Looking at Movies Chapter 1: Introduction to Film Analysis
Cinematic Language - ✔✔The accepted systems, methods, or conventions by which movies
communicate with the viewer.
Narrative Film aka Fiction Film - ✔✔Tells a story with characters, places, events that come
straight from the mind of the films creator
Shot - ✔✔one uninterrupted run of the camera. A shot can be as short or as long as the
director wants but can't exceed the length of Film stock in the camera.
Setup - ✔✔One camera position and everything associated with it. The basic component of
the films production.
Editing - ✔✔The process by which the editor combines and coordinates individual shots into a
cinematic whole. The basic creative force of the camera.
Cut - ✔✔A direct change from one shot to another. The precise point at which shot A ends and
Shot B begins.
Close-up - ✔✔Shot that shows a body filling a frame-traditionally a face but can be a hand eye
or mouth.
fade-in/fade-out - ✔✔Transitional devices in which a shot fades in from a black field or from a
colored field.
low-angle shot aka Low Shot - ✔✔Below the action. Places observer in inferior position
, Cutting on action aka Match-on-action cut - ✔✔Continuity editing technique that smoothed
the transitions between shots portraying a single action from different camera angles
Experimental film - ✔✔Unfamiliar, unorthodox, or obscure subject matter/independent
explicit/implicit - ✔✔Everything a movie presents on the surface/everything that lies below
the surface
Protagonist - ✔✔Primary character whose pursuit of the goal provides the structural
foundation of a Movie's story
Formal Analysis - ✔✔Examines how a scene or sequence uses formal elements to convey story,
mood, and meaning.
Cultural Analysis - ✔✔Focuses on the assumptions, mores and prejudices that a movie conveys
about gender, class, race, age, etc.
Theme - ✔✔The central idea or message of a work, the insight it offers into life
Motif - ✔✔Recurring visual, sound or narrative element that imports meaning or significance
Dolly-in - ✔✔Slow moving of camera toward a subject making subject appear larger
Dolly-out - ✔✔Away from subject-revealing elements of a scene.
dolly shot - ✔✔Taken by camera fixed to wheel support and runs on tracks
Duration - ✔✔Quantity of time
Cinematic Language - ✔✔The accepted systems, methods, or conventions by which movies
communicate with the viewer.
Narrative Film aka Fiction Film - ✔✔Tells a story with characters, places, events that come
straight from the mind of the films creator
Shot - ✔✔one uninterrupted run of the camera. A shot can be as short or as long as the
director wants but can't exceed the length of Film stock in the camera.
Setup - ✔✔One camera position and everything associated with it. The basic component of
the films production.
Editing - ✔✔The process by which the editor combines and coordinates individual shots into a
cinematic whole. The basic creative force of the camera.
Cut - ✔✔A direct change from one shot to another. The precise point at which shot A ends and
Shot B begins.
Close-up - ✔✔Shot that shows a body filling a frame-traditionally a face but can be a hand eye
or mouth.
fade-in/fade-out - ✔✔Transitional devices in which a shot fades in from a black field or from a
colored field.
low-angle shot aka Low Shot - ✔✔Below the action. Places observer in inferior position
, Cutting on action aka Match-on-action cut - ✔✔Continuity editing technique that smoothed
the transitions between shots portraying a single action from different camera angles
Experimental film - ✔✔Unfamiliar, unorthodox, or obscure subject matter/independent
explicit/implicit - ✔✔Everything a movie presents on the surface/everything that lies below
the surface
Protagonist - ✔✔Primary character whose pursuit of the goal provides the structural
foundation of a Movie's story
Formal Analysis - ✔✔Examines how a scene or sequence uses formal elements to convey story,
mood, and meaning.
Cultural Analysis - ✔✔Focuses on the assumptions, mores and prejudices that a movie conveys
about gender, class, race, age, etc.
Theme - ✔✔The central idea or message of a work, the insight it offers into life
Motif - ✔✔Recurring visual, sound or narrative element that imports meaning or significance
Dolly-in - ✔✔Slow moving of camera toward a subject making subject appear larger
Dolly-out - ✔✔Away from subject-revealing elements of a scene.
dolly shot - ✔✔Taken by camera fixed to wheel support and runs on tracks
Duration - ✔✔Quantity of time
