How to Read a Film Presents
The Interactive Glossary of Cinema
Terms and definitions provided by The Dictionary of New Media by James Monaco,
part of the multimedia edition of the classic academic and reference work How to Read a Film.
Use this Interactive Glossary to explore a variety of filmmaking techniques and formal devices. Each entry is followed by a brief selection of feature film titles with clip annotations that illustrate its concept.
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for actual sample clips from student-produced work courtesy of The Media Spot.
A shot taken from a crane, plane, or helicopter. Not necessarily a moving shot. See Crane Shot.
The Sound of Music (1965), Touch of Evil (1958), Out of the Past (1947), Strangers on a Train (1951)
Angle/ Reverse Angle
Editing shots of two people in conversation to conform to the 180-degree rule.
Vertigo (1958), The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Big Sleep (1946), Touch of Evil (1958)
Closeup
(1) Precisely, a shot of the subject's face only. (2) Generally, any close shot.
City Lights (1931), As Good As It Gets (1997), Out of the Past (1947), Touch of Evil (1958)
Crane Shot
A shot taken from a crane, a device resembling the 'cherrypickers' used by the telephone company to repair lines.
Singin' in the Rain (1952), The Wizard of Oz (1939), North by Northwest (1959), Touch of Evil (1958)
Crosslighting
Lighting from the side.
Touch of Evil (1958), Out of the Past (1947)
Cutaway
A shot, usually brief, inserted in a scene to show action at another location; most often used to cover breaks in the main take, as in television and documentary interviews. See Reaction Shot
Vertigo (1958), Touch of Evil (1958), Psycho (1960), Strangers on a Train (1951)
Detail Shot
Usually more magnified than a closeup. A shot of a hand, eye, mouth, or subject of similar detail.
The Big Sleep (1946), Touch of Evil (1958), Out of the Past (1947), Strangers on a Train (1951)
Dissolve
The superimposition of a fade-out over a fade-in. Sometimes called a lap dissolve.
The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Big Sleep (1946), Touch of Evil (1958), Out of the Past (1947)
Establishing Shot
Generally a long shot that shows the audience the general location of the scene that follows, often providing essential information, and orienting the viewer.
Rashomon (1950), The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Big Sleep (1946), Out of the Past (1947)
Exposure
A measure of the amount of light striking the surface of the film. Film can be intentionally overexposed to give a very light, washed-out, dreamy quality to the print image, or it can be underexposed to make the image darker, muddy, and foreboding.
Eyeline Match
An editing rule: the alternation of two shots, the first showing a character looking off-screen, the second showing what he's looking at. A rough sense of scale and distance is kept, but not necessarily perspective—that is, every point-of-view shot is an eyeline match, but every eyeline match is not necessarily a POV shot.
Vertigo (1958), The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Big Sleep (1946), Touch of Evil (1958)
Fade-In, Fade-Out
A punctuation device. In a Fade-In, the screen is black at the beginning; gradually the image appears, brightening to full strength. The opposite happens in a Fade-Out. You can fade to a color other than black, too. See Dissolve
The Big Sleep (1946), Out of the Past (1947), Strangers on a Train (1951)
Insert, Insert Shot
A detail shot that gives specific and relevant information necessary to a complete understanding of the meaning of the scene. Examples: a letter, a telltale physical detail.
The Freshman (1925), The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Big Sleep (1946), Strangers on a Train (1951)
The 400 Blows (1959), The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Big Sleep (1946), Touch of Evil (1958), Out of the Past (1947)
Long Shot
A long shot includes at least the full figures of the subjects, usually more.
The Seventh Seal (1957), Vertigo (1958), Out of the Past (1947), Strangers on a Train (1951)
Offscreen Sound
Sound whose source is not visible within the frame but that is part of the diegesis.
The Maltese Falcon (1941), Vertigo (1958), The Big Sleep (1946), Touch of Evil (1958)
Offscreen Space
The areas not visible within the confines of the frame but nevertheless part of the space of a scene (the diegesis), behind the set, behind the camera, above, below, left, and right of the frame.
Great Expectations (1946), Pulp Fiction (1994), The Big Sleep (1946), Touch of Evil (1958)
Anticipation of the Night (1962), The Namesake (2006), The Big Sleep (1946)
Over-the-Shoulder Shot
A shot commonly used in dialogue scenes in which the speaker is seen from the perspective of a person standing just behind and a little to one side of the listener, so that parts of the head and shoulder of the listener are in the frame, as well as the head of the speaker.
Vertigo (1958), The Big Sleep (1946), Touch of Evil (1958), Out of the Past (1947)
Pan
Movement of the camera from left to right or right to left around the imaginary vertical axis that runs through the camera. A panning shot is sometimes confused with a tracking shot, which is quite different.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), The Big Sleep (1946), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Out of the Past (1947)
Pull-Back Shot
A tracking shot or zoom that moves back from the subject to reveal the context of the scene.
The Maltese Falcon (1941), Vertigo (1958), The Big Sleep (1946), Touch of Evil (1958)
Reaction Shot
A shot that cuts away from the main scene or speaker to show another character's reaction. See Cutaway
Touch of Evil (1958), Vertigo (1958), A Day at the Races (1937), Strangers on a Train (1951)
Rear Projection
A process in which a background scene is projected onto a translucent screen behind the actors so it appears that the actors are in that location. Superseded by front projection and matte techniques, both more effective systems, and then by digital effects.
The Maltese Falcon (1941), Touch of Evil (1958), Out of the Past (1947), Strangers on a Train (1951)
Sequence Shot
A long, usually complex shot, often including complicated camera movements and action. Also called Plan-séquence (the French term), or Long Take.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Children of Men (2006), Touch of Evil (1958)
Spotlighting
Lighting a particular, often very small, area for effect.
The Third Man (1949), Touch of Evil (1958), The Maltese Falcon (1941)
The Special Collections house tools for different subject areas and supplement our general services. For example, "From Page to Screen" correlates clips to precise text passages in the literary works from which they're adapted. "Coach's Corner" helps users find specific clips that illustrate key ideas, techniques, or rules in a wide array of sports. Let's take a look at some prototypes of these interfaces.
The Interactive Glossary
The Interactive Glossary of Cinema helps users identify filmmaking techniques—not content—in visual media. This innovative tool is designed to be equally valuable to elementary classes just beginning media production and to university professors looking for clips to screen. Click on "Interactive Glossary" to be brought to the main Glossary page.
Using the Glossary
The entries here represent a sampling of the entire glossary and show how FiiF works with content providers such as publishers and authors. To see how educators might use this page, navigate to "Reaction Shot." Note that the item is cross-linked both to another entry and to video clips from a partner (go ahead—click on the icon). Then click on "Touch of Evil" to find a relevant clip in a classic film.
Glossary Annotations
Scroll down to the highlighted text "Reaction Shot." Now we have information about a precise clip that illustrates this concept, complete with timecodes and a brief description of the shot. If there were several reaction shots to choose from, they would all be highlighted this way. Finally, note how the entire film is annotated for this theme—one of many titles that FiiF has catalogued in this way. Click on the logo at the top of the page to return home.
From Page to Screen
This dynamic lesson-planning tool helps classes compare movies to the literature from which they're adapted. Teachers screening movies can find the perfect clips to discuss certain passages... or create annotations to leave for their colleagues. Click on "From Page to Screen" to see an abbreviated version of this resource.
Finding Adaptations
For any given literary work, film titles are listed in order of utility so that teachers can instantly determine which provides the most faithful adaptation. Titles not in FiiF's database are in black while those that are too tangential to the source material appear in green-gray. Again, click on the logo to return to the home page.
Living History Timebox
This interactive tool allows educators to find visual media that bring specific historical periods and events to life. While perhaps most useful to history teachers, the Timebox can also help English classes access visualizations of the eras they're reading about, gather details for writing prompts, or stimulate ideas for research papers. It's even helpful to educators in cultural and cinema studies programs since the time periods when the movies were released are also a key component of the data. Click on the link to get started.
Timebox Navigation and Basics
What's the difference between a conventional timeline and Find it in Film's Timebox? Here educators can compare how different time periods were depicted in different time periods. In fact, the "Contemporary Line" helps users find films that were made at roughly the same time as the content they cover. Hover above the data points to access specific film titles. To change your view of the types of visual media represented, click on the corresponding color-coded circles in the legend.
Drilling Down with the Timebox
Use the controls for each axis to "zoom" in and out to explore different presentations of the data. Eventually you can zoom in to a display of 1928-1932 films that roughly cover the years 1915-1923. Still, some educators may require an even more granular view of a particular year. On the vertical axis continue to click "+" until you see the prompt for selecting the year 1918.
Month-by-Month Results Page
Here educators can browse through an entire year in film. They can even find films that depict the exact same day in history—a feature that provides them with options for choosing media to screen in class. Or they can use this page to select more than one film, so that students can compare and contrast, thus fostering a more critical viewing of the media. Please scroll down to "October" and click on All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). By doing this, we'll navigate to an annotation that provides more detail than the overview presented here.
An Annotation is Born
Scroll to the bottom of the page to see how the theme of "Living History" has been newly applied to a movie that we explored in the Search Functions tour. This represents the way that Find it in Film is always growing, with new annotations constantly being added. Now a user interested in media that depicts the end of World War I is directed not only to a movie title, but also to a precise clip keyed to a specific month. That's the kind of resource that we at Find it in Film are striving to make available to all educators using the power of the moving image to inspire learning...
Thanks for coming on this tour. Please e-mail us at principals@finditinfilm.com to let us know that you visited and to send any questions or comments. We look forward to hearing from you!
for actual sample clips from student-produced work courtesy of 
