Danae Warne GCSE Media Blog: Exam Terminology

Exam Terminology

Glossary:

Print:

House style - a company's preferred manner of presentation and layout of written material.
Symmetrical - parts that are the same on both sides of a specific point.
Asymmetrical - parts that are not the same or equal.
Use of columns and boxes - in either newspaper articles or magazines there are columns a boxes for the layout of text.
Ratio of copy, photography and space - how much writing you have compared to images.
Headline - a heading at the top of an article or page in a newspaper or magazine
Caption - a title or brief explanation accompanying an illustration, cartoon, or poster.
Strapline - a subsidiary heading or caption in a newspaper or magazine.
Standfirst - a brief introductory summary of an article in a newspaper or on a magazine.

Serif and sans serif - 'flicks and ticks' on a serif font, no flicks and ticks on a sans serif font.
Specialist typefaces - a set of one or more fonts that share common design features.
Font size/italics/bold - Font size, italics, bold

Formal and informal register - whether your register is quite posh and has proper English, or whether it is slang.
Direct mode of address - how a text speaks to an audience or involves them.
Puns - a joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word or the fact that there are words which sound alike but have different meanings.
Colloquialisms - a word or phrase that is not formal or literary and is used in ordinary or familiar conversation.
Slang - a type of language consisting of words and phrases that are regarded as very informal, are more common in speech than writing, and are typically restricted to a particular context or group of people.

Graphics - visual images produced by computer processing.
Camerawork - the way in which cameras are used in a film or television programme.
Mise en scene - the arrangement of the scenery, props, etc. on the stage of a theatrical production or on the set of a film.
Depth of field - the distance between the nearest and the furthest objects giving a focused image.
Digital manipulation - transforming or altering a photograph using various methods and techniques to achieve the desired methods.
Cropping - cutting down an image to the desired size.

House style - a company's preferred manner of presentation and layout of written material in relation to the chosen colour palette.
Colour saturation - The intensity of a colour, expressed as the degree to which it differs from white.
Choice of colour - the colour you choose to be on what you are making.

Audio/Visual:

Establishing shots - It is generally a long or extreme-long shot at the beginning of a scene indicating where, and sometimes when, the remainder of the scene takes place.
Low angle - A photograph or film sequence taken from below the subject.
High angle - A high-angle shot is a cinematic technique where the camera looks down on the subject from a high angle.
Canted angle - Where the camera is set at an angle on its roll axis so that the shot is composed with vertical lines at an angle to the side of the frame.
Aerial shots - the taking of photographs or filming from an aircraft or other flying object.
Tracks - a camera movement/shot that moves alongside the object.
Steadicam - A brand of camera stabiliser allowing a smooth shot even when the camera is moving over an uneven surface.
Crane shots - a shot taken by a camera on a crane or jib.
Hand-held camera - a camera that you hold in your hands to use.
Point-of-view shots - a short film scene that shows what a character is looking at.
Shallow focus - a photographic and cinematographic technique incorporating a small depth of field.
Focus pulls - when you change focus during a shot from one thing to another.

Shot/reverse shot - a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character (often off-screen), and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character.
Juxtaposition - the fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect.
Non-continuity editing - creating the illusion of smooth continuous action and helps to keep the audiences' attention to the story.
Crosscutting - an editing technique most often used in films to establish action occurring at the same time, and usually in the same place.
Fast-paced editing - a film editing technique which refers to several consecutive shots of a brief duration (e.g. 3 seconds or less).
Dissolve transition - a gradual transition from one image to another.
Wipe transition - a type of film transition where one shot replaces another by travelling from one side of the frame to another or with a special shape.
Fade - a transition to and from a blank image.
Post-production effects - includes tasks such as the editing of raw footage to cut scenes, insert transition effects, working with voice and sound actors, and dubbing.

Music - vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion.
Diegetic sound - a noise which has a source on-screen. They are noises which have not been edited in, for example dialogue between characters or footsteps.
Non-diegetic sound - a noise which does not have a source on-screen, they have been added in. For example music, voiceover, sound effects.
Sound effect - a sound other than speech or music made artificially for use in a play, film, or other broadcast production.
Sound bridge - a type of sound editing that occurs when sound carries over a visual transition in a film.
Voiceover - a piece of narration in a film or broadcast, not accompanied by an image of the speaker.

Lighting - equipment in a room, building, or street for producing light.
Low key lighting - a lighting effect that uses a hard light source to enhance shadows in your scene.
Location/set - where the film/photograph was taken and it's background.
Costume and makeup - what the character is wearing and how they look.
Props - a portable object other than furniture or costumes used on the set of a play or film.
Casting - assigning a character to an actor for a play or film.
Performance style - The act or style of performing a role before an audience. The 4 styles are tragedy, comedy melodrama and drama.
Blocking - the composition of elements in the shot during rehearsal, telling actors where they should move for the proper dramatic effect, ensure sight lines for the audience and work with the lighting design of the scene.