Key terms in Film Studies

1. Introduction to Film Studies
Key Terms

2. Basic Definitions
Narrative is the telling of the story - it
involves more than just the story itself
Genre is the kind of film – SciFi, Action
Adventure, RomCom...

3. Narrative
Thinking about narrative means thinking about...
● Plot (What happens)
● Setting (In time and place – when and where)
● Characters (Who's involved)
● Point of view and sympathy/empathy (Who do we
identify with? Who's story do we follow?
● Time (Flashbacks? Time lapses? Real time?)
● Themes and Representations (What's it all about?)

4. Genre
Genre means different things in different contexts
● Cinema is a genre
● Fictional films are a genre
● Horror, SciFi, Westerns, Gangster films, Musicals...
all genres
● Slasher horror, monster horror, supernatural horror..
all subgenres...
● I could go on

5. Generic Conventions
Conventions are “The unwritten rules of genre”
● Iconographic conventions – Westerns have horses,
six guns, wide brimmed hats...
● Mise en Scene conventions – they take place in
dusty streets, rough saloons, deserted towns, isolated
railway lines...
● Sound conventions – we hear sparse music, slide
guitars, gunshots, horses hooves...

6. Making Meaning
● Denotation – what something is – a dictionary
definition. Red is a colour on the spectrum with a
wavelength of 700 nanometers
● Connotation – all of the different things that
something might mean – Red means danger,
passion, blood, fire, lust, stop, warmth, love...
Most film analysis is about understanding and
identifying connotations.

7. Cinematic Terms
● Cinematography
● Editing
● Diagetic and Non-Diagatic Sound
● Mise en Scene
● Iconography
● Performance

8. Cinematography
The work of the camera. As photography is to a
picture (or photo), so cinematography is to a film.
● The type of shot – Extreme Close Up, High Angle
Shot, 2-Shot, Establishing Shot, Master Shot
● The camera movement – Pan, Tilt, Track, Cant
● Light and Shadow
● Colour and texture

9. Editing
The movement from shot to shot, generally
achieved in post-production.
● Types of edit – Cut, Fade, Dissolve, Circle Fade,
Wipe
● Editing and storytelling
● Editing and manipulating time and space
● Parallel Editing
● Seamless Editing
● Montage

10. Sound
You know what sound means. However...
● Diagetic sound is made within the world of the film
(the 'diagesis') – dialogue, traffic, gunshots, aliens in
their flying saucers, music on the radio or at a
concert...If you were there in the film, you would
hear it.
● Non-Diagetic sound is voiceover, background
music and that's about it. It makes meaning for the
audience but you wouldn't hear it if you were there
in the film.

11. Mise en Scene
● What's on the screen. Everything you see.
● Locations – real ones or sets – realistic or
fantasy/sci-fi
● People – and their clothes, props, their arrangement
on the screen, their movement
● Colours, shapes, light and shadow

12. Iconography
Significant images – things with lots of
connotations
● An icon was originally an image of a god
● Different genres have distinctive iconography – guns
and cars in gangster films, metal men and space
ships in sci-fi
● Icons are images loaded with meaning – short cuts to
getting messages across

13. Performance
What the actor does
● How do actors create character?
● How much do they 'act' to make meaning?
● Or is meaning made by the situations they are in?
● Does it matter that the actor does their own stunts?
Sings the songs? Dances the dance routines?