sensibilities; it makes the spectator jump and wonder where the narrative has got to. Jean-Luc Godard is undoubtedly one of the best exponents of this use of the jump cut.

Continuity cuts
These are cuts that take us seamlessly and logically from one sequence or scene to another. This is an unobtrusive cut that serves to move the narrative along.

Match cut
The exact opposite of a jump cut within a scene. These cuts make sure that there is a spatial-visual logic between the differently positioned shots within a scene. thus, where the camera moves to, and the angle of the camera, makes visual sense to the spectator. Eyeline matching is part of the same visual logic: the first shot shows a character looking at something off-screen, the second shot shows what is being looked at. Match cuts then are also part of the seamlessness, the reality effect, so much favoured by Hollywood.

Deep focus
A technique in which objects very near the camera as well as those far away are in focus at the same time.

The denotative material of film narrative, it includes, according to Christian Metz, not only the narration itself, but also the fictional space and time dimension implied by the narrative.

These terms are used inter-changably to refer to a transition between 2 sequences or scenes. generally associated with earlier cinema but still used on occasion. In a dissolve a first image gradually dissolves or fades out and is replaced by another which fades in over it. This type of transition, which is known also as a soft transition (as opposed to the cut), suggests a longer passage of time than a cut.

A set of wheels and a platform upon which the camera can be mounted to give it mobility. Dolly shot is a shot taken from a moving dolly. Almost synonomous in general usage with tracking shot or follow shot

Editing refers literally to how shots are put together to make up a film. Traditionally a film is made up of sequences or in some cases, as with avant-garde or art cinema, or again, of successive shots that are assembled in what is known as collision editing, or montage.

A term that refers to periods of time that have been left out of the narrative. The ellipsis is marked by an editing transitions which, while it leaves out a section of the action, none the less signifies that something has been elided. Thus, the fade or dissolve could indicate a passage of time, a wipe, a change of scene and so on. A jump cut transports the spectator from one action and time to another, giving the impression of rapid action or of disorientation if it is not matched.

eyeline matching
A term used to point to the continuity editing practice ensuring the logic of the look or gaze. In other words, eyeline matching is based on the belief in mainstream cinema that when a character looks into off-screen space the spectator expects to see what he or she is looking at. Thus there will be a cut to show what is being looked at:

Eyeline then refers to the trajectory of the looking eye.

The eyeline match creates order and meaning in cinematic space. Thus, for example, character A will look off-screen at character B. Cut to character B, who-if she or he is in the same room and engaged in an exchange either of glances or words with character A-will return that look and so 'certify' that character A is indeed in the space from which we first saw her or him look. This "stabilising" is true in the other primary use of the eyeline match which is the shot/reverse angle shot, also known as the reverse angle shot, commonly used in close-up dialogue secenes. The camera adopts the eyeline trajectory of the interlocutor looking at the other person as she or he speaks, then switches to the other person's position and does the same.

Extreme long shot
A panoramic view of an exterior location photographed from a considerable distance, often as far as a quarter-mile away. May also serve as the establishing shot

Fade in
A punctuation device. The screen is black at the beginning; gradually the image appears, brightening to full strength. The opposite happens in the fade out

Fill light
An auxiliary light, usually from the side of the subject that can soften shadows and illuminate areas not covered by the key light

A scene or sequence (sometime an entire film), that is inserted into a scene in "present" time and that deals with the past. The flashback is the past tense of the film.

On the model of the flashback, scenes or shots of future time; the future tense of the film.

The sharpness of th image. A range of distances from the camera will be acceptably sharp. Possible to have deep focus, shallow focus.
Focus in, focus out: a punctuation device whereby the image gradually comes into focus or goes out of focus.

Follow shot
A tracking shot or zoom which follows the subject as it moves.

The way in which subjects and objects are framed within a shot produces specific readings. Size and volume within the frame speak as much as dialogue. So too do camera angles. Thus, for example, a high-angle extreme long shot of two men walking away in the distance, (as in the end of Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion, 1937) points to their vulnerablility - they are about to dissapear, possibly die. Low angle shots in medium close-up on a person can point to their power, but it can also point to ridicule because of the distortion factor.



Iris in/iris out
An old technique of punctuation that utilises a diaphragm in front of the lens, which is opened (iris in) or closed (iris out) to begin or end a scene. The iris can also be used to focus attention on a detail of the scene.

Key light
The main light on a subject. Usually placed at a 45 degree angle to the camera-subject axis. In high key lighting, the key light provides all or most of the light in the scene. In low key lighting, the key light provides much less of the total illumination.

Master shot
A long take of an entire scene, generally a relatively long shot that facilitates the assembly of component closer shots and details. The editor can always fall back on the master shot: consequently, it is alo called a cover shot.

Medium shot
A shot intermediate between a close-up and a full shot.

Simply, editing. More particularly: Eisenstein's idea that adjacent shots should relate to each other in such a way that A and B combine to produce another meaning, C, which is not actually recorded on the film.

Mise-en Scene
The term usually used to denote that part of the cinematic process that takes place on the set, as opposed to editing, which takes place afterwards. Literally, the "putting-in-the-scene":

(abbreviation of panorma) Movement of the camera from left to right or right to left around the imaginary vertical axis that runs through the camera. A panning shot is sometimes confused with a tracking shot.

Point of view shot
(Often abbreviated as 'pov'). A shot which shows the scene from the specfic point of view of one of the characters.

Pull back shot
A tracking shotorzoomthat moves back from the subject to reveal the context of the scene.

Rack focusing
A technique that uses shallow focus (shallow depth of field) to direct the attention of the viewer forcibly from one subject to another. Focus is "pulled", or changed, to shift the focus plane, often rapidly, sometimes several times within the shot.

Reverse angle
A shot from the opposite side of a subject. In a dialogue scene, a shot of the second participant.

A complete unit of film narration. A series of shots (or a single shot) that takes place in a single location and that deals with a single action. Sometimes used interchangably with sequence.


  1. extreme close-up
  2. close-up
  3. medium close-up
  4. medium shot
  5. medium long shot
  6. long shot
  7. extreme long shot or distance shot

The subject framed by the camera fills the screen. Connotation can be of intimacy, of having access to the mind or thought processes (including the subconscious) of the character. These shots can be used to stress the importance of a particular character at a particular moment in a film or place her or him as central to the narrative by singling out the character in CU at the beginning of the film. It can signify the star exclusively (as in many Hollywood productions of the 1930s and 1940s). CUs can also be used on objects and parts of the body other than the face. In this instance they can designate imminent action (a hand picking up a knife, for example), and thereby create suspense. Or they can signify that an object will have an important role to play in the development of the narrative. Often these shots have a symbolic value, usually due to their recurrence during the film. How and where they recur is revealing not only of their importance but also of the direction or meaning of the narrative.

Medium close-up (MCU)
Close-up of one or two (sometimes three) characters, generally framing the shoulders or chest and the head. The term can also be used when the camera frames the character(s) from the waist up (or down), provided the character is right to the forefront and fills the frame, (otherwise this type of of shot is a medium shot).An MCU of two or three characters can indicate

Conversely, if there is a series of two and one shots, these MCUs would suggest a complicity between two people against a third who is visually separate in another shot.

Medium shot (MS)
Generally speaking, this shot frames a character from the waist, hips or knees up (or down). The camera is sufficiently distanced from the body for the character to be seen in relation to her or his surroundings (in an apartment, for example).

Typically, characters will occupy half to two-thirds of the frame. This shot is very commonly used in indoor sequences allowing for a visual signification of relationships between characters. Compare a two-shot MS and a series of separate one-shots in MS of two people. The former suggests intimacy, the latter distance. The former shot could change in meaning to one of distance, however, if the two characters were separated by an object (a pillar, table or telephone, for example). Visually this shot is more complex, more open in terms of its readability than the preceeding ones. The characters can be observed in relation to different planes, background middle ground and foreground, and it is the inter-relatedness of these planes which also serves to produce a meaning.

Medium long shot (MLS)
Halfway between a long and a medium shot. If this shot frames a character then the whole body will be in view towards the middle ground of the shot. A quite open shot in terms of readability, showing considerably more of the surroundings in relation to the character(s).

Long shot (LS)
Subject or characters are at some distance from the camera; they are seen in full within their surrounding environment.

Extreme long shot (ELS)
The subject or characters are very much to the background of the shot. Surroundings now have as much if not more importance, especially if the shot is in high-angle. A first way to consider these shots is to say that a shot lends itself to a greater or lesser readability dependent on its type or length. As the camera moves further away from the main subject (whether person or object) the visual field lends itself to an increasingly more complex reading - in terms of the relationship between the main subject and the decor there is more for the spectator's eye to read or decode. This means that the closer up the shot, the more the spectator's eye is directed by the camera to the specified reading.

Shots, in and of themselves, can have a subjective or objective value: the closer the shot, the more subjective its value, the more the meaning is inscribed from within the shot; conversely, the longer the distance of the shot the more objective its value, the greater the participation of the spectator or reader in the inscription of meaning. other factors influence the readability of a shot. A high or low camera angle can de-naturalise a shot or reinforce its symbolic value. Take, for example, an ELS that is shot at a high angle. This automatically suggests the presence of someone looking, thus the shot is implicitly a point of view shot.In this way some of the objective value or openness of that shot, (which it would retain if angled horizontally at 90 degrees) is taken away, the shot is no longer 'naturally' objective. The shot is still open to a greater reading than a CUC, however; although the angle imposes a preferred reading (someone is looking down from on high). In terms of illustrating what is meant by reinforcing symbolic value, the contrastive examples of a low- and high-angle CU can serve here. The former type of shot will distort the object within the frame, rendering it uglier, more menacing, more derisory; conversely, when a high-angle CU is used, the object can appear more vulnerable, desirable.

Subjective camera
The camera is used in such a way as to suggest the point of view of a particular character.

  1. High- or low-angle shots indicate where she or he is looking from
  2. a panoramic or panning shot suggests she or he is surveying the scene
  3. a tracking shot or a hand-held camera shot signifies the character on motion.

Subjective shots like these also implicate the spectator into the narrative in that she or he identifies with the point of view.

Story board
A series of drawings and captions (sometimes resembling a comic strip) that shows the planned shot divisions and camera movements of the film.

One version of a shot.A film-maker shoots one or more takes of each shot or set-up. Only one of each group of takes appears in the final film.

Tilt shot
The camera tilts up or down, rotating around the axis that runs from left to right through the camera head.

Tracking shot/travelling shot/dollying shot
Terms used for a shotwhen the camera is being moved by means of wheels:

The movement is normally quite fluid (except perhaps in some of the wider car chases) and the tracking can be either fast or slow. Depending on the speed, this shot has different connotations, eg:

A tracking shot can go

The way in which a person is framed in that shot has a specific meaning, (for example, if the camera holds a person in the frame but that person is at one extreme or other of the frame, this could suggest a sense of imprisonment).

The invention of cameraman Garret Brown (developed in conjunction with Cinema Products, Inc.), this is a system which permits hand-held filming with an image steadiness comparable to tracking shots. A vest redistributes the weight of the camera to the hips of the cameraman; a spring-loaded arm minimises the motion the camera; a video monitor frees the cameraman from the eyepiece.

Swish pan
Also called

A panning shot in which the intervening scene moves past too quickly to be observed. It approximates psychologically the action of the human eye as it moves from one subject to another.

An optical effect in which an image appears to "wipe-off" or push aside the preceeding image. Very common in the 1930s; less so today.

The narrator's voice when the narrator is not seen. Common in television commercials, but also in film noir.

A shot using a lens whose focal length is adjusted during the shot. Zooms are sometimes used in place of tracking shots, but the differences between the two are significant. A zoom normally ends in a close-up, a zoom-back in a general shot. Both types of shot imply a rapid movement in time and space, and as such create the illusion of displacement in time and space. A zoom-in picks out and isolates a person or object, a zoom-out places that person or object in a wider context. A zoom shot can be seen, therefore, as voyeurism at its most desirably perfect.

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Borrowed From Film Studies Web Site - Australian National University