Media Language

Media language refers to the ways in which meaning is created in media texts. Below are some of the terms we have been learning about in our AS Media Studies lessons.

Camera

Establishing shot: The opening shot in a dramatic scene that establishes the disposition of people and objects in the mise-en-scène. As such it is usually a wide shot, and is likely to be followed by a succession of closer shots. 

Point of view shot: A camera angle in which the viewer seems to see with the eyes of a character in the scene.

Over the shoulder shot: A camera shot in which the subject of the shot is filmed from behind a person’s head and shoulders, which are framed to one side in the foreground. 

Canted-angle: A cinematic device where the camera is physically placed at an angle so that vertical and horizontal surfaces appear diagonal.

Pan: A horizontal camera movement left-to-right or right-to-left on a fixed axis. The word is short for ‘panoramic movement’. A pan following a moving object suggests that we are viewing it from the point of view of an observer.

Tilt: A camera movement up or down on a horizontal axis.

Tracking shot: A camera movement achieved by mounting the camera on a dolly and moving it along a track. Typically, tracking shots are used to follow characters or other objects in motion.

Sound

Diegetic Sound: Sound that can be heard by characters.

Synchronous sound: Sound that is drectly matched with what is being viewed.

Sound bridge: Editing technique in which visual cuts are deliberately not matched with audio cuts. For example, the editor may cut to a completely new scene, but allow sound from the preceding scene to run on for a short time. Alternatively, we may hear the sound of the next scene before we see it.

Incidental music: Music used in a film or a play as a background to create or enhance a particular atmosphere.

Stings: A short musical phrase primarily used as a form of punctuation.

Ambient Sound: Sound which is natural to a setting.

Mise-en-scene

The look of a film, derived from its use of sets and settings, lighting, colour, costumes hair and make-up, props, actor movement, and the overall placement and visual composition of these elements by the director.

Editing

Cut: The commonest form of edit in moving image texts, this is the instantaneous change from one shot to another in an edit.

Shot/reverse shot: A convention for showing a dialogue sequence. We cut between the two speakers, showing each person’s point of view.

Eye-line match: A visual code used to make it clear what the subject is looking at.

Graphic match: A compositional device onscreen, whereby objects of common characteristics of shape or colour are used in successive shots.

Match on action: Two shots in which an action begun in the first is completed in the second, thus disguising the fact that there has been a cut.

Montage: The production of a rapid succession of images in a motion picture, usually accompanied by music, to illustrate an association of ideas or a passing of time.

Post-production: The various processes that take place after filming in order to create the final cut of a film.