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On the Set, In the Studio Film Biz Lingo: A Short Guide to some of the most frequently questioned terms

By Chris Cavallari
posted May 14, 2009, 15:39

Some of the first episodes of my former podcast, The Martini Shot: Moviemaking for Beginners, dealt with the terminology you are more than likely to encounter on a movie set. This four episode series was also the most downloaded set of episodes in the yearlong run of my show (if you do a Google search for film making terminology, my podcast is the third listing). So many times in my career I�ve either not known what this piece of gear is, or had someone ask me what that scrap of stuff is. Filmmaking is a tough egg to crack, and the terms filmmakers use on a daily basis don�t make it any easier for the lay person or neophyte to understand it. Maybe that�s why there�s so much �magic� associated with filmmaking. No one knows what the heck we�re talking about.

What follows is a short, novice�s guide to some of the more common terms you�ll hear during the movie making process. Some of these terms you think you know the meaning of, but the movie biz has put its own spin on it. No doubt the most confusing terms come during the production phase, but each part of the process has its own nuances. The guide is by no means a comprehensive dictionary, but if I�d had this guide when I was starting out, I wouldn�t have been searching the grip truck for 10 minutes looking for some lost baby!

Pre-Production

Teleplay

We all know that a script/screenplay is the basic building block of any TV show or film. Basically, it�s the master document that tells the story, describes settings, shows action, and provides dialogue for characters. So a teleplay, then, is exactly the same thing, but refers to a script for a made-for-television movie.

Talking Head
Generally a medium shot of a person, either speaking directly to camera, or speaking to an off-camera person. Probably one of the most boring shots ever made, but also the most used, especially in interviews and news. The term is sometimes used in a derogatory way.

Storyboard
A series of drawings created in the aspect ratio of the filming format to be used in production. The drawings are visual depictions of shots in the script, used to aid the filmmakers in production.

180 Degree Rule
A screen direction rule for camera operators that keeps continuity between various shots in a scene. An imaginary line is drawn through the screen action, effectively creating a 180 degree arc, beyond which the camera should almost never cross. Otherwise, visual confusion and chaos will ensue, and the entire world will collapse in on itself, causing mass hysteria. Well, confusion at least.

Above The Line
This refers to the part of a film or TV show�s budget reserved for the major players in the production. Will usually cover the director, producers, writers, actors, etc. Everyone else is Below The Line.

Plot and Story
I�ve combined these two because, while they are related, they are actually two different things with different definitions. Story refers to the all the overarching events that occur during the given timeframe of a film. Plot and plot points are the various turning points that spin the story in a new direction. Generally, these plot points occur at specific points in the story, like the end of each act or at the climax.

Dutch Tilt / Angle
I put this in pre-production because... well, the section looked a little sparse. Actually, it�s a term that�s normally used during this stage anyway, especially when describing the shot in a storyboard. A Dutch Tilt or Dutch Angle is a type of shot where the camera is literally tilted on an angle, causing the horizon of the resulting image to be tilted as well. Nobody really knows what the Dutch have to do with it.

Production

Dolly

No, it�s not the raggedy, disgusting toy your little sister used to schlep around with her everywhere she went. A dolly is, at its most basic, a platform on wheels that allows the camera and its operator to create smooth, pretty tracking moves. Dollies can range anywhere from $15 pieces of plywood on skateboard wheels all the way up to...well, a lot more money for a professional dolly with lots of levers and wheels and accessories.

Dolly Grip
So, those fancy dollies don�t move by themselves. And the camera operator certainly can�t do it by himself. He�s too busy, you know, operating the camera. So what�s a camera person to do? Call the Dolly Grip, that�s what. The Dolly Grip (and I know you�ve seen that title in a hundred different credit rolls at the end of a hundred different movies) is a specially trained and very strong Grip whose sole purpose is to push and pull and lift and otherwise tend to the dolly while hitting specific marks with the unwieldy contraption. It�s a tough job, but someone�s got to do it.

Grip
The someone�s who usually do it are the Grips. These are the physically strongest men and women on a movie set. Their primary responsibilities are moving things and rigging things to other things. If you�ve got something that needs lifting, carrying, pushing, setting, or rigging, these are the people who do it. I was (and occasionally still am) a grip, and I loved every minute of it. We don�t get much glory, but it�s a great job. The Grip in Charge or Chief Grip is known as the Key Grip. He has an assistant who you�ll be introduced to shortly.

Gaffer
Also known as the Chief Electrician. Anything to do with electricity or lighting on the set is managed by the Gaffer. The term supposedly comes from the earliest days of filmmaking, before electricity, when men used long gaffe poles to open or close skylights in soundstage roofs to control the amount of light that was let onto the set. That�s the legend at least. The Gaffer also has an assistant. And here he (or she) is!

Best Boy
Ah, the Best Boy. Believe it or not, the Best Boy can be female too. The Best Boy is the right hand man or woman to the Key Grip and the Gaffer.

Baby / Blond / Tweenie / Inky
These are all types of lights made by the Mole Richardson company.

Strike / Kill
Occasionally, you�ll hear someone tell you to �strike the baby,� or even worse, �kill the blond.� Don�t worry, you won�t get arrested for heinous crimes against humanity. The person is really telling you to take away a light, or turn off that light, respectively. Strike = remove from the set, Kill = turn off the light. Funny thing though: When you turn on a light, you should say very loudly so everyone can hear you, �Striking!� I know, weird.

Sticks
In essence, sticks are tripod legs. You figure that one out.

Baby Legs
Baby legs are actually very small tripod legs.

Spreader
A three-pronged piece of rubber or plastic or metal that keeps tripod legs from flopping about wildly when you set them up.

Kicker
These things sound awfully violent, don�t they? The kicker is actually a light. Generally, a lower wattage light, and it�s used to add a little edge light to the subject. Sometimes placed on the floor (kicker, right?) or off to the side of the subject.

Mafer
This was one of the first pieces of equipment I, as a grip, could not for the life of me figure out. It has, however, come to be one of my favorites for its amazing usefulness. The Mafer clamp is a clamp with a tightening screw on one end and a 5/8� pin on a 90� angle from it. The jaws of the clamp have one piece in a 90� angle for clamping onto squared off objects, such as 2�x4� wood studs. The pin is for hanging lights.

Cardellini
No, not an Italian Teamster. A Cardellini is another type of clamp used by grips the world over. It has two opposing jaws, one of which is movable.

Blimp
Goodyear, eat your heart out. These blimps are much smaller than those unwieldy flying machines. A blimp in the filmmaking world is a solid, soundproof housing that encloses film cameras so that the camera�s noise doesn�t affect the scene.

Barney
Also used as a sound suppressant, a barney is basically a blanket that goes over the camera to knock down camera noise.

Barn Doors
Lock up the cows and put out the lanterns. Barn doors are black metal flaps that attach to the front of movie lights, and allow for control of the light that comes out of them.

Jib
When referring to a camera, a jib is a kind of long, pivoting arm that sits on a tripod and allows the camera to move in various directions. Jibs can range from 4 feet long to 40 or 50 feet long (these start to fall into the crane category), and will allow for very cool overhead and/or moving shots.

Cookie (cucoloris)
Toll House has nothing to do with this. Cookie is short for cucoloris. Made of paper, gels, card stock, or even wood or metal, a cookie is used to break up light to create random patterns on surfaces. This gives a more natural look to the light, especially if the light is coming through a window. Many times, grips will use an actual tree branch as a cookie, calling it a branchioloris.

Gobo
This is one of those words you know someone must have made up under the influence. A gobo is a pattern creating device used in lighting. Cookies generally fall under the gobo category. Gobos are circular metal discs that are placed directly in front of a light (such as an ellipsoidal) to create patterns or images using projected light.

Gel
No, not the gunk you put in your hair before you go clubbing. These are thin, translucent pieces of plastic that come in two flavors:
Color correcting: these gels are used to match the color temperature of the light to the color temperature of the film or to the surrounding environment. They come in Orange (CTO - Color Temperature Orange) and Blue (Color Temperature Blue) and are designated by fractions from 1/64 to Full. There are also color correcting gels for fluorescent fixtures, designated as Plus Green or Minus Green, since fluorescent lights burn with a slight green color (older fluorescent are much more visible).
Theatrical: Also known as party gels, these come in all kinds of colors, and are used to add color to a given scene.

Diffusion
Used to soften and diffuse the light beams radiating from a light. Shadows become less harsh depending on the amount of diffusion used on a light. They also come in several flavors, the most popular of which are: 216, opal (opalite), frost, and spun.

CCD
You�ve seen it on your camera, you know that 3 are better than 1, but what does it stand for? CCD is short for Charged Coupled Device. It�s the imager that takes the light information entering through the camera�s lens and converts it to digital bits. When there�s only one CCD (sometimes called a �chip�), all color information - denoted by RGB, or Red Green Blue - is processed through the single chip. Three CCD cameras use a prism to split the color information into separate Red, Green, and Blue information, and process each color separately, creating a better final image.

Steadicam
You�ve seen these camera stabilizer systems a hundred times in a hundred Behind The Scenes featurettes, but you should know that Steadicam is a brand name. The patent for the vest and spring loaded arm stabilizing system belongs to the Tiffen company. The whole contraption was invented by a cameraman by the name of Garrett Brown, who still holds week-long training seminars for wannabe Steadicam operators.

The Abby Singer
My second favorite term in the film making lexicon. Abbey Singer is a real person. He�s a well known Assistant Director (AD) and Unit Production Manager (UPM). He�s retired now, but the reason there�s a term named after him is kind of funny. As an AD, Abby was known to try to motivate the troops at the end of a long day of shooting by yelling out, �One more take! Just one more!� Then the production would almost invariably move on to another shot after that. Singer did this on such a regular basis that crews began referring to the second-to-last shot of the day as The Abby Singer.

The Martini Shot
The Martini Shot is the last shot of the filming day, and gets its name from the drinks the crew would go out for after work. I named my podcast after this term because I thought it appropriate, as that time would be used to discuss the many happenings of the day and unwind after a hard day�s work.

Post-Production

Slug
You can�t pour salt on this one to see it squirm. This slug refers to, in film and video editing, the descriptive title of a given clip.

A-Roll / B-Roll
I�m sure you�ve at least heard of BRoll, but there are two terms to learn here. If B-Roll refers to all the secondary or supplemental shots that are put in to create visual interest and help to explain the primary footage, then A-Roll refers to the main video or film being shown already. This comes from the old linear editing days, when the playback decks were labeled �A� and �B�. When you wanted to make, for example, a dissolve between the two clips, you would play the �A� deck, then roll the �B� deck before the dissolve, and then dissolve between the two decks.

Blowup
Yes, in today�s action flicks, there are plenty of things blowing up, but a �blowup� in film making terminology refers to taking a smaller source of film or video and resizing it to fit on 35mm film for theatrical projection.

Key
Think of a key in literal terms. There�s the key, and the keyhole. The keyhole is actually a cutout that the key fits into perfectly. So in film making, we use a green or blue screen to do a �Chroma Key,� whereby we remove the chroma green or chroma blue (the key) from behind the subject (the keyhole, or, more accurately, what we see through the keyhole) and replace it with an alternate background.

Keyframe
This has almost nothing to do with the �key� as defined above. Keyframe is a term used in animation and compositing to denote the beginning and ending frames of a sequence, between which a change of some kind has occurred. For example, think of a person walking. The first position of the person would be keyframe 1. The last position of the person walking is keyframe 2. Any action has occurred in between the keyframes.

Change-Over Cue
(cigarette burn) Have you ever noticed, while watching a film in the theater, a circle or dot pop up in the upper right hand corner of the screen? It flashes there twice, a few seconds apart, and then disappears. This happens several times during the movie. This is called the Change- Over Cue (a.k.a., Cigarette Burn, due to it�s resemblance to the name). Theatrical releases of films come on several reels that last around fourteen minutes each. At the end of the reel, the changeover cue pops up to let the projectionist know that the reel is about to end, and they should start playing the next reel to sync up seamlessly. If you pay attention, you�ll usually be able to see the difference between the reels.

Bin
In film editing, a bin is literally a box that contains the various clippings of film. This helps the editor keep the film segments organized and safe from damage. In nonlinear video editing, a bin serves a similar purpose, albeit in a digital form. The bin here helps to organize all the visual, audio, and graphical elements used in the editing process.

Alan Smithee
I see it only fitting to put this at the end of the guide. Go look up how many movies this guy has directed over the years. The number would be well over a few hundred, and the dates would make him well over a hundred years in age. Alan Smithee has been around the block a few times. That�s because Smithee is a name directors, and sometimes writers, attach to a film when they no longer want anything to do with the movie. Usually the creative vision has been wrested away from them by the powers that be, and they no longer wish to be associated with the movie. Sad, but true.

OK, those are enough secrets for now. Hopefully, this guide will help you out next time you�re on set or in the edit suite. We make mistakes so you don�t have to. Of course, you may still end up on the grip truck waiting with roses for a blonde who will never come. Good luck.

This article may not be reprinted in print or internet publications without express permission of StudentFilmmakers.com.

Check out this article in the May 2008 print edition of StudentFilmmakers magazine, page 28.