|
|
HOW-TO, Techniques, & Best Practices Channel
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.
|
|
|