Characters
Character motivation is the underlying reason or psychological driving force behind a character's actions, goals, and desires.
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Film Terms Starting With C
300 entries in the Movie Wiki begin with C, listed alphabetically with a one-line definition each. Open any of them for the full explanation.
61–120 of 300 entries
Definitions of Film Terms Starting With C
Open any entry for the full definition, where the term comes from and the films that show it best.
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Characters
A character profile is a detailed document that outlines the essential traits, history, and motivations of a fictional character.
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Storytelling
Character purpose is the specific narrative function a character serves within a story, such as driving the plot, embodying a theme, or influencing the protagonist's journey.
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Characters
A character summary, or character bio, is a detailed document that explores a character's personality, backstory, motivations, and their complete arc throughout a story.
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Storytelling
Character Turns and Redemption
A character turn is a narrative event where a character switches their moral allegiance, while a redemption arc is the journey an antagonist takes to atone for their past.
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Characters
A narrative approach emphasizing complex character development over plot mechanics.
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Storytelling
A character-driven story is a narrative where the plot is advanced primarily by the choices, motivations, and internal conflicts of its characters.
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Industry
A chart topper in the film world is a movie that reaches the number one position on a key performance ranking, such as the weekly box office or streaming charts.
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Pop Culture
ChatGPT is a conversational AI chatbot developed by OpenAI that can understand and generate human-like text.
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Storytelling
A ChatGPT story pass involves using a large language model to review and generate suggestions for a screenplay's plot, structure, and character arcs.
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Filmmaking
'Cheap Date' is on-set slang for a close-up shot that includes only a small, essential part of the background, making it quick and easy to light and shoot.
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Filmmaking
'Check the Gate' is a traditional command on a film set, called after a take, for the camera assistant to inspect the camera's aperture for any debris that may have ruined the shot.
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Filmmaking
Checksum verification is a data validation process used in filmmaking to ensure that a copied digital file is an exact, bit-for-bit replica of the original source file.
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Pop Culture
'Cheesy' is a colloquial term for an element in a film that is overly sentimental, cliché, or comically insincere, often due to a lack of self-awareness.
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Characters
A culinary professional character archetype symbolizing creativity, discipline and high‑pressure environments in film.
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Pop Culture
Chekhov’s Gun is the dramatic rule that every introduced element must ultimately pay off—or be removed.
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Filmmaking
In filmmaking, a cherry picker is an aerial work platform used to elevate lights, cameras, or crew to great heights.
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Pop Culture
"Cheugy" is a slang term used to describe something that is outdated, out of touch, or trying too hard to be trendy, often associated with millennial aesthetics from the early 2010s.
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Filmmaking
A lighting style that contrasts deep shadows with bright highlights to model form
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Pop Culture
A chick flick is a colloquial term for a film genre aimed at a female audience, typically focusing on romance, relationships, and emotional journeys.
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Industry
A 'Chicken Bus' is film production slang for a passenger van, typically a 15-passenger van, used to transport crew members to and from set.
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Characters
A minor coerced into armed conflict, embodying the tragic loss of innocence.
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Genres
A children's film is a movie genre specifically created and marketed for a young audience, typically those under the age of 12.
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Genres
Chillhop is a microgenre that blends elements of chill-out music, hip-hop, and jazz, closely related to the lo-fi hip-hop phenomenon.
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Filmmaking
A China-ball, or paper lantern, is a simple and inexpensive lighting tool used by filmmakers to create an exceptionally soft, omnidirectional, and natural-looking light source.
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Characters
A protagonist destined by prophecy or unique qualities to fulfill a great purpose.
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Characters
A chosen sibling rival is an antagonist who shares a sibling-like bond with the hero, often from being raised together, but becomes their rival due to jealousy, ideology, or a perceived betrayal.
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Pop Culture
A Christmas special is a film or presentation that is centered around the themes, traditions, and spirit of the Christmas holiday.
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Industry
A metric measuring the percentage of subscribers who discontinue service over a given period.
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Filmmaking
The CIE 1931 color space is the foundational scientific model that mathematically maps the full spectrum of average human color vision, serving as the universal reference for all color technology.
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Genres
Cinécriture is a term coined by French director Agnès Varda to describe the comprehensive and authorial process of filmmaking, where all elements are part of a unified act of writing.
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Genres
Cinéma du look was a French film movement of the 1980s that favored spectacular visual style and spectacle over narrative or political substance.
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Genres
Cinema Novo was a radical Brazilian film movement of the 1960s defined by its political fervor and its famous motto: an idea in the head and a camera in the hand.
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Genres
The Cinema of Attractions is a theory that early films (pre-1907) were less about storytelling and more about presenting a series of visual spectacles.
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Industry
CinemaScore is a market research firm that grades audience reactions on opening night.
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Genres
CinemaScope is a widescreen film format introduced in the 1950s that uses anamorphic lenses to capture and project ultra‑wide images.
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Industry
An audience polling service that grades films based on opening-night reactions.
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Industry
The Cinémathèque Française in Paris is one of the world's largest and most revered archives of films, movie documents, and film-related objects.
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Storytelling
An interconnected set of films and series sharing characters, settings, and overarching storylines.
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Genres
Cinepoetry is a style of filmmaking that prioritizes poetic expression, using rhythm, metaphor, and symbolism over traditional narrative structure.
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Filmmaking
A widescreen process using three synchronized projectors to create a panoramic image
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Genres
While not a formal movement, 'Cinetismo Mexicano' describes a current within Mexican experimental cinema focused on kinetic energy, abstraction, and the formal properties of the moving image.
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Pop Culture
A variation of the mosh pit where participants run in a continuous circular motion.
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Filmmaking
A lifecycle system for designing, reusing, and recycling theatrical wardrobes
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Industry
A city film commission is a dedicated government or quasi-government office that promotes and facilitates film and television production within its municipal boundaries.
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Characters
The Civilian Expert is a character archetype brought into a crisis or mission because of their specialized, non-military knowledge.
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Industry
Premium auditorium format featuring large curved screens and immersive audio tailored to local venues.
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Filmmaking
The clapper slate is an iconic filmmaking device used to visually and audibly synchronize sound and picture and to identify the footage being recorded.
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Filmmaking
A hinged board that marks the beginning of a take and produces a sync point for audio.
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Genres
Classical Hollywood cinema is the term for the narrative and visual style of filmmaking that became dominant in the American studio system from roughly 1917 to 1960.
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Filmmaking
A clean feed is a direct video output from a camera that does not include any on-screen data, graphics, or overlays.
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Filmmaking
Clean-up is the stage in 2D animation where an animator's rough drawings are refined into final, consistent, and on-model line art.
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