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Filmmaking
Filmmaking Terms, A to Z
Go behind the camera and explore the art and craft of filmmaking. This category breaks down the technical and creative processes involved in bringing a movie to life — from cinematography and directing to editing, sound design, production roles, and special effects. Whether you're curious about how a scene is shot or how a film crew operates, dive into the world of practical movie-making knowledge.
- filmmaking terms
- 913
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- starting letters
- 27
Page 14 of 16
All 913 Filmmaking Terms
Listed alphabetically, each with its one-line answer first. This page runs from Stills Photography to Travel Day. S is the busiest letter here, with 146 entries. Jump to a letter to see only the filmmaking terms that start with it.
Filmmaking terms starting with S
26 of 146 on this page · all S entries
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A brief, punctuating musical cue used to accentuate dramatic moments or transitions.
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A brief scene inserted after the main narrative or credits to surprise or tease the audience.
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An animation technique that physically manipulates objects frame by frame.
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A frame-by-frame technique that animates physical objects in small increments.
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A story map is a visual method of outlining a narrative that charts key plot points, character arcs, and thematic connections using diagrams, charts, or index cards.
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Creative guidance focusing on narrative development and emotional resonance in a script.
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A sequence of illustrations that previsualizes the film’s shots and camera movements.
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An artist who visualizes a script by sketching sequential panels to plan cinematic storytelling.
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A storyboard panel is a single illustration within a larger storyboard that represents one specific camera shot and includes key production notes.
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Storyboarding is the pre-production process of creating a sequence of drawings, similar to a comic strip, to visualize the shots and action of a film before shooting begins.
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In filmmaking, to strike something means to remove it from the set or to disassemble the entire set after filming is complete.
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Colour-coded scene strips arranged on a board provide a tactile way to plan and revise the shooting order.
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Structural film is an experimental film movement where the film's shape and formal structure are the primary content, often de-emphasizing narrative and representation.
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A studio logo is the animated emblem of a film production or distribution company that appears at the beginning of a motion picture.
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Executive directives from a studio outlining required changes for alignment with corporate strategy.
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A controlled filming environment within purpose-built soundstages or studios.
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A dangerous physical performance executed in place of the principal actor.
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A filming technique that adopts the viewpoint of a character to convey personal perspective
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Subsurface Scattering (SSS) is a computer graphics technique that simulates light penetrating the surface of a translucent object and scattering internally.
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On-screen text conveys dialogue, lyrics, and metadata to bridge language and accessibility gaps.
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Layering multiple images within the same frame crafts dream states, ghostly presences, or expositional montages.
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A surrealist film is a cinematic movement that rejects conventional narrative logic in favor of bizarre, dreamlike imagery and psychological exploration drawn from the subconscious.
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A swing day is a transitional day in a production schedule that shifts the workweek, often by providing a single day off between two workweeks.
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Low-tech circular or pivoting move achieved by rotating the operator or subject on a chair to create parallax and energy.
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A synthetic crowd is a large group of computer-generated characters, often driven by artificial intelligence, used in films to simulate the epic scale of battles, stadiums, and cities.
Filmmaking terms starting with T
34 of 44 on this page · all T entries
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A preliminary production meeting where cast and crew read through the script aloud.
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A tail slate is the practice of marking a take with the clapperboard at the end of the shot instead of the beginning, often done when slating at the start was impossible.
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A Tangent panel is a dedicated hardware control surface that provides colorists with physical trackballs, rings, and knobs for tactile, intuitive control over color grading software like DaVinci Resolve or Baselight.
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A tech scout is a pre-production meeting where key crew members visit a confirmed filming location to plan the technical and logistical execution of the shoot.
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Written records of technical specifications and issues to guide equipment setup and post‑production.
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Technicolor is a series of motion picture color processes, most famously the three-strip process, that defined the vibrant, saturated look of Hollywood's Golden Age.
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A film-to-video transfer process converting motion-picture film into electronic video signals.
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A temporary music track used during editing to approximate mood and pacing before the final score.
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The Teradek Bond is a professional video transmission device that combines multiple cellular network connections to create a single, robust, high-bandwidth internet link for streaming video from remote locations.
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Tessera is the proprietary software platform that runs on Brompton video processors, providing the tools to control and calibrate LED walls for virtual production.
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Textless elements are clean versions of film shots, delivered without any superimposed titles or graphics, to facilitate international localization.
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The call sheet is a daily filmmaking document created by the assistant director that details all essential information for a specific day of shooting.
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A recurring musical piece that embodies a film’s central ideas, characters, or settings.
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Classic key–fill–back setup creates depth, separation, and flattering contours—still foundational in modern workflows.
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An early color cinematography process capturing red, green, and blue on separate black-and-white film strips.
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A tilt-shift lens allows control over perspective and focus plane by tilting and shifting lens elements.
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A filmmaking technique that freezes action by synchronizing multiple cameras around a subject.
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Synchronization practice where devices are aligned to a common master timecode to maintain drift-free audio and picture.
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A timecode slate is a production tool that displays a continuously running, synchronized SMPTE timecode, used to align audio and video from multiple sources in post-production.
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Timecode is a timing signal that gives every frame of video and audio a unique address, allowing for perfect synchronization in post-production.
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A creative professional responsible for designing the opening and closing title sequences of a film.
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The Television Lighting Consistency Index (TLCI) is a highly accurate measure of a light source's color fidelity, specifically developed to predict how colors will be reproduced by a digital camera sensor.
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A widescreen, high‑resolution film process pioneered for ‘Oklahoma!’
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A Tommy Gun Dolly is a colloquial term for a small, lightweight, and rapidly deployable camera dolly or slider system, prized for its speed and agility in fast-paced shooting environments.
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Tone is the filmmaker's attitude toward the film's subject matter and audience, as conveyed through the deliberate use of cinematic style.
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Tone description is the writer's deliberate use of evocative word choice and sentence structure within the scene description to establish the intended mood and attitude of a scene.
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A tone meeting is a pre-production meeting where the director and key department heads align on the creative and stylistic vision for a film or episode.
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Top-light is a lighting setup where the primary light source is placed directly above the subject, creating distinct shadows under the eyes and nose.
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A topper is a type of long, narrow flag used in lighting to control light spill by cutting it off from the top of the frame.
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In filmmaking, track refers to the rails on which a camera dolly or crane rides to ensure perfectly smooth and repeatable movements.
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A Tracking Lock is a mechanism on a camera fluid head or dolly that secures one or more axes of movement, ensuring the camera maintains a fixed orientation during a tracking shot.
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An editing device that connects two shots or scenes through visual effects.
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Production culture that recognizes trauma’s impact and designs processes to minimize harm while supporting storytelling.
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A travel day is a designated day in a film production schedule for moving cast and crew from one location to another.
Other categories
The Other Seven Categories
The rest of the glossary, each with its own A to Z index: genres and styles, characters and tropes, storytelling, industry and awards, pop culture and fandom, general terms, and the odd ones out.
