After watching two films and one whole mini-series, I have finally decided to do something productive with my Friday evening. Here is a list of key terms that I will constantly be updating (not forgetting about and then trying to frantically compile a whole year's worth of terms next year, obviously...) as the year goes on.


Mise-en-scene

• Lighting: high key/low key
• Costume
• Props
• Set/location
• Charactors/actors
• Production design
• Make-up
• Body movement/gestures
• Dominance
• Camera proxemics
• Colour: dominance/symbolism

Sound

• Diegetic (meant to be in the scene eg. dialogue)
• Non-diegetic (not meant to be in the scene eg. soundtrack)
• Pace/tempo
• Instrumentation
• Volume

Editing:

• Transitions: rapid cut, fade in/out, dissolve, cutting on the action, action match, eyeline match, intercutting
• 180 degrees rule
• Rule of thirds

Cinematography:

• Shots: extreme long, long, full, close-up, medium, extreme close-up, wide, weather.
• Angles: bird's eye view, high angle, eye level shot, low angel, oblique angle, over the shoulder shot, point of view.
• Camera movement: pan, tilt, dolly or track, crane, steadicam, hand-held, zoom in, reverse zoom, snorricam, zolly (dolly and zoom - zooming in at the same rate as a dolly moving away).
• Framing
• Shot/Reverse shot.

Theorists/theories:

• Ferdinand de Saussure - semiotics (signs and signification)
• Noam Chomsky - Manufacturing Consent/filters
• Jenny Morris - disability representation (writers use disability to provoke empathy from a viewer, and also use it to define the character).
• Roland Barthes - mythologies
• Claude Levi Strauss - binary oppositions
• Stewart Hall - representation.
• Jack Sheehan - Reel Bad Arabs
• Verisimilitude - the level of realism a piece has.
• Karen Ross - disabled people want more respect in the media.