This is an shortened version of the list I use in my Hollywood Cinema course.
Below you will find terms found in Bordwell and Thompson's Film Art . For the
midterm exam, you will need to mastered knowledge and comprehension
of these terms, and be able to demonstrate your ability to apply these
terms when doing formalist film analysis. Some but not all of these are
in the textbook's Glossary, which is also available at McGraw-Hill's Online
Learning Center, where it has a handy navigational system as well as cross-referenced
links.
Chapter Two: The Concept of Film Form
- cue
- suspense
- surprise
- curiosity
- norms
- themes
- functions
- motivation
- motif
- parallelism
- development
- unity/disunity
Chapter Three: Narrative as a Formal System
- narrative form
- story
- plot
- character traits
- cause and effect
- diegesis
- nondiegetic
- chronological order
- duration: story, plot, screen
- exposition
- change in knowledge
- climax
- unrestricted and restricted narration
- hierarchy of knowledge
- objective narration
- mental subjectivity
- perceptual subjectivity
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In the following two chapters, I have placed the terms in groups that relate
to each other to help you master them more easily (rotating between italics
and plain text). You might want to start by learning the terms within these
groups first, rather than attempt to learn the entire chapter at once.
Chapter Six: The Shot: Mise-en-Scene
- mise-en-scene
- setting
- props
- costume
- make-up
- hard lighting
- soft lighting
- frontal lighting
- sidelighting
- toplighting
- underlighting
- backlighting
- edge/rim lighting
- high key lighting
- low key lighting
- movement
- color contrast
- compositional balance
- size difference
- depth cues/volume/planes
- rhythm/beats//tempo/accents
Chapter Seven The Shot: Cinematography
- filters (soft focus: use of gelatin, gauze or other method to produce hazy
image)
- speed of motion/fast-motion/slow-motion
- focal length
- wide-angle lens/shot
- normal (35mm) lens/shot
- telephoto lens/shot
- zoom lens/shot
- depth of field/deep focus
- racking/pulling focus (alternativfely called rack or pull focus)
- superimposition
- process/composite shots
- split screen
- offscreen space
- angle of framing: straight-on/high/low angle
- canted
- shot distance: from long/medium/close-up with "extreme" as
modifier
- camera movement
- pan
- tilt
- tracking or dolly shot
- crane shot
- Steadicam
- hand-held
- reframing
- following shot
- long take
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Chapter Eight: The Relation of Shot to Shot: Editing
- fade-in/fade-out
- dissolve
- fade to black/white/blackout (not in textbook)
- cut
- shot/reverse-shot
- rhythm/beats//tempo/accents
- crosscutting
- flashback/flashforward
- Elliptical editing/puntuation/empty frames/cutaway
- continuity editing
- axis of action/180 degree rule
- establishing shot
- eyeline match
- reaction shot (not in textbook—shows reaction of character to an event)
- reestablishing shot
- match on action
- point-of-view cutting
- head-on shot/tail-on shot
- crosscutting
- montage sequence
- accelerated montage (not in textbook)
- jump cut
- insert/nondiegetic insert
- juxtaposition
Chapter Nine: Sound in the Cinema
- sound track
- dialogue overlap
- soundtrack/score (not in textbook)
- musical motif
- rhythm/beats//tempo/accents
- diegetic sound/nondiegetic sound
- internal/external diegetic sound
- simultaneous/nonsimultaneous sound
- sound bridge
- sound effects
- (voice over) narration/narrator
© 2001 Michael Lewis Goldberg: intellectual
property information
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