A short lexicon of useful lingo

1. Pre-production
The time before shooting begins, during which the director will be working scripts, castings, locations, set designs, and storyboards.

2. Storyboard
During pre-production a director, along with his director of photography (that’s the camera person to you and me), will often ‘storyboard’ parts of the script. A storyboard looks like a cartoon strip, and allows the director to visualise what they want the end results to look like. They’re also useful for explaining to the crew how you want a particular shot to look.

3. Cutaway
A cutaway is a shot of something other than the main action. For example, a scene might open with a mid-shot of a character typing on a computer. The next shot might be of the computer screen itself, showing the words they are typing - this shot is the cutaway. Cutaways are used to paste the ‘main’ shots together during the edit. Basically, the director might shoot three takes of a scene and decide that take one had the best middle, take two had the best end, and take three had the best beginning: in the edit, these takes would then be pasted together using cutaways.

4. C.U., X.C.U., M.S., L.S.
No, it’s not Morse-code: these are the four most commonly used abbreviations for different types of camera shots. A C.U. is a ‘close-up’ shot – usually of a character’s head and shoulders. An X.C.U. is an ‘extreme close-up’ – maybe of an actor’s eyes, or the spot on the end of their nose. An M.S. is a ‘mid-shot’, which can be anything from a whole room to an actor from the waist up. An L.S. is a ‘long-shot’, which can be anything from a shot of the Earth from the Moon, to following an actor from the other side of the street.

5. P.O.V.
A P.O.V. is a ‘point of view’ shot. This is when the camera becomes the eyes of an actor, and we see things from their point of view. Not to be confused with:…

6. O.S.S.
Or, the ‘over the shoulder shot’, which is very similar to a P.O.V., only we can see the actor’s shoulder, or part of their head in the shot as well.

7. Establishing shot
The ‘establishing shot’ is a narrative device used to set a scene with a single image, rather than with words. For example, if we see an actor entering a Casino, we can be quite certain of what they’re doing without having to be told in words.

8. Monitor/Video assist
The monitor, or video assist, is a small tv that feeds back images directly from the camera as they are shot. This allows the director to monitor the shots, and to decide whether they like them or not.

9. It’s a wrap!
Traditionally, the last words uttered on the set at the end of a day’s shoot. Except nobody says that these days, apparently. Instead they say stuff like: ‘That’s it, I’ve had enough – I’m off down the pub!’

10. Post-production
The bit after everything’s been filmed when all the editing and dubbing is done.