General terms for visual literacy

General Terms

Shot: continuous, unedited piece of film of any length
Scene: a series of shots that together form a complete episode or unit of the narrative
Storyboard: Drawn up when designing a production. Plans AV text and shows how each shot relates to sound track. (Think comic strip with directions - like a rough draft or outline for a film.)
Montage: The editing together of a large number of shots with no intention of creating a continuous reality. A montage is often used to compress time, and montage shots are linked through a unified sound - either a voiceover or a piece of music.
Parallel action: narrative strategy that crosscuts between two or more separate actions to create the illusion that they are occurring simultaneously

Shots

Long Shot: Overall view from a distance of whole scene often used as an establishing shot - to set scene. Person - will show whole body.
Medium or Mid Shot: Middle distance shot - can give background information while still focusing on subject. Person - usually shows waist to head.
Close Up: Focuses on detail / expression / reaction. Person - shows either head or head and shoulders.
Tracking shot: single continuous shot made with a camera moving along the ground
Reverse shot: shot taken at a 180 degree angle from the preceding shot (reverse-shot editing is commonly used during dialogue, angle is often 120 to 160 degrees)
Subjective Shot (P.O.V. Shot): Framed from a particular character's point of view. Audience sees what character sees.

Camera Movement

Pan: Camera moves from side to side from a stationary position
Tilt: Movement up or down from a stationary position
Tracking: The camera moves to follow a moving object or person
Camera Angles

Low Angle Camera: shoots up at subject. Used to increase size, power, status of subject
High Angle Camera: shoots down at subject. Used to increase vulnerability, powerlessness, decrease size


Editing (the way shots are put together)

Cut: The ending of a shot. If the cut seems inconsistent with the next shot, it is called a jump cut.
Fade in or out: The image appears or disappears gradually. Often used as a division between scenes.
Dissolve: One image fades in while another fades out so that for a few seconds, the two are superimposed.

Sound

Soundtrack: Consists of dialogue, sound effects and music. Should reveal something about the scene that visual images don't.
Score: musical soundtrack
Sound effects: all sounds that are neither dialogue nor music
Voice-over: spoken words laid over the other tracks in sound mix to comment upon the narrative or to narrate