A Glossary of Film Terms

A Glossary of Film Terms 

A Glossary of Film Terms written and designed for the web by Joel Schlemowitz Filmmaking is an art with a very complex, and in some ways confusing, vocabulary of terms. To communicate with labs, negative cutters and with your crew it is best to know the right term to use. The terms can often be used against someone not familiar with them. An old story goes that a P.A. was asked to bring over a half-apple and returned with a sliced-up piece of fruit. Use this glossary to keep those who would try to intimidate you with the lingo from doing so, but remember too, where you started from and do not use this glossary to become one of those intimidators. This glossary is intended to be supplemental to a film production course. It is a glossary of the nomenclature of filmmaking, not an encyclopedia of filmmaking. Many of the more complex issues have not been given a full explanation: such as the how to of any of the processes defined here. This is a list of simple definitions to help you speak film and find and understand the answers to your questions rather than be the answers themselves. Please note: The Glossary and Index can be somewhat slow to load at first, but once they are in your browsers cache they do speed up a little.

A Glossary of Film Terms