In the last article of Let’s experiment with cinema! we talked about the invention of the motion pictures and the very first movies. However, while the Lumière Brothers’ movies were mainly experiments aimed at testing their new device, the cinématographe, the real cinematic storytelling started with Georges Méliès. Méliès can be considered as the first movie director and filmmaker, since he made an art (the Seventh, actually) out of Lumière’s machine. The history of Cinema starts with his movies, such as L’Homme à la tête en caoutchouc – The Man with the Rubber Head and, the most famous of all, his masterpiece Le Voyage dans la lune – A Trip to the Moon. You can easily find and watch this titles on the Internet and compare them to Lumière movies (also on the web for free). I am sure that you will notice the great difference between a long take and a cross-cutting, different fields in place of a static shot…but what are we talking about ? What do all these strange words mean ? Well, take a deep breath because we are going to break down all the basic cinematic vocabulary that you should learn.

First of all you must be aware of the different stages of film making, that is to say:

1. Pre-production: The preliminary planning stage before shooting begins. It includes the writing of the script, the casting of the actors and the location scouting. It implies also important choices such as the selection of the director and the troupe, the creation of the storyboard and setting, costumes and scenography making. In other words, although this stage does not include the real realization of the movie (that is filming), it is of paramount importance in determining the core of it.
2. Production: It consists in the filming stage, where the movie is actually shot. It might include the making of special effects.
3. Post-production: It takes place after the end of the filming stage and includes all the types of editing that are applied to the shooting material: video and sound editing, soundtrack, special effects, captions, dubbing.
4. Release: It consists in the distribution of a movie to the public, through theaters projection, home DVDs, streaming platforms, etc… .

Now that you have an inkling of the whole process of movie making, close your eyes and try to find your spot in this big machine. Which role fits you the most? If you feel like the Production stage might be your ideal habitat, dear future filmmaker, here are a few more words that could be really useful to you:
Sequence shot (or long take) = this is the case of Lumière movies, which consist in a single and continuous shot for the entire duration of the scene. There are not interruptions, nor changes in the framing.
Editing (or découpage) = it was first introduced by Georges Méliès, who used to cut and paste manually (that is why it is called découpage) pieces of the film where the images were recorded, in order to create special effects. Just take a look at the movies that I have suggested above and you will notice the amazing effects of his invention. Anyway, the editing process is not only suitable for the special effects, but it is use to vary the narrative technique. Actually we can identify many kinds of editing that have been invented after the first experiments of Méliès, such as:

• Sound editing : when the scenes a/o the framings are scanned by the music of the soundtrack
• Cross – cutting : when scenes that take place contemporarily in different places are shown alternately. Unlike parallel editing, the actions of the scenes are destined to converge in the same point. A perfect example would be a car chasing in an action scene : we see both what happens in the car of the criminals and what is going on in the police car that is further behind. You can have a look at the « Mall chase scene » in The Blues Brothers or also at the ending scene of When Harry Met Sally. The aim is to create suspence.
• Parallel editing : when scenes that take place in different places are shown alternately. It is very useful to create thought-provoking comparisons between scenes that show us different, and apparently unrelated, actions.
• Elliptical editing : when the events that happen in a certain period of time are omitted because of a time jump. It is the case of the classical « 12 years later… ». Sometimes it can be very annoying, can’t it ?

Framing: Lumière Brothers’ had not realize the importance of the framing for the storytelling. They only used one frame for each movie, therefore the point of view did not change. This technique is called « zero framing ». Later, an entire classification of « shot sizes » was created :

• Extreme wide shot (EWS) : its aim is to show the space where the scene takes place as a whole and it must allow the viewer to see this at a glance. The focus is on the setting rather than on the action.
• Wide shot (WS) : it can be conceived as a ”small version” of the EWS, but the aim is to give to the viewer an idea of the space where the action takes place. So, differently from the EWS, the space here is not the protagonist anymore, but it is functional to the human figure and its action
• Medium wide shot (MWS) : it allows the viewer to see at a glance both the entire figures of the characters and the location of the scene.
• Medium shot (MS) : the scene is equally taken up by characters’ figures and spcae, but we cannot see all of it at a glance.
  Then we find the types of framing that focus only on the characters’ figures :
• Whole figure : the name is quite explicative itself. This shot shows us the entire figure of a single character.
• Cowboy shot : this kind of framing is named after the movie genre that made the wider use of it, that is to say, the Westerns ! The reason of it is that this shot frames the figures from the knees up, so it shows all the body parts involved in cowboys duels.
• Medium close-up shot (MCU…it does not stand for Marvel Cinematic Universe!) : it focuses on the half-figure of a character.
• Close-up (CU) : it focuses only on one part of the body. It can be a face, a leg, an arm, etc.
• Extreme close-up (ECU) : it focuses on a little detail of the body, such as the eyes or the mouth.

Camera movement : Also in this regard Lumière Brothers’ had not experimented a lot. In their movies they only used the static camera. This means that the camera never moves and again the point of view does not change. The movement of the camera implies that the frame changes continuously (as the camera is moving) in the same shot, that means, without editing ! Let’s see a couple of ways to move your camera :

• Panning shot : it can be horizontal, vertical or even oblique. It reproduces the movement of our necks when we look around us : from left to right, from up to down, etc… . In order to create this effect, the camera is made swivel from a fixed position.
• Tracking shot : it can be forward or backwards and it is useful to follow the characters in motion or to reveal gradually parts of the scene that where not visible to the viewer at first (so, for example, to go from a Close-up to a Wide-shot, without stopping the shooting). To create this effect, the camera is phisically placed on a moving cart !
• Zoom : it can be in or out and it is created by moving the camera towards the object (zoom in) or away from it. Nowadays it is more common to create this effect by modifing the lens of the camera (without an actual movement of it).

Do you feel more skilled now ? Are you ready to apply all this vocabulary while making your own movie ? I will wait to see it in the theatres !

SOURCES:
https://promova.com/english-vocabulary/film-vocabulary
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montaggio
https://laba.biz/montaggio-dei-film-alternato-e-parallelo/#:~:text=Il%20montaggio%20alternato%20%C3%A8%20la,che%20sono%20destinati%20a%20convergere.
https://www.cadrage.app/the-7-most-common-shot-sizes-in-filmmaking/#What_is_shot_size
https://www.cinescuola.it/movimenticamera/