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NOTES ON SOME IMPORTANT TERMS FOR FILM STUDIES

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Gopa B. Caesar:
Cinematography

Cinematography describes the process by which a film strip is exposed to light to create an image. It encompasses many factors: the camera’s distance from the action, camera angle and direction, type of lens, camera movement, and lighting, among others. The art of cinematography also includes mise-en-scène—the arrangement of objects and movements in the frame.

Gopa B. Caesar:
Shot Types

The amount of visual information included in the image depends on the distance of the camera from the action and on the focal length of the camera lens. Throughout the history of cinema, filmmakers have favored certain combinations of camera distance and focal length, or shot types.
    Extreme long shot: Captures a scene in its entirety; used for establishing location in exterior shots. Used frequently in epic genres such as westerns and war films, it reduces human beings to mere dots on the screen.
    Long shot: Accommodates at least the entire bodies of figures (if that is all the shot includes, it is called a full shot). Captures movement, background, and broad gestures and expressions.
    Medium shot: Contains a figure from the waist or knees up. It is a functional shot, favored in classical Hollywood editing, often used for scenes with dialogue.
    

Gopa B. Caesar:
Shot Types(CONT.)

        Close-up: Includes very little if any background, concentrating on an object or, if an extreme close-up, a fragment of an object, such as the human face. Close-ups often accord great significance and symbolic value to the objects they portray.
    Deep focus shot: A variation of the long shot that keeps objects in the foreground, middle ground, and background in focus all at once. Realist filmmakers favor it because it preserves spatial unity and lets the viewer scan the image for meaning.
    Shot-reverse shot and over-the-shoulder: Two types of shots used during dialogue scenes to give the sense that two or more characters are conversing with each other.
    Point-of-view shot: A shot framed in a way that prompts viewers to believe they are looking from a specific character’s point of view. These shots can often contribute to the process of audience identification with one or more characters in a film.

Gopa B. Caesar:
Camera Lenses

The camera lens is a curved piece of glass that refracts the light it receives onto a strip of film that records the visual information, creating the film image.
    Normal lens: Creates a minimum of distortion, approximating the way that objects are perceived by the human eye.
    Telephoto lens: Used to capture crowd scenes or when the camera operator wants to remain far away from the action. A telephoto lens collapses distances between foreground and background, dampening the effect of movement within the frame. It also keeps background elements out of focus, which allows a single element to be emphasized and isolated.
    Wide-angle lens: Captures a wider field of vision than a normal lens. Deep-focus shots use wide-angle lenses, exaggerating movement and shapes (especially in close-up). Lines and shapes are distorted at the edges of the frame.

Gopa B. Caesar:
Camera Angles
The direction in which the camera is pointed in relation to the action being recorded is called the camera angle.
    Bird’s-eye view: Camera is positioned high above the action, looking down on figures, who seem powerless or vulnerable.
    High: Camera is positioned above eye level, reducing the size of figures and suggesting stasis and weakness.
    Eye level: Camera is positioned at eye level, a neutral vantage point that does not impose meaning on the action.
    Low: Camera is positioned below eye level, increasing size of figures and rendering them powerful, even threatening or heroic.
    Canted: Camera is tilted to one side, creating a diagonal composition that suggests tension or impending movement.

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