rule of thirds

(photography, film, visual arts) A normative rule that an image should be mentally or representationally divided in three horizontally and diagonally, and that the focus of the image should not be in the center of the resulting shape.


safe area

(television) The area of a television image that is expected to be viewable on all television screens, including old ones that typically crop the borders of the image.


bipack

(cinematography) The process of loading two reels of film into a camera, so that they both pass through the camera gate together, formerly used for visual effects and as a subtractive colour process.


bipack

en-verb

bipack (third-person singular simple present bipacks, present participle bipacking, simple past and past participle bipacked)

bipacks (present singular third-person)
bipacking (participle present)
bipacked (participle past)
bipacked (past)

(cinematography) To load two reels of film in this manner.


aftershow

(television) A talk show that discusses another television show that has already aired.


nonanimation

In “The Gap,” the show’s only nonanimation film, visitors to the annual car show at the Pasadena Art Center admire a futuristic blue Lexus designed for Steven Spielberg ’s “Minority Report.”

2007 October 5, The New York Times, “Art in Review”, in New York Times:


previsualization

en-noun

previsualization (countable and uncountable, plural previsualizations)

What became Imageworks began at Sony Pictures in 1992 with five people using computers to help plan complicated live-action scenes — a practice that has since become known as previsualization.

2007 October 31, David M. Halbfinger, “Sony Said to Be Pondering Partial Sale of Movie Units”, in New York Times:

(film) Any technique that attempts to visualize a scene before the filming begins.


DTH

(television, Canada, US) Initialism of direct-to-home.


DBS

DBS (countable and uncountable, plural DBSes)

I looked at it and there is almost nothing there for me that I do not already receive with a combination of my analog $200 receiver and my $99 DBS minidish. On the contrary, there are quite a few channels that have gone digital that I receive (for a fee) thru the minidish.

1998 March 1, PELOPAS KIATOY KORINTHIAS, “Re: IPG ON 4DTV”, in alt.video.satellite.4dtv (Usenet):

direct broadcast satellite
direct broadcast satellite#English

(television) Initialism of direct broadcast satellite.


direct broadcast satellite

direct broadcast satellite (plural direct broadcast satellites)

(television) a television satellite that broadcasts directly to the final recipient/viewer, to a home satellite dish.


key grip

(film) The head of the grip department, involved with lighting and camera movement.


cue card

(film, television) A card with writing on it, shown to actors to remind them of their lines.


closedown

closedown (countable and uncountable, plural closedowns)

(radio, television) The point when a radio or television station shuts down transmission and goes off the air for a predetermined period, as used to happen overnight.

Sendeschluss

the point when a radio or television station shuts down transmission


Aristophanic

en-adj

Aristophanic (comparative more Aristophanic, superlative most Aristophanic)

more Aristophanic (comparative)
most Aristophanic (superlative)

In sculpture and in the drama, in Aristophanic farce and in hieratic rituals, in pictorial art and in the stream of literature, the phallus is transcendent.

1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page iii:


dope sheet

dope sheets (plural)
dopesheet (alternative)
dope-sheet (alternative)

From a workflow point of view, the access to these tools seems to have been guided by artists with experience with exposure sheets (a dope sheet for lip synch is included) and traditional animation.

2002 May 1, S. D. Katz, “Animation: Master 2002”, in digitalcontentproducer.com, retrieved 2011-08-07:

(idiomatic, film) A set of detailed instructions which the designer of an animated film provides to the photographers and editors.


runover

CBS ranked No. 1 on Sunday night, aided by “60 Minutes” and an 18-minute runover into the 7 o’clock hour of live basketball coverage from the afternoon.

2009 March 31, Felicia R. Lee, “Television Ratings”, in New York Times:

(television) The situation where a television programme overruns its scheduled slot.


hamfatter

US, a. 1880. Possibly from a minstrel show song called The Ham-Fat Man (1863).

(US slang, acting) A low-grade actor; a ham.


sepmag

Clipping of separate magnetic (“from the magnetic tape used for recording”).

clipping

At the appropriate distances (28, 26 and 20 frames) ahead of the JOIN PICTURE HERE line there are rows of squares, circles and triangles which indicate the correct splicing points for 16-mm sepmag, 16-mm sepopt and […]

1968, D. J. Corbett, Motion Picture and Television Film, page 64:

Sound for these two telecines is reproduced from conventional sepmag tape machines.

1970, BBC Engineering, numbers 81-88, page 13:

(television, dated) Having a separately magnetically recorded soundtrack running concurrently with the film footage.


Paganini

Hannah King stands on 'paganinis' (wooden blocks) to embrace Patrick Ryecart […]

1993, Daniel Meadows, Set pieces: being about film stills mostly, page 42:

[…] a small wedge of wood used to hold open doors and level furniture on the set. Usually carried by the stagehands, standby carpenters, etc., its use is more precise than Paganinis.

2009, Tony Bill, Movie Speak: How to Talk Like You Belong on a Film Set, page 113:

(film) One of a set of blocks for raising the height of a person or equipment.


NBTV

narrow-bandwidth television
w:narrow-bandwidth television

(television) Initialism of narrow-bandwidth television.


X-certificate

(film) Strictly reserved for adult viewing; pornographic.


test pattern

(US, television) A test signal, typically broadcast at times when the transmitter is active but no program is being broadcast.


cowboy shot

From the framing of cinema shots in Westerns, where the holster and gun needed to be in view along with the actor's face.

In Europe, the term plán americain or plano americano refers to a shot framed from mid-leg up, basically a cowboy shot. Beyond this we are into the realm of close-ups.

2002, Blain Brown, Cinematography, page 12:

One drawback to following an actor on stairs is that you are looking at the actor's back (and worse, emphasizing his or her behind if you are climbing the stairs in a cowboy shot).

2009, Jerry Holway, Laurie Hayball, The Steadicam Operator's Handbook, page 148:

(film) A shot framed to include a region from the actor's head to mid-thigh.


wirework

en-noun

wirework (usually uncountable, plural wireworks)

(film) The use of wires to suspend actors in otherwise impossible positions.


popcorn movie

Named after popcorn, a popular accompaniment to movies.

Ah well, it's a pure popcorn movie, so what do you expect? Drop Zone doesn't tax many brain cells, but it does keep the pulse pounding right to the end.

1994 December 9, “Review: Drop Zone Unbelievable, Unpretentious and Great Fun”, in News Tribune, retrieved 2011-10-29:

Spielberg calls Minority Report the most cynical film he will have made—but yes, it has a happy ending, he says, and yes, it's a popcorn movie, "but a gourmet popcorn movie."

1999 February 14, Stephen J. Dubner, “Steven the Good”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

As a movie, The Day After Tomorrow is your classic computer-generated cinematic confection, only the bad guy isn't an alien or a giant lizard, it's global warming. That gives Tomorrow a lot more political heft than your average popcorn movie.

2004 May 17, Lev Grossman, “Hollywood's Global Warming”, in Time, archived from the original on 2011-06-28:

(film, idiomatic) A motion picture without serious dramatic content, a weighty message, or intellectual depth, which serves simply as enjoyable entertainment.


soapland

Japanese ソープランド, equivalent to soap + land.


underhead

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-underhead.wav

It should almost be a lighting axiom therefore, that brilliant underhead light sources are taboo for esthetic purposes.

1931, Lighting - Volumes 20-21, page 14:

Throughout Good-Fellas, Scorsese is at great pains to remind us that we are watching a movie —there are freeze frames, over- and underhead angles, expressionist lighting (a funeral scene is scarlet), and at least one moment during which a character addresses us directly.

1994, Jay Scott, Great Scott!: The Best of Jay Scott's Movie Reviews, page 315:

Overhead and underhead lighting, especially when the lighting is hard, and is the sole illumination (i.e., no fill lights), can cast actors in an "ominous light." distorting their faces with creepy shadows, or hiding their eyes (the windows to the soul) in darkness.

2014, Thomas M. Sipos, Horror Film Aesthetics: Creating the Visual Language of Fear, page 151:


foreshot

It was obviously an Aspen Valley resident because she recognised the stabling in the background, but the tall dark bay horse in the foreshot didn't look familiar.

2013, Hannah Hooton, Giving Chase, →ISBN, page 122:

(photography or cinematography) The foreground of a photographic image.


backshot

If so great a commotion had been stirred up by his demand for a simple old camera backshot, there was no telling what kind of fuss would have resulted from his intention to achieve in his show the pace that distinguishes a good old-fashioned revival meeting!

1970, Albert Govoni, A Boy Named Cash, page 15:

Backshot of power station fully working.

1978, Alan Sillitoe, Three Plays, page 159:

Set in the 1930s in rural Nova Scotia, the film opens, in colour, with a backshot of the filmmaker — all that is evident are her dreads — typing its title and the details of its setting into a laptop computer.

1999, Nurjehan Aziz, Floating the Borders: New Contexts in Canadian Criticism, →ISBN, page 111:

(photography and cinematography) A shot taken from behind the subject.


p.g.a.

post-nominal letters
post-nominal letters

(US, film, television) Initialism of Producers' Guild of America, used as post-nominal letters indicating a member of the guild.


respeak

en-verb

respeak (third-person singular simple present respeaks, present participle respeaking, simple past respoke or (archaic, poetic) respake, past participle respoken)

respeaks (present singular third-person)
respeaking (participle present)
respoke (past)
respake (archaic past poetic)
respoken (participle past)
re-speak (alternative)

(television) To repeat the words of a televised person so that they can be electronically recognised and used to generate subtitles.


newhalf

newhalfs (plural)
newhalves (plural)
new half (alternative)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-newhalf.wav

Calque of Japanese ニューハーフ (nyūhāfu, “new half”). ニューハーフ is wasei eigo, from English.

calque

(anime, manga, slang) A character with a female body but only male genitals.


Kubrickology

From Kubrick + -ology, from the surname of American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor, and photographer Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999).

Room 237, which got a boost in funding from Kickstarter and its name from the iconic mysterious room in Kubrick’s film, brings together five separate theorists to form an impressive body of work of Kubrickology […]

2012 January 30, Angela Watercutter, “Room 237 explores hidden meanings in The Shining”, in Wired, archived from the original on 2014-02-17:

Next week, Channel 4 starts a season of classic Kubrick films. It opens, on June 20, with Paul Joyce's fascinating documentary, Stanley Kubrick: The Invisible Man, which includes rare footage of Kubrick directing – from his daughter Vivian's The Making of The Shining – and imports a new irreverence, not to say hostility, into Kubrickology.

1996, Quentin Curtis, “Enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in an anorak ...”, in The Daily Telegraph, London, archived from the original on 2015-10-04:

(film) The study of the works of Stanley Kubrick.


Kubrickologist

From Kubrick + -ologist, from the surname of American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor, and photographer Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999).

Though I do not wish to get bogged down in minutiae of interest only to fanatical Kubrickologists […]

2000, Stephanie Schwam, The Making of 2001, A Space Odyssey, page 42:

(film) One who studies the works of Stanley Kubrick; one who studies Kubrickology.


posthouse

posthouses (plural)
post house (alternative)
post-house (alternative)

Slow motion, fades, wipes, and text — once only affordable for major broadcasters and posthouses — now allowed DIY video producers a more polished, professional look.

2013, Jesse Drew, A Social History of Contemporary Democratic Media, page 57:

(film, television) A company that carries out post-production.


mislight

This error is obviated to a large degree when the perforated strip arrangement is used. If a machine is threaded properly and has made one correct print, it is impossible for a mislight to occur if the machine is set properly before the motor switch is snapped on,

1953, William H. Offenhauser, 16-mm Sound Motion Pictures, page 403:

Notches weaken the negative, and tabs sometimes come off, causing mislights.

1976, SMPTE Journal: Publication of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers:

(film) An error in projection in which the projected image is a combination of two frames.


death star

From death + star: star as in satellite; death as in the decimation of an industry. Influenced by the Death Star base in Star Wars media.

satellite television
satellite television

cable television
cable television#English

digital satellite television
digital satellite television#English

(slang, colloquial, Canada, US, television, dated) a direct-to-home satellite television satellite (used by the cable television provider industry, to describe their competitors and the effect they would have in decimating the cable industry, prior to the introduction of digital satellite television and the three-foot dish revolution)


telerecording

en-noun

telerecording (countable and uncountable, plural telerecordings)

(television, UK, Ireland, Commonwealth) A recording of a television broadcast made while it is being transmitted, especially by filming the picture from a monitor screen; the process of making such a recording.


method acting

(acting) An acting technique in which the actor fully immerses themselves into the character they are playing.


R-rated

From R + rated. The R-rating (short for restricted) is part of the rating scale used by the U.S. film rating authority Motion Picture Association (MPA) or similar rating scales used by authorities in some other countries.

(film) Of a motion picture, having an "R rating" from one more motion picture rating authorities, typically meaning it is suitable only for adults.

In movie terms, it suggests Paul Verhoeven in Robocop/Starship Troopers mode, an R-rated bloodbath where the grim spectacle of children murdering each other on television is bread-and-circuses for the age of reality TV, enforced by a totalitarian regime to keep the masses at bay.

2012 March 22, Scott Tobias, “The Hunger Games”, in AV Club:

(US, film) Of a motion picture, having an "R rating" from the Motion Picture Association (MPA), meaning it is suitable only for adults.


corypheus

corypheus (plural corypheuses or coryphei)

corypheuses (plural)
coryphei (plural)
coryphæus (alternative)
coryphaeus (alternative)
koryphaios (alternative)

From Latin coryphaeus, from Ancient Greek κορυφαῖος (koruphaîos, “leader”), from κορυφή (koruphḗ, “head”).

uder

In this work Homer and Virgil already appear beside Cicero and Plato as doctrinal authorities. The four corypheuses are infallible; any contradiction between them is wholly out of the question.

1953, Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, page 443:

(drama, historical) The conductor or leader of the dramatic chorus in Ancient Greece.


makegood

makegoods (plural)
make-good (alternative)

(television, radio, advertising) A rerun of an advertisement to make up for previous cancellation or error by the broadcaster.


stasimon

From Ancient Greek στάσιμον (stásimon, “stationary”); compare stasis.

the lively measures of the Hyporcheme which holds the place of THIRD STASIMON ( V ) speak for themselves

1883, Richard Claverhouse Jebb, Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments:

1950, Amy Marjorie Dale, Stasimon and Hyporcheme, Eranos, XLVIII, pages 14-20, reprinted in 1969, Collected Papers of A. M. Dale, Volume 2, page 34,
In the Parados the chorus is 'coming on', and has to move on to and across the orchestra to take its place in the middle; in all the stasima, however active and lively the dance, its evolutions are performed from that middle position (a choro tenente stationes suas, as Hermann said in 1844), and do no involve processional movement.

It is interesting to consider the treatment of the stasima in relation to their context. Especially remarkable is the way in which the first stasimon (224 ff.), a hymn to Apollo praying for the success of Dolon's enterprise, is largely composed of sentiments repeated, with many verbal echoes, from the preceding dialogue[…].

1964, William Ritchie, The Authenticity of the Rhesus of Euripides, page 338:

The first stasimon sings of the wonders of man, which culminates in man's city-building and his ethical community.[…]Episodes can be interpreted in the light of the choral stasima.

2013, Jonathan N. Badger, Sophocles and the Politics of Tragedy: Cities and Transcendence, page 78:

(drama, Ancient Greek drama) A song of the chorus during a tragedy, continued without the interruption of dialogue or anapaestics.


sexposition

Blend of sex + exposition, coined in 2011 by Myles McNutt to describe the numerous scenes in the fantasy TV series Game of Thrones in which characters talk while they have sex with prostitutes or watch them having sex.

There were similar grumbles about season GAME OF THRONES eps, but it always had the Dinklage turning in reportedly great performances--including a redefinition of, ahem, "SLAPschtick"--and its infamous sexposition[…]

2012, Ken from Chicago, “HBO's "Luck" has few viewers”, in rec.arts.tv (Usenet):

(film) (The practice of providing) exposition against a backdrop of sex or nudity.


TOTP

(television) Initialism of Top of the Pops (“British TV show”).


BSkyB

British Sky Broadcasting
w:British Sky Broadcasting

(media, broadcasting, television, historical) Abbreviation of British Sky Broadcasting, a former telecommunications company.


Eastie

(UK, informal, television) EastEnders, a long-running British soap opera set in the East End of London.


blue screen

blue screens (plural)
bluescreen (alternative)

A compound of blue + screen, from the historical film-making technique of using blue backgrounds.

(film) The filmmaking technique of shooting foreground action against an evenly-lit monochromatic background for the purpose of removing the background from the scene and replacing it with a different image or scene.

(film) The visual effect resulting from this technique as well as the colored screen itself, especially blue.


B-story

In the B-story, Bart goes from metaphorically crying wolf to literally crying wolf when a timber wolf escapes from Krusty’s studio after getting freaked by loud noises. The wild beast ultimately menaces Bart in his schoolroom before Groundskeeper Willie strips down and saves the day by defeating the wolf in combat.

2012 May 20, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Marge Gets A Job” (season 4, episode 7; originally aired 11/05/1992)”, in The Onion AV Club:

(authorship) A subplot that appears in a screenplay or script for a movie or television show; a subplot that concerns the side-characters or less important aspects of a television show.


postsynchronisation

post-synchronisation (alternative)
post-synchronization (alternative)
postsynchronization (alternative)


plasmatic

From Ancient Greek πλάσμα (plásma, “anything formed or molded”) (genitive πλάσματος (plásmatos)) + -ic.

This dual function should be no surprise, for, as Eisenstein argues of animated films featuring plasmatic metamorphosis It's natural to expect that such a strong tendency of the trransformation of stable forms into forms of mobility could not be confined solely to means of form: this tendency exceeds the boundaries of form and extends to subject and theme.

2015, Cynthia Lucia, Roy Grundmann, Art Simon, American Film History: Selected Readings, 1960 to the Present, page 364:

From these points, we can construct a model for analysing how animation's 'plasmatic' capacity to shape and mould both existing and future (better or darker) worlds might be applied across deep ecological, posthuman and social-ecological perspectives:

2015, John Parham, Green Media and Popular Culture: An Introduction:

Plasmatic characters are most radically in evidence in the early cartoon shorts of Disney, but even in the relatively realist feature films, plasmatic moments and characters still occur, and may be significant when they do.

2017, Kevin J. Donnelly, Contemporary Musical Film:

The first of these is plasmatic in an obvious way; it suggests a delight in the impossible power of an ocean wave becoming something else.

2019, Ryan Pierson, Figure and Force in Animation Aesthetics, page 35:

(film, more specifically) Involving the transformation from one form to another; metamorphic.


castworthy

en-adj

castworthy (comparative castworthier or more castworthy, superlative castworthiest or most castworthy)

castworthier (comparative)
more castworthy (comparative)
castworthiest (superlative)
most castworthy (superlative)

As had Wilfrid Lawson and it is pleasant to record that, after The Devil's General, he was once again considered castworthy and went on to play several other roles.

1987, Vivienne Knight, Trevor Howard: a gentleman and a player: the authorized biography:

That's what we're promoting here, the more he's in the casts, the more castworthy he is.

2001, Gardner Dozois, The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighteenth Annual Collection:

(film, theater, entertainment) Worthy or fit for being part of a cast or of being cast.


above the line

(film) Who guide and influence the creative direction, process, and voice of a given narrative in a film, such as the screenwriter, producer, director, and actors.

(television) Of expenses: paid per project to creative personnel such as writers and actors.


tracking shot

A long, late-night tracking shot from one end of the Neon Boot bar to another actually tracks along the surface of the bar itself—and when there is a drunk passed out on the bar, the camera simply lifts up and flies over him, then continues on its route.

1984 October 12, Janet Maslin, “Blood Simple, A black-comic romp”, in New York Times, retrieved 2012-07-09:

In a long tracking shot at the start of the film, a feral cat prowls this wasteland until it is felled by a slow-motion arrow.

2010 January 25, Richard Corliss, “American Savior: Denzel Washington in Book of Eli”, in Time:

The lead-up to the battle was wonderfully done, starting with the long tracking shot that followed Sam and then Tyrion as they nervously took up their places for the fight.

2019 April 28, Alex McLevy, “Game Of Thrones Suffers the Fog of War in the Battle against the Dead (Newbies)”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 2021-05-31:

(cinematography, film) A continuously recorded segment containing no edits, in which the camera is moved (often mounted on a dolly rolling on tracks) so as to sweep through an extensive area or to follow the physical movement of characters or events.

pla seqüència

a continuously recorded segment containing no edits


two-hander

In May 2011, Chéreau came to the Young Vic theatre in London to direct I Am the Wind, a 70-minute two-hander written by the Norwegian Jon Fosse, which Michael Billington in the Guardian found "hypnotic", admiring the production's "visual bravura".

2013 October 8, Ronald Bergan, “Patrice Chéreau obituary”, in The Guardian:

With a screenplay by Carax and Ron and Russell Mael of Sparks (who also wrote the music and lyrics), the film is largely a two-hander about a famous couple and their talented daughter — the title character.

(theater, film) A play, film, or television programme with only two main characters.


gobo

Uncertain; possibly from go-b(etween) (“intermediary, middleman”) + -o (suffix forming informal terms).

suffix

At the other extreme, with limitless budgets all they have to do is dream up amazing lighting rigs to be constructed and operated by the huge team of gaffers and sparks, with their generators, discharge lights, flags, gobos and brutes.

1999, Des Lyver, Graham Swainson, Basics of Video Lighting, page 103:

(film, photography, television) A screen (often in disc form) placed between a light and an illuminated actor or object in order to diffuse the glare.

filtro

screen placed between a light and an illuminated actor or object in order to diffuse the glare


antifilm

(film) A film that deliberately avoids or subverts the usual characteristics of films.

antyfilm

a film that deliberately avoids or subverts the usual characteristics of films


underscan

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-underscan.wav

(television) The situation where a video image does not fill the entire screen but is surrounded by a border (originally caused by manufacturing variations).


dog

en-noun

dog (countable and uncountable, plural dogs)

dogs (plural)
darg (alternative dialectal)
dawg (alternative dialectal)
dug (alternative dialectal)
doggie (alternative childish)
doggy (alternative childish)
doggy woggy (alternative childish)
doggo (alternative childish)

Australian Kriol: dog

Bislama: dog

Gullah: dog

Sranan Tongo: dagu

Tok Pisin: dok

Torres Strait Creole: dog

desc

→ American Sign Language: Kop@Inside-PalmForward 1o@Inside

→ Dutch: dog

→ Esperanto: dogo

Ido: dogo

→ French: dogue

→ German: Dogge

→ Italian: dogo

→ English: dogo

→ Portuguese: dogue

→ Russian: дог (dog)

→ Spanish: dogo

→ Volapük: dog, doeg

Inherited from Middle English dogge (akin to Scots dug), from Old English dogga, docga, of uncertain origin.
The original meaning seems to have been a common dog, as opposed to a well-bred one, or something like 'cur', and perhaps later came to be used for stocky dogs. Possibly a pet-form diminutive with suffix -ga (compare frocga (“frog”), *picga (“pig”)), appended to a base *dog-, *doc- of unclear origin and meaning. One possibility is Old English dox (“dark, swarthy”) (compare frocga from frox). Another proposal is that it derives from Proto-West Germanic *dugan (“to be suitable”), the origin of Old English dugan (“to be good, worthy, useful”), English dow, Dutch deugen, German taugen. The theory goes that it could have been an epithet for dogs, commonly used by children, meaning "good/useful animal". Another is that it is related to *docce (“stock, muscle”), from Proto-West Germanic *dokkā (“round mass, ball, muscle, doll”), whence English dock (“stumpy tail”).
In 14th-century England, hound (from Old English hund) was the general word for all domestic canines, and dog referred to a subtype resembling the modern mastiff and bulldog. By the 16th century, dog had become the general word, and hound had begun to refer only to breeds used for hunting. In the 16th century, the word dog was adopted by several continental European languages as their word for mastiff.
Despite similarities in forms and meaning, not related to Mbabaram dog.

hond

morally reprehensible person — see also scoundrel

it is easy to find a stick to beat a dog

on the Internet nobody knows you're a dog

the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

Blue was released, and as Redford had predicted, it was a dog.

1969, Ski, volume 34, number 4, page 121:

"When The Alamo was coming out, the word of mouth on it was that it was a dog," Chase said.

2012, Ronald L. Davis, Duke: The Life and Image of John Wayne:

(informal) Something that performs poorly.

(film) A flop; a film that performs poorly at the box office.


timebase

(television, electronics) A time period used as a base measurement or frequency.


slasher movie

Two girls, watching a slasher movie about a psycho in an Edvard Munch Scream mask who calls girls at home and then stabs them to death, get a call from a psycho who shows up in a Scream mask and stabs them to death.

2011 April 15, Richard Corliss, “Movies: Scream 4 — The Ultimate Shriekquel”, in Time:

(film) A horror movie which depicts gory, murderous violence, often including scenes of torture.


irising

Irising is frequently used instead of the fade to indicate the completion of a scene sequence and the beginning of a new series of scenes.

1920, Frances Taylor Patterson, chapter 4, in Cinema Craftsmanship: A Book for Photoplaywrights, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, page 120:

Throughout the film [The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari] circular patterns are symbolic of chaos. Where irising began and ended a happy carnival sequence, an underlying feeling of chaos was created.

1976, Allan Casebier, Film Appreciation, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Part 1, p. 22:

The screen is black at first, till a brightly lit hole opens in it and an all-black silhouette stands at what we see, in a moment, is a doorway. This is the wide-screen equivalent of irising in Ford’s silent films.

1998, Garry Wills, chapter 20, in John Wayne’s America, New York: Simon & Schuster, page 254:


tentpole movie

tentpole movies (plural)
tent-pole movie (alternative)

An allusion to the manner in which a supporting tentpole holds up the structure of a tent.

United Artists hasn't prospered in recent years, so a box office hit from its tentpole movie franchise is essential.

1995 August 11, Steve Persall, “Critic's Notebook: Previews whet our cinematic appetites”, in St. Petersburg Times, page 6:

Just coincidentally, it also provides the opportunity for the sorts of extravagant computerized effects that create tentpole movie attractions these days.

2005 December 3, Todd McCarthy, “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”, in Variety, retrieved 2012-09-28:

The tentpole movie is an attraction popular and exploitable enough to prop up the entire moviegoing tent for several weeks or even months.

2007 May 25, “The 1997 Summer Movie Review”, in Washington Times, retrieved 2012-09-28:

“We've never seen a high-profile film—a film of this budget, a tentpole movie with this box office potential—leak in any form this early,” he said.

2009 April 1, Brian Stelter, “Piracy Puts Film Online One Month Before Open”, in New York Times, retrieved 2012-09-28:

Variety is reporting that del Toro will direct the flick with Watson cast as its titular Beauty. . . . So we’re thinking big tentpole movie versus introverted indie.

2012 February 14, “Guillermo del Toro to direct Emma Watson in “Beauty and the Beast””, in IFC, retrieved 2012-09-28:

(US, idiomatic, film) A major motion picture which is expensive to produce but expected to generate significant revenue for its studio and investors.


flash cut

Peter Weir's The Cars That Ate Paris (1974), for example, begins with two brothers driving through the small town of Paris, Australia, only to suddenly encounter — via flash cut — a blinding white light in the road.

2004, David Scott Diffrient, “A Film is Being Beaten: Notes on the Shock Cut and the Material Violence of Horror”, in Horror Film, →ISBN, page 231:

Essential in music videos and common in flashbacks and dream sequences, the flash cut flickers many images across the screen over a period of a second or two. The effect passes quickly, but creates a visually intense moment.

2006, Chris Kenworthy, Digital Video Production Cookbook, →ISBN, page 79:

There is a flash cut, and suddenly he is in alien gear instead, inside the alien Sarcophagus. This is a visual attempt on the part of the production team to suggest that the energy wraith from a distant world is re-shaping existence and reality on the Liberator.

2006, John Kenneth Muir, A History and Critical Analysis of Blake's 7, the 1978-1981 British Television Space Adventure, →ISBN, page 121:

(cinematography) An fast cut, often as short as one frame, used to create a subliminal effect on the viewer.


sight gag

Dragged suddenly before a formal dinner honoring the women's dean of Toledo University, he wowed his audience with a sight gag—he kissed the guest of honor.

1947 October 31, Gene Handsaker, “Hollywood Sights and Sounds: Bob Hope”, in Prescott Evening Courier, retrieved 2012-10-01, page 2:

In the good old ricky-tick days when movie directors wore riding breeches, a favorite cinematic sight gag was to reverse the film, which suddenly sent the actors waddling backwards through doors that closed behind them, putting their hats on instead of taking them off, and shoveling food out of their mouths instead of in.

1969 June 28, “Cinema: Happy End”, in Time:

In the opening sight gag, a guy in leisure wear shows up at his office only to find everyone in S&M clothes.

2005 March 10, Virginia Heffernan, “TV Review: The Hollow Men—Four Well-Groomed Britons, Trying Hard to Be Naughty Boys”, in New York Times, retrieved 2012-10-01:

As he uttered these words, a PowerPoint image of Dr. Möller's face morphed into that of a smiling Pope Benedict. The sight gag had the psychiatrists roaring.

2008 October, Paul Scott, “Was the Prozac revolution all in our heads?”, in Men's Health, volume 23, number 8, →ISSN, page 146:

(film, television, stage performance) A visually presented action or device which causes a humorous response without requiring any accompanying commentary or other speech.


VFX

Where is the main visual effects shot in that movie?? Hint: There are five VFX shots, four of them are modifications of the fire in the scene. One of them is something else, what is it?

1991 May 30, Marty Brenneis, “Backdraft”, in misc.emerg-services (Usenet), retrieved 2018-10-05, message-ID <9105301502.AA04808@snootles>:

Believe me, I *know* how much effects cost or don't. They can even be inexpensive with CGI -- we managed to turn out over 150 VFX shots for SUPER MARIO BROTHERS (script and editing: NOT MY FAULT) for about $4M. But the cost of the SETS still pushed it up into the $30-40M range. And on-set effects and construction costs were also behind the exorbitance of T2 (Visual Effects: ~$18M) and the "other" L.A.Hero (Total ~$130M).

1993 July 14, Kevin Bjorke, “Re: Live Action AKIRA (Was: Live Action Macross)”, in rec.arts.anime (Usenet), retrieved 2018-10-05, message-ID <1993Jul14.181330.17785@pixar.com>:

Digital re-composite: assuming Lucas saved all the original film shot in the making of the trilogy, it would be theoretically possible to digitize each element (footage of indivdual spacecraft, pyrotechnic shots, backgrounds) and reassemble the VFX seamlessly using the computer instead of the ever-twitchy optical printer that was the state of the art 10-15 years ago.

1994 October 28, Allen G. Newman, “How will they go (VFX revisions)?”, in rec.arts.sf.starwars (Usenet), retrieved 2018-10-05, message-ID <CyEnII.8w6@sunfish.usd.edu>:


VFX

en-verb

VFX (third-person singular simple present VFXs, present participle VFXing, simple past and past participle VFXed or VFX'd)

VFXs (present singular third-person)
VFXing (participle present)
VFXed (participle past)
VFXed (past)
VFX'd (participle past)
VFX'd (past)

When we were filming all the scenes in Charlie’s house, I had a huge scab. I think they VFX’d it out and that’s where most of the budget went.

2024 September 20, Sam Damshenas, quoting Joe Locke, “Joe Locke and Jenny Walser on Heartstopper’s darkest (and horniest) season yet”, in Gay Times:

(transitive, film) To create or manipulate (something) using visual effects techniques.


found footage

Shrewdly mixing found footage, historical record and dramatized re-creation, One Day in People's Poland is an intriguing curio.

2006 May 30, Joe Leydon, “One Day In People's Poland”, in Variety, retrieved 2012-10-16:

Austrian director Gustav Deutsch complicates this witty, deceptively simple formula with a wealth of found footage (material shot by others for other purposes) borrowed from film archives from around the world.

2009 December 1, Manohla Dargis, “Movie Review: Film ist a Girl & a Gun (2009)”, in New York Times, retrieved 2012-10-16:

(film) Misplaced, forgotten, archived, or privately-owned motion picture recordings which document past events and which are subsequently rediscovered and made available for public viewing.

Yes, they knew it was only a movie—one that, like The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield and plenty others before it, used "found footage" to give a patina of realism to the fanciful events.

2009 October 10, Richard Corliss, “Paranormal Activity: A Horror Phenomenon”, in Time:

(film) A motion picture, or a segment of one, photographed in the style of an amateurish or unedited documentary.


rom-com

rom-coms (plural)
romcom (alternative)
rom com (alternative)


deaf aid

(television, slang) A presenter's earpiece through which they receive instructions from the studio.


feature-length

(film) Having the length of a feature film, generally in the range of about 1½ to 3 hours.


kitchen sink

The noun is derived from kitchen + sink. Sense 2.1 (“miscellaneous item or miscellany”) is probably from everything but the kitchen sink.
The adjective is derived from the noun. Sense 1 (“of or pertaining to a realist style of painting characterized by scenes of dull or untidy domestic interiors of urban working-class people”) was coined by the British art critic David Sylvester (1924–2001) in a December 1954 article entitled “The Kitchen Sink”: see the quotation.
The verb is a back-formation from kitchen-sinking (noun), which is derived from the noun.

back-formation

(by extension, drama, fiction, film, television, originally derogatory) Of or pertaining to a mid-20th-century (especially 1950s–1960s) genre of drama, fiction, etc., in Britain depicting the harsh lives of working-class people; also, of or pertaining to a film, novel, play, etc., of this genre.

työväestön arkielämää käsittelevä

of or pertaining to a genre of drama, fiction, etc., depicting the harsh lives of working-class people; of or pertaining to a film, novel, play, etc., of this genre


timeshift

(film, theater, television, broadcasting) A change from one time period to another.


Oscarologist

Or maybe it was sheer irritation at the four solid months of feverish speculation from Oscarologists as to what they would do?

2013 January 11, Tom Shone, The Guardian:


Enders

(UK, informal, television) EastEnders, a long-running British soap opera set in the East End of London.


A-I

...the bishops also decided to break with the past and have the Legion recommend films in the A-I category...


A-II

For movies with a U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops rating of A-II, show only pre-selected scenes.

2009, Alan J. Talley, Christian Morality and Justice Catechist Guide:

(US, film) Rated for adults and adolescents only.


A-III

...and sent the Roman epic into theaters with an A-III rating...

2001, Leonard J. Leff, Jerold L. Simmons, The Dame in the Kimono:


A-IV

...rated the film A-IV (for adults, with reservations)...

2008, Barry Keith Grant et al., American Cinema of the 1960s:


anticinema

(film) Any form of cinema that defies cinematic conventions.

anticinema

any form of cinema that defies cinematic conventions


teensploitation

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-teensploitation.wav

From teen + -sploitation (from exploitation film). From 1980s.

We sat down to watch a teensploitation slasher flick.

With 1955's Blackboard Jungle—the first film to traffic heavily in youth rebellion and sex, the twin pillars of any teenager's existence—a brilliant, if obvious, new genre of film was born: teensploitation, movies about teenagers made for teenagers but watched by everybody.

1999 February, Bill Sienkiewicz, “Forever Young”, in SPIN, SPIN Media, page 64:

1999, Edmond Grant, The Motion Picture Guide: 1999 Annual (The Films of 1998), CineBooks, page vii,
Adrian Lyne's LOLITA was more notable for the terror it struck in controversy-shy American distributors than for its content, reducing taboo subject matter to a teensploitation film with a literary pedigree.

The influence of Rebel Without a Cause is difficult to underestimate.^([sic]) Despite what appeared to be just another entry in the burgeoning teensploitation trend, the film distinguished itself for a variety of reasons.

2005, Rob McInnes, Timothy Shary, Teen Movies: American Youth on Screen, Columbia University Press (Wallflower), page 21:

(film) A genre of exploitation films, starring teenage actors with teen-oriented plots involving drugs, sex, alcohol or crime.


sparklies

Once the C/NR of the incoming satellite signal reaches +2 or more dB above the threshold rating of the receiver, the last few stray sparklies disappear and the video appears to be totally clear.

1993, Mark Long, Jeffrey Keating, The world of satellite TV, page 179:

One of the most common troubles with a satellite home unit is sparklies, as shown in Fig. 4.8.

1999, Eugene Trundle, Newnes TV and Video Engineer's Pocket Book, page 96:

(television) A kind of interference pattern on analogue satellite television, caused by a signal that is either too weak or too strong.


smash cut

(film, television) An abrupt cut from one scene to another without a transition.


camp it up

en-verb

camp it up (third-person singular simple present camps it up, present participle camping it up, simple past and past participle camped it up)

camps it up (present singular third-person)
camping it up (participle present)
camped it up (participle past)
camped it up (past)

Near-synonym: chew the scenery

Don't camp it up. Just follow the stage directions.

(informal, acting) To act a part in an exaggerated or affected manner.


dolly zoom

(film) A camera effect that appears to undermine normal visual perception, achieved by using the setting of a zoom lens to adjust the field of view while the camera dollies towards or away from the subject in such a way as to keep the subject the same size in the frame throughout.


splatstick

(film, comedy, horror, gore) A genre of film which blends slapstick style comedy with splatfest blood and gore splatter filled horror.


dump months

From the sense that movie studios are "dumping" poor-quality and limited-appeal films during those months.

(film) The two periods of the year, often described as January and February and mid-August through September, when new movie releases are either poor-quality, cheaply made, or intended for niche audiences, since low movie attendance limits the potential box office return.


supercut

supercuts (plural)
super cut (alternative)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-supercut.wav

Take a few minutes and watch this very well-done supercut of (nearly) every movie that came out in 2010.

2010, All The Movies Of 2010 In One Epic Supercut (VIDEO), The Huffington Post

A supercut of all of the pie and coffee in Twin Peaks, most of it ingested by Agent Dale Cooper, obviously.

2013, Populist: Items of interest this week, The Guardian

Now, Vimeo user Alejandro Prullansky has compiled a super cut of Anderson's slo-mo shots from across the director's filmography, charmingly – and maybe a tad cheekily – set to The Shins' "New Slang."

2014, Jon Blistein, Watch a Supercut of Wes Anderson's Slow-Motion Scenes, Rolling Stone

(film) A montage of short video clips, usually from a film or TV series, illustrating a particular repeated element such as a word or phrase.


flow motion

(film) A combination of a timelapse, hyperlapse, and regular cinematographic shots.


chapter book

Such books are typically divided into short chapters, to suit limited attention spans.

(authorship) An illustrated storybook intended for intermediate readers, generally aged from 7 to 10.


magical Negro

magical Negros (plural)
magical negro (alternative)

(film, literature) A black supporting stock character in media, especially American cinema, who is portrayed as coming to the aid of a white protagonist.


angertainment

Here in the media, meanwhile, much of what used to be called journalism has morphed into "angertainment," which is to say a bunch of shouting over who's to blame for this future of less.

2009 December 23, John McCarron, “Solutions for a nation stuck in low gear”, in Chicago Tribune:

The resulting anger makes for yell radio and TV angertainment.

2012, Wayne Roberts, “Thank you, Rob Ford”, in Now, Toronto, 5 January - 12 January 2012, Volume 31, Number 19:

“We’re doing a lot better on this planet than the angertainment industry would have us believe. But Rush Limbaugh and Bill Maher don’t want you to think that way. And they are very good at it. It’s very profitable for them. […]

2013 February 18, Tim Krohn, “Big Ideas speaker says change doesn’t require new laws”, in Mankato Free Press:

(radio, television, derogatory) A type of programming, especially talk shows and talk radio, which is characterized by anger or which provokes anger in its audience.


DTTV

digital terrestrial television
digital terrestrial television#English

(television) Initialism of digital terrestrial television.


tear a cat

tear a cat (third-person singular simple present tears a cat, present participle tearing a cat, simple past tore a cat, past participle torn a cat)

tears a cat (present singular third-person)
tearing a cat (participle present)
tore a cat (past)
torn a cat (participle past)

Yet my chief humour is for a tyrant. I could play / Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split.

c. 1595–1596, William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, act 1, scene 2:

Sirha is this you would rend and teare the Cat / Upon a Stage, and now march like drown'd rat?

c. 1599, John Marston, Histriomastix, act 5, scene 1, page [53]:

Till, in his periwig combustion / Will. Shakespeare sounds like Irish fustian, / In which Macready tears a cat, / And Shiel, the patriot, writes so pat;

1835, George Daniel, “The Conversazione”, in The Modern Dunciad, William Pickering, page 224:

From this performance there is no doubt in anyone's mind that Hamlet is an amateur actor having a fling at histrionics, or as Guthrie might say, "tearing a cat."

1970, Alfred Rossi, Minneapolis Rehearsals: Tyrone Guthrie Directs Hamlet, University of California Press, →ISBN, page 21:

(obsolete, idiomatic, acting) To overact; to violently rant and rave on stage.


L cut

From the L shape of a piece of physical film when cut for this purpose.

Without L cuts, a conversation between two people can feel like a tennis match.

(film) An edit transition from one shot to another, where the picture and sound are synchronized but the transitions in each are not coincident.


postvisualization

(film) Manipulation of recorded footage in order to change the way a scene is presented.


UHD

The company made headlines with its 85-inch TV with built-in stand, which retailed for $45,000 (it has since come down to $40,000). Smaller UHD TVs started at $5,500.

2014 October 8, Molly Wood, “Sharper Image From 4K TVs Is a Gimmick Worth Having”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

Sharp also announced a full complement of 4K UHD TVs, with prices starting at just over $700.

2015 January 5, Molly Wood, “CES: A Push for Higher Resolution and Better-Looking TVs”, in New York Times Bits Blog:

(television) Initialism of ultra-high definition (“3840×2160 (4K), 7680×4320 (8K), 15360 × 8640 (16K)”).


picture-in-picture

(television) A feature of some television receivers and similar devices, where one program or channel is displayed on the full TV screen while another is displayed in an inset window.

畫中畫 /画中画

simultaneous display of full TV screen and inset window


manic pixie dream girl

en-noun

manic pixie dream girl (plural manic pixie dream girls)

manic pixie dream girls (plural)
manic pixie dreamgirl (alternative)
MPDG (alternative)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-manic pixie dream girl.wav

Coined by the American film and music critic Nathan Rabin (born 1976) in a 2007 review of Elizabethtown (2005) to describe the character Claire Colburn played by Kirsten Dunst: see the quotation.

coinage

Then again, [Susan] Sarandon's character is the very embodiment of gritty neo-realism compared to Kirsten Dunst's stewardess/love interest. Dunst embodies a character type I like to call The Manic Pixie Dream Girl (see Natalie Portman in Garden State for another prime example). The Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.

2007 January 25, Nathan Rabin, “My Year Of Flops, Case File 1: Elizabethtown: The Bataan Death March of Whimsy”, in The A.V. Club Blog, archived from the original on 2007-02-05:

[page 218] For me, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl was the story that fit. Of course, I didn't think of it in those terms; all I saw was that in the books and series I loved – mainly science fiction, comics and offbeat literature, not the mainstream films that would later make the MPDG trope famous – [...] [page 219] Most of the classic Manic Pixie Dream Girls claim to be ironic re-imaginings of a character trope that they fail to actually interrogate in any way.

2014, Laurie Penny, “Love and Lies”, in Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution, New York, N.Y., London: Bloomsbury, →ISBN, pages 218–219:

Looking for a new apartment, he cute-meets Sofia (Dolores Fonzi), a young woman with a pink bicycle helmet, yellow tights, a vaguely exotic background and all the other signs of manic-pixie-dream-girl status.

2015 May 14, A[nthony] O[liver] Scott, “Review: In ‘The Film Critic,’ a snob is tripped up by his heartstrings”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2015-05-17:

A guy who understands women based on movies or television will never have a chance at understanding a real woman, because we aren't like that. We aren't the "career-focused ice queen" or the "sweet helpless damsel in distress" or the "manic pixie dream girl" [...]. But at times, we might be some of them. Or all of them. And then we'll change again, into something much more complex. You can't pin us down.

2016 April, Bethenny Frankel, Eve Adamson, “Woman, Know Thyself”, in I Suck at Relationships So You Don’t Have To: 10 Rules for Not Screwing Up Your Happily Ever After, 1st Touchstone paperback edition, New York, N.Y.: Touchstone, Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 34:

Your love for her is getting embarrassing. [...] She's gorgeous, she has buckets of charisma she couldn't hide if she tried, and she makes all the boys fall in love with her. That sounds like Manic Pixie Dreamgirl territory, my friend—which, news flash again, is a cliché.

2017 October, James Patterson, Emily Raymond, chapter 30, in Expelled, New York, N.Y.: Jimmy Patterson Books/Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN; republished as The Injustice, New York, N.Y.: Jimmy Patterson Books/Little, Brown and Company, 2018, →ISBN:

But even as Gina's behavior dips past manic pixie dream girl to merely manic, the director never deviates from the detached tone of his prologue.

2017 September 17, Teo Bugbee, “Review: ‘Thirst Street’ hollows out Hollywood obsession”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2020-03-12:

A precursor to the “manic pixie dreamgirl” trope of today, the femme-enfant’s youth was to be mooned over, her naïveté aspired to, her pure countenance captured in poetry and paint.

2019 June, Pam Grossman, “The Dark Arts: Magic Makers and Craft Women”, in Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power, New York, N.Y.: Gallery Books, →ISBN, page 179:

(film, sometimes derogatory) A stock female character, typically characterized as a bubbly, quirky free spirit, whose main purpose within a narrative is to teach a young male protagonist to embrace the mysteries and adventures of life.

Audrey Hepburn
Elizabethtown (film)
Kirsten Dunst
Roman Holiday


youthsploitation

From youth + -sploitation (from exploitation film).

(film) A genre of exploitation films starring young actors.


piece to camera

en-noun

piece to camera (plural pieces to camera)

(film, television) A speech given by a presenter or character directly to the viewing audience through the camera.


academy leader

(film) A style of leader (blank introductory portion of film) with numbers marked every foot, counting down from 11 to 3.


making-of

making-ofs (plural)
making of (alternative)

/ˈmeɪkɪŋ ˌɒv/

/ˈmeɪkɪŋ ˌʌv/

(television, film) A documentary about how a film or television show was made, with behind-the-scenes footage.

com-s'ha-fet

a video featuring behind-the-scenes footage


voicer

This is a news report from the scene of the event. When a voicer and an actuality are combined into one complete story, it's known as a wrap.

2005, Alan R. Stephenson, David E. Reese, Mary E. Beadle, Broadcast Announcing Worktext, page 164:

These reports usually come in the form of voice reports, or voicers, and voice-actuality reports.

2015, Carl Hausman, Frank Messere, Philip Benoit, Modern Radio and Audio Production: Programming and Performance:

(television, radio) A spoken report to be broadcast.


filmhood

Soon the Germans would see me on their screens and hear me barking. There was also plenty of work for me in Hollywood. The Food of the Gods was never to achieve filmhood, nor was the projected musical on Shakespeare's life called Will!

By stripping down film to the minimal conditions for filmhood, the filmmaker highlighted those conditions in ways that can lead viewers to comprehend Serene Velocity's philosophical point.

(film) The quality, state, or condition of a film, especially in reference to its cinematic completion, achievement, accomplishment, or success.


movielore

movie-lore (alternative)
movie lore (alternative)

Whether you intend to captivate your friends with your cinematic erudition or baffle your acquaintances by displaying your PhD. in movielore, this is the book to buy for hours of enchanting entertainment.

Or, as the movielore surrounding a manly male like John Wayne commands, "A man's gotta do (pause) what a man's gotta do."

1994, Wayne Wilson, Sexuality in the Land of Oz:

(film) The knowledge, study, history, or culture relating to movies and filmmaking; filmlore.


nani

Nani the hell?


final girl

Coined by film theorist Carol J. Clover in her 1992 book Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film.

(film) A female character in a horror or thriller film who is the last person alive to confront the killer/monster, and often the sole survivor.

Carol J. Clover
Men, Women, and Chainsaws
final girl


hixploitation

The apotheosis of the hixploitation movement was Smokey and the Bandit (1977), the directorial debut of Tennessee-born veteran stuntman Hal Needham, who actually cast Mel Tillis, Foster Brooks, and Ruth Buzzi for unironic effect.

2006, David Kamp, Lawrence Levi, The Film Snob*s Dictionary: An Essential Lexicon of Filmological Knowledge, Broadway Books, →ISBN, page 48:

While Black Snake Moan seems to unfold in a realm of synthetic fantasy—a hybrid of hip-hop's Dirty South, a bluesman's back roads, and the Dixie of '70s hixploitation flicks—it's actually set in a corner of Tennessee where a white girl named Rae (Ricci) holds the title of town slut.

2007 February, Troy Patterson, “Chick Flicked”, in Spin, page 92:

Historians of what Scott Von Doviak dubbed "Hick Flicks" in his 2005 book by that name, point out that a "Southern" genre of film never emerged to compete with the western as such for a national audience, though there was a rise of hixploitation films in the 1970s whose success hinged on and ultimately died with the demise of the drive-in regional theater (French, Von Doviak).

2011, Tara Powell, “'You Taste of America': Talladega Nights, Deliverance, and Southern Studies”, in Andrew B. Leiter, editor, Southerners on Film: Essays on Hollywood Portrayals Since the 1970s, McFarland & Company, →ISBN, page 220:

(film) A genre of exploitation film that relies on the stereotypical (and often negative) depiction of rural whites of the American South and Appalachia.


nunsploitation

Making nunsploitation films also appealed to producers because, as with peplums and westerns, it was possible to recycle sets and costumes and therefore lower production costs.

2004, Tamao Nakahara, “Barred Nuns: Italian Nunsploitation Films”, in Ernest Mathijs, editor, Alternative Europe: Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945, Wallflower Press, →ISBN, page 126:

Perhaps the world's first nunsploitation film, it centres on a morphine-addicted nun recovering from neurosurgery, who is accused of a series of horrific murders.

2008 July 4, “Random top tens: The least convincing nuns ever”, in The Scotsman:

In the early 1970s, the nunsploitation film emerged as a widely popular genre, energized by several key cinematic, literary, and historical catalysts: […]

2013, Ian Olney, Euro Horror: Classic European Horror Cinema in Contemporary American Culture, Indiana University Press, →ISBN, page 175:

(film) A genre of exploitation film focusing on Christian nuns.


Nazisploitation

You should see “Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS,” the notorious sleazefest now considered a touchstone of the Nazisploitation craze of the 1970s.

2008 August 14, Nathan Lee, “Nazisploitation Making a Comeback”, in The New York Times:

As a result, Nazisploitation has ensured that Nazi evil has had an impressive staying power.

2010, Claire M. Hall, “Where Does Evil Sit in the Classroom?: Problematizing Teaching about Hitler, Nasty Nazis, and the Holocaust”, in Sara Buttsworth, Maartje M. Abbenhuis, editors, Monsters in the Mirror: Representations of Nazism in Post-war Popular Culture, Praeger, →ISBN, page 227:

In general, Nazisploitation movies encompass those that use the fascination of Nazi imagery, ideology, symbols and artifacts to increase its commercial appeal.

2012, Benedikt Eppenberger, “Eine Armee Gretchen: Nazisploitation Made in Switzerland”, in Daniel H. Magilow, Elizabeth Bridges, Kristin T. Vander Lugt, editors, Nazisploitation!: The Nazi Image in Low-Brow Cinema and Culture, A&C Black, →ISBN, page 155:

(film) A subgenre of exploitation film that involves villainous Nazis committing criminal acts of a sexual nature, typically against people held in their concentration camps and prisons during World War II.


Canuxploitation

Canuxploitation films form a constant undercurrent in both English Canada and Quebec, swelling at certain points to near-tidal proportions.

2002, “Introduction: What Is Canadian Cinema?”, in Eugene P. Walz, editor, Canada's Best Features: Critical Essays on 15 Canadian Films, Rodopi, →ISBN, page xvii:

As a classic example of 1970s B-grade “Canuxploitation,” Death Weekend has retrospectively developed a cult audience beyond the lackluster response it garnered upon its initial release.

2011, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study, McFarland & Company (201), page 113

How can we account for the career of quintessentially Canadian directors such as William Fruet and Paul Lynch, whose extensive filmographies include both realist classics such as Fruet's gruelling depiction of Albertan patriarchy, Wedding in White (1972), and Lynch's loser drama of an aging country-music singer on the road in small-town Ontario, The Hard Part Begins (1973), and Canuxploitation horror such as Fruet's Death Weekend (1976), Spasms (1983), Killer Party (1986), and Blue Monkey (1987), […]

2012, David Lawrence Pike, Canadian Cinema Since the 1980s: At the Heart of the World, University of Toronto Press, →ISBN, page 185:

(film) A genre of low-budget films produced in Canada, chiefly during the 1970s and 1980s.


whitesploitation

While the Pam Grier Collection has "Foxy Brown," "Coffy," and "Friday Foster," The Elvis Gift Set (Paramount, $59.80) offers five classic whitesploitation flicks: "Fun in Acapulco," "G. I. Blues," "Paradise, Hawaiian Style," "Blue Hawaii" and "King Creole."

You had whitesploitation films, too: Chained Heat, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and all that junk.

2003, Joe Bobb Briggs, Profoundly Disturbing: Shocking Movies that Changed History!, Universe, →ISBN, page 125:

What Ken never understood was that the only thing Harold and I really excelled at was fucking around—coming up with idiotic ideas and filthy daydreams, projects like the pornographic version of The Cat in the Hat, the whitesploitation film Kung-Fu Honky, […]

2012, Tim Kreider, We Learn Nothing: Essays and Cartoons, Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 107:

(film) A type of film that portrays white people in a stereotypical manner, intended to appeal to lurid or lowbrow tastes.


Mexploitation

Remember that crazy-funny fake trailer for the nonexistent ’70s Mexploitation flick Machete that preceded the “Planet Terror” segment of Grindhouse a few years back?

2010 September 2, MaryAnn Johanson, “Class Warrior: Machete provides a slice of surprisingly effective entertainment – and political commentary”, in Monterey County Now:

The Mexploitation fall-out runs to explosives, rape, death by flame-thrower and a cavalcade of unconvincing plot turns.

2012 September 21, Tara Brady, “Savages”, in The Irish Times:

Robert Rodriguez, 45, creator of the "Mexico" trilogy and "Spy Kids" films, arguably sired the Mexploitation genre in 1992 with the campy vengeance film "El Mariachi."

2013 October 10, Ray Monell, “Robert Rodriguez corners Mexploitation film market with ‘Machete Kills’”, in New York Daily News:

(film) A genre of exploitation films produced in and/or set in Mexico, and often featuring plots dealing with crime, drugs, and sex.


Ozploitation

While a number of Ozploitation films conformed to the 'trashy' aesthetics and marginal audience reception that historically characterizes exploitation cinema, a notable handful display production values considerably higher than those connoted by the term itself, and also experienced significant box office success, both in Australia and, at times, internationally.

2010, Ben Goldsmith, Geoffrey Lealand, editors, Australia and New Zealand, Intellect Books, →ISBN, page 239:

While the film is rich with moments of explicit sexual threat — most notably the naked photographs and Sparks' attempted rape — the image of Jessica tied to the front of the ute remains one of the most excessive and horrific images of violence against women not only in Australian “Ozploitation” film, but in rape-revenge as a whole.

2011, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study, McFarland & Company (201), page 111

The name was originally explained on the event's website as being inspired by 1974 Ozploitation film, Stone, about motor bike gangs.

2014, Hilary Du Cros, Lee Jolliffe, The Arts and Events, Routledge, →ISBN, page 74:

(film) A genre of low-budget films produced in Australia, chiefly during the 1970s and 1980s.


carsploitation

Death Race is a rehash of the 1975 carsploitation flick Death Race 2000 that predicted a new millennium in which David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone mow down old people for points.

2008 August 27, Emiliano Garcia-Sarnoff, “Total Drag (Race)”, in Santa Fe Reporter:

Cage redefines "up for anything" in this goofy carsploitation movie as a vengeful grandpa on the trail of devil-worshippers who have slaughtered his daughter and kidnapped his granddaughter for sacrificial purposes.

2011 June 2, Randall King, chapter DVD, in Winnipeg Free Press:

The film hurtles toward tragic inevitability like Vanishing Point, the classic carsploitation film that Death Proof revises with the triumph of the collective.

2014, Claire Henry, Revisionist Rape-Revenge: Redefining a Film Genre, Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, pages 164–165:

(film) A genre of exploitation films focused on cars, typified by scenes of racing and crashing.


Britsploitation

Wright, whose mock Britsploitation trailer Don't is currently playing during the intermission between Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse double-bill, manages to integrate these disparate parts into a cohesive, intelligent whole.

2007 April 18, Neil Morris, “Hot Fuzz and Fracture”, in Indy Week:

Cult Britsploitation flicks Terror and Prey were released at the fag-end of the 70s and have all the elements you’d expect for that period: lesbian butchery, sinister parties, deranged parrots, heartless aliens, curb-crawlers and lovingly inventive, drawn-out death sequences.

2009, "Tony Molester," album review, Vice, Volume 7, Number 8, August 2009, page 161

Yet, surely the audience for a Cardiff documentary would be just as interested in his Britsploitation thrillers like “Dark of the Sun” and “The Liquidator.”

2011, Joe Bendel, "Love for the cameraman, the greatest ever colour cinematographer", The Epoch Times, 19 May 2011 - 25 May 2011, P9

(film) A genre of low-budget films produced and/or set in the United Kingdom.


Jewsploitation

The Hebrew Hammer may very well be the first "Jewsploitation" comedy, but star Adam Goldberg promises the film avoids the truly offensive.

2002 July, Diane Vadino, “Movie News”, in Spin, page 47:

Saturday night I went to the Gershman Y to see the new "Jewsploitation" film The Hebrew Hammer, which I'm guessing is going to raise some hackles in the same way my headline did.

2003 December 10, Liz Spikol, “Hammer Time”, in Philadelphia Weekly:

The film, one of the first to emerge from the burgeoning "Jewsploitation" genre, is ripped from true-crime headlines and follows an impressionable youth (Eisenberg) from an Orthodox Brooklyn community.

2007 November 15, Gregg Goldstein, “Eisenberg, Bartha in the 'Holy' land”, in The Hollywood Reporter:

(film) A genre of exploitation films focusing on Jews and Jewish experiences.


sharksploitation

Hunky James Caan look-alike Andrés Garcia – the nominal hero who is apparently sponsored by Adidas – became a pin-up of these adventures, appearing in the sharksploitation movie Tintorera! (1977), Tonino Ricci's Cave of the Sharks and in The Bermuda Triangle (1978), with John Huston and Claudine Auger.

2011, Howard Hughes, Cinema Italiano: The Complete Guide from Classics to Cult, I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd, →ISBN, page 282:

After their yacht runs aground in Australian waters, four of them decide to swim for land but are soon stalked by a huge great white shark. While the story stutters and starts, sharksploitation fans will lap it up.

2011 January 21, David Edwards, “New Releases; DVDs”, in The Mirror, UK:

Spoofing the sharksploitation genre is Ghost Shark 2: Urban Jaws (“And for God's sake, stay out of the water!”).

2014, Gene Helfman, George H. Burgess, Sharks: The Animal Answer Guide, Johns Hopkins University Press, →ISBN, page 210:

(film) A genre of exploitation films focusing on sharks and shark attacks.


drugsploitation

Meanwhile, newfangled drugsploitation flicks like Maryjane and The Hooked Generation invaded drive-ins, providing cautionary tales while the smell of those funny scented cigarettes filled the night air.

2004, Irv Slifkin, VideoHound's Groovy Movies: Far-out Films of the Psychedelic Era, Visible Ink Press, →ISBN, page 201:

Such shots are to be found throughout the genre from early 'drug hysteria' and 'drugsploitation' movies through to its most recent examples.

2006, David Boothroyd, Culture on Drugs: Narco-cultural Studies of High Modernity, Manchester University Press, →ISBN:

Fonda persuaded director Roger Corman to hire the band for his drugsploitation movie The Trip, a paean to LSD scripted by Jack Nicholson.

2006, Barney Hoskyns, Hotel California: The True-Life Adventures of Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Mitchell, Taylor, Browne, Ronstadt, Geffen, the Eagles, and Their Many Friends, Wiley, →ISBN, page 61:

(film) A genre of exploitation films which focus on the use of recreational drugs, typically featuring lurid scenes of drug-induced behaviour framed as a cautionary tale/morality play.


front porch

(television) A brief period inserted between the end of each transmitted line of picture and the leading edge of the next line sync pulse, intended to allow voltage levels to stabilise in older televisions, preventing interference between picture lines.


back porch

back porches (plural)
backporch (alternative)

(television) The portion of each scan line between the end (rising edge) of the horizontal sync pulse and the start of active video, used to restore the black level reference in analog video.


TiVo

From TiVo, a specific digital video recorder introduced in 1999.

Lost, season 4, begins in early February, after one of the most thrilling season enders in a decade of television: […] Set your TiVo.

2008 January–February, Matt Bean, “Your cultural calendar: 7 things to look forward to this year”, in Men's Health, volume 23, number 1, →ISSN, page 134:

digital video recorder
digital video recorder

(television) A digital video recorder (of any brand).


graveyard slot

From graveyard + slot, from the analogy of death to absence, see also dead air, dead silence/dead silent.

(television, radio) A time period, especially very late at night, during which the audience is very small compared to other times of the day.


daypart

Prime time is the daypart with the most viewers.

(television, radio) A part of the day in which a type of radio or television program apropos for that time period is aired.

műsoridő

part of the day in which a type of radio or television program is aired


daypart

en-verb

daypart (third-person singular simple present dayparts, present participle dayparting, simple past and past participle dayparted)

dayparts (present singular third-person)
dayparting (participle present)
dayparted (participle past)
dayparted (past)

Much like TV and radio, programming on the Station will be dayparted. Mornings will contain more music news, afternoons will have a heavy promotional focus on Streamland's and SonicNet's Addicted to Noise Web sites, and nights will focus on live entertainment.

1998 March 14, Ed Christman, “Trans World Earnings Set Record in '97”, in Billboard, volume 110, number 11, page 111:

A lot of Top 40 stations were heavily dayparted, so softer stuff only got played in the daytime, or harder stuff only got played at night.

2005 June 2, Florence Henderson Had A Mullet [username], “Re: Billboard top 100 of 1983”, in alt.culture.us.1980s (Usenet):

(television, radio, transitive) To divide the broadcasting day of (a station) into periods airing different types of material.

Like most R&B stations, rap is dayparted after 6 p.m. but shunned between the hours of 9 p.m. and midnight, when the station runs its quiet storm show.

1994 June 25, Phyllis Stark, “Community Involvement Sends WCKX To Top”, in Billboard, volume 106, number 26, page 106:

WMGI's new format, of which I heard a mere 20 minutes last night around 8, seemed to be brighter and much more uptempo. I imagine they've got the youngest stuff (i.e., the rap) dayparted into evenings only, and are being much less adventurous mornings.

1995 January 4, Jim Grey, “Terre Haute Radio News 1-1-95”, in rec.radio.broadcasting (Usenet):

(television, radio, transitive) To assign (material) to such a period.


dayparting

(television, radio) The practice of dividing the broadcast day into several dayparts.


warmedy

It preserves the blue-collar setting of The Flintstones, and the family constellations are similar, but the "warmedy" Flintstone world is turned on its ear.

2004, John Alberti, Leaving Springfield: The Simpsons and the Possibility of Oppositional Culture, →ISBN, page 144:

Another popular “warmedy” (warm family comedy) of the late 1980s was Family Ties, which starred Michael J. Fox as the eldest sibling in a close-knit family.

2005, James T. Patterson, Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush v. Gore, →ISBN, page 220:

The "capitalization, dematerialization, and idealization" of this "warmedy" (an awkward term used by Budd, Steinman, and other critics to denote a "comedy overlaid with empathetic audience identification") extended even to the lives and celebrity status of the actors who played the show's universally loathed or much-loved characters...

2008, David Scott Diffrient, M*A*S*H, →ISBN, page 3:

(television) A warm-hearted comedy targeted at a family audience.


exodos

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ἔξοδος (éxodos, “a departure”). Doublet of exodus.

bor

1994, Carlo Ferdinando Russo (author and translator), Aristophanes: An Author for the Stage, [1962, Aristofane autore di teatro], page 173,
The exodos requires three actors, one for the Athenian (thirty iambic trimeters), one for his companion (five iambic trimeters) and one for the Spartan Singer (three iambic trimeters and around forty lyrical lines).

Then scenes alternate with choral songs, till the final exodos ("going-out") of the actors and chorus.

2003, Francis Blessington, The Bacchae; Euripides: The Frogs; Aristophanes, page xix:

Every Greek drama ends with an exodos. It is obligatory that the stage be left empty. It is left by the actors and the chorus.

2006, Olga Freidenberg, Image and Concept, page 271:

Non-speaking Characters
Hermione in prologue and exodos, Pylades in exodos, Electra in exodos, Helen in exodos

2013, Cecelia Eaton Luschnig, editor, The Orestes Plays, page 140:

In this respect, the parodoi and the exodoi of Old Comedy may operate as typical literary sphragis-like pieces; see details in Hordern (2002) 228-9; Calame (2004a); on the exodoi of Aristophanes as signature pieces see Calame (2004b) 182-3.

2013, Sophia Papaioannou, “Chapter One: The Innovator's Poetic Self-Representation”, in Sophia Papaioannou, editor, Terence and Interpretation, footnote, page 27:

(drama, Ancient Greek drama) A final scene or departure in a play, especially a tragedy.


lay tracks

en-verb

lay tracks (third-person singular simple present lays tracks, present participle laying tracks, simple past and past participle laid tracks)

lays tracks (present singular third-person)
laying tracks (participle present)
laid tracks (participle past)
laid tracks (past)

There is plenty of scope for skill in laying tracks so that the mixing is easy.

1947, Ken Cameron, Sound and the Documentary Film, page 82:

In terms of economic utility, it ranks right up there with ultrafast lenses, since laying tracks is the second most time-consuming activity in film production (and the Steadicam eliminates the need for them).

2013, James Monaco, How To Read a Film: Technology: Image & Sound:

(film) To arrange soundtracks in their correct sequence and position relative to the image.


school life

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(anime, manga) A genre which has the majority of the storyline taking place in a school.


Apatovian

Apatow + -ian, with 'w' hardened to 'v'; compare Shavian.

Segel, who may not have a third or fourth gear, plays Peter Bretter, a recognizable Apatovian hero: he thinks obsessively about sex, and at the same time he's an instinctively moral man.

2008, David Denby, “Overripe, Undernourished”, in The New Yorker:

Go for a comedy, and you end up with Apatovian beta males whose emotions are largely tied up in the diminishing value of their comic-book collections.

2011, David Fear, “You've Got Male”, in Spin:

Yet without the Apatovian arc of its predecessor, it also feels a bit like a regression—especially given its typical sequel strategy of undoing the hard work of the previous film.

2015, A.A. Dowd, The AV Club, Ted 2 gets filthier but less charming:

(film) In the style of filmmaker Judd Apatow.


misregister

/mɪsˈɹɛd͡ʒɪstə(ɹ)/

There are several kinds of misregister including what appellant characterizes as “mechanical” misregister and “degrouping” misregister […] Both types of tubes exhibited serious misregister problems […]

1964, United States. Patent Office, Decisions of the Commissioner of Patents and of the United States Courts in Patent and Trademark Cases, page 490:

(television) Undesirable displacement of the electron beam from the centre of a phosphor dot.


self-publish

self-publish (third-person singular simple present self-publishes, present participle self-publishing, simple past and past participle self-published)

self-publishes (present singular third-person)
self-publishing (participle present)
self-published (participle past)
self-published (past)
self-pub (alternative)
selfpub (alternative)

(authorship) To publish a work independently, without the assistance of a publishing company.


trad-pub

trad-pubs (plural)
tradpub (alternative)
trad pub (alternative)

traditional publisher
traditional publisher

(authorship) A work that has been published through a third-party publishing company, or a traditional publisher.


trad-pub

trad-pub (third-person singular simple present trad-pubs, present participle trad-pubbing, simple past and past participle trad-pubbed)

trad-pubs (present singular third-person)
trad-pubbing (participle present)
trad-pubbed (participle past)
trad-pubbed (past)
tradpub (alternative)
trad pub (alternative)

(authorship, informal) To publish a work via a third-party publishing company, or traditional publisher.


meganekko

Borrowed from Japanese 眼鏡っ娘 (meganekko), from 眼鏡 (megane, “glasses”) + 娘 (ko, “girl”).

Oh... Then I've have to find somebody who's be willing to get me a less-than-full-body shot of her, like the ones I have of five other meganekko who wear pince-nez: […]

2004 November 29, Rob Kelk, “Re: Anime genres? (was Re: Anime that every fan should watch?)”, in rec.arts.anime.misc (Usenet):

Anyway, so far, really, my favourite character is Yuki. Bonus points when we find out in the second episode she's a meganekko.

2006 May 2, The Eternal Lost Lurker [username], “Just started Haruhi...”, in rec.arts.anime.misc (Usenet):

Airheaded and delectably gauche, Miyuki stands out as a classic incarnation of the meganekko— namely, as noted, the moe type whose charm derives largely from the wearing of glasses—while also appearing to have a soothing effect on those around her by virtue of her sheer presence.

2012, Dani Cavallaro, Kyoto Animation: A Critical Study and Filmography, McFarland & Company, →ISBN, page 126:

(anime, manga) A female fictional character whose charm or attractiveness derives largely from wearing glasses.


overcomposed

en-adj

overcomposed (comparative more overcomposed, superlative most overcomposed)

more overcomposed (comparative)
most overcomposed (superlative)

Mr. Berlinger added that there is a risk in documentaries that are overcomposed.

2015 June 26, Ben Kenigsberg, “Documentary Filmmakers Talk About Manipulation in Their Work”, in New York Times:

(film) Having undergone too much composition or arrangement; excessively posed, to the point of seeming artificial.


MCU

(television) Initialism of medium close-up.


underrecord

en-verb

underrecord (third-person singular simple present underrecords, present participle underrecording, simple past and past participle underrecorded)

underrecords (present singular third-person)
underrecording (participle present)
underrecorded (participle past)
underrecorded (past)
under-record (alternative)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-underrecord.wav

(transitive, music, film) Of a work or a performer, to make too few recordings.


said-bookism

From The Said Book + -ism; coined by James Blish, writing under the pen name William Atheling Jr., after The Said Book, the title of a booklet for aspiring writers listing countless alternatives to the word “said” in writing dialogue.

Jim Blish once dedicated a book to me. He introduced me to the music of Charles Ives, to the taste of Vander Flip, to the urgency of avoiding the said-bookism, to the concept of the watershed, to the pleasures of Indo-Ceylonese food.

1980, Harlan Ellison, Shatterday, Houghton Mifflin, Dedication

(authorship, rare) A verb (such as "explained", "shouted", or "uttered") used to indicate dialogue when writing fiction, chosen so as to avoid using the word "said".

(authorship, uncountable) The studious avoidance, in writing dialogue, of the word "said".


fight choreography

(film, theater) The art of arranging and designing sequences of staged combats, such as for use in theatre or film productions.


stage combat

(film, theater) The art of arranging, designing or performing sequences of simulated fighting, especially in theatrical productions.


PLF

(film) Initialism of premium large format, large-format screens similar to IMAX.


precolor

They also bring to mind stylish movie sets in precolor Hollywood; Fred and Ginger or a phalanx of Busby Berkeley dancers could easily drift among their mirrored, ethereal forms.

2009 June 19, The New York Times, “Art in Review”, in New York Times:

(film) Before the advent of color film, and thus presented in black and white.


starry eyes

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(chiefly anime and manga) Eyes with exaggerated starry highlights, with an expression of wonder or delight.


shota

en-noun

shota (usually uncountable, plural shotas)

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From Japanese ショタ (shota) or a clipping of shotacon.

(uncountable, anime) Hentai anime or manga, or other Japanese-inspired erotic art featuring young, usually prepubescent boys.

(countable, anime) A fictional young boy character, especially one featured in such material. Typically drawn with exaggerated or stylised cute features.


bottle episode

/ˈbɒtəl ˈɛpɪsəʊd/

Said to be from the term “ship-in-a-bottle episode”, the nickname given by the cast and crew of the television series Star Trek (originally broadcast 1966–1969) to an episode set entirely on board the starship USS Enterprise.

That's pretty much what a "bottle" episode is; one that uses minimal sets, guest stars, effects, etc, and/or uses lots of clips from past episodes, in order to make a much cheaper episode.

1996 February 12, Janet A. Dornhoff, “What are they filming now?”, in alt.tv.forever-knight (Usenet), message-ID <4fno37$t28@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>:

One of Wright's great strengths as a screenwriter and producer is his ability to design bottle episodes—shows filmed with the goal of saving money—and turn them into riveting, compelling dramas where the viewer forgets that they are watching a bottle show.

1998 September, Frank Garcia, “Producing SF: Brad Wright, on the lookout to do something never seen before”, in Cinefantastique, volume 30, numbers 5–6, Forest Park, IL: Frederick S. Clarke, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 82, column 2:

Even though they are moving, for large stretches 'Spiral' is a bottle episode.

2004, Roz Kaveney, “Writing the Vampire Slayer: Interviews with Jane Espenson and Steven S. DeKnight”, in Roz Kaveney, editor, Reading the Vampire Slayer: The New, Updated, Unofficial Guide to Buffy and Angel, 2nd revised and expanded edition, New York, N.Y.: Tauris Parke Paperbacks, I.B. Tauris, →ISBN, page 125:

By the 2000s, the airwaves seemed full of shows not just making reference to other pop culture "images," but wholly based on pop culture. [...] Community regularly turned episodes into extended homages to M*A*S*H, Doctor Who, and Christmas Claymation specials. In "Cooperative Calligraphy," the show presents a "bottle episode," during which Abed repeatedly reminds everyone they are in a "bottle episode," pointing out each characteristic of such episodes as it occurs.

2018, M. King Adkins, “‘These are Their Stories’: Postmodern Spaces”, in Television Storyworlds as Virtual Space, Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 122:

(originally US, television) An episode of a television series designed to be inexpensive and restricted in its use of sets, effects, cast members, etc.


flopover

flopover (countable and uncountable, plural flopovers)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-flopover.wav

Now you have mirror-clear TV without picture flopover, jitter, tear!

1956, LIFE, volume 41, number 11, page 41:

(television) A form of television signal distortion where the displayed image appears to scroll vertically rather than remaining still.


triniscope

Originally the proprietary name for a system developed by RCA. See tri- (“three”), and -scope.

(television, historical) An early color television system using three separate video tubes with colored phosphors producing the primary colors, combining the images through dichroic mirrors onto a screen for viewing.


lip flap

lip flap (countable and uncountable, plural lip flaps)

(film) A failure in audio-video synchronization, so that an actor's lips move but no sound is heard.

[…] pick it up earlier or later where there is no lip-flap. But if you must take it there, then you must precede it with another shot of the same speaker at a different angle, hopefully closer.

1972, Filmmakers Newsletter, volume 5, number 7, part 12, page 46:

“So when we translate,” Lam was saying, “it's all about what we call lip flaps. Like, how many times does mouth move? We match translation more to mouth than to what words really mean.

2009, Shawn Klomparens, Two Years, No Rain, page 49:

For the dubbed version, we would start with this translated script and then work to create a new script, which would closely match the lip flaps and intonations of the character onscreen

2010, Josef Steiff, Tristan D. Tamplin, Anime and Philosophy: Wide Eyed Wonder:

(film) A movement of an actor's lips, which is to be matched as closely as possible in a dubbed version of the film.


kidcom

(informal, television) A sitcom designed for children.


tone meeting

The final aspect to completing your preparation [as a director] is the tone meeting with the showrunner. (...) Generally, the two of you go through the script, scene by scene (...).

2013, Bethany Rooney, Mary Lou Belli, Directors Tell the Story: Master the Craft of Television and Film Directing, →ISBN, page 73:

These particular meetings are called tone meetings and require the showrunner meet with every new director hired. The idea is to go over what the episode will look like and how it will fit in with the rest of the season.

2016 January 5, Julia Alexander, “Former Walking Dead showrunner slams AMC in new testimony”, in Polygon:

(television) A meeting between the showrunner of a television series and the director to discuss an episode that is to be produced.


writers' room

The showrunner ist the ringmaster for the writers' room—the final authority. There is some form of a whiteboard on the walls of the room, where the plots for future episodes are outlined.

2013, Bethany Rooney, Mary Lou Belli, Directors Tell the Story: Master the Craft of Television and Film Directing, →ISBN, page 66:

(television) The room in which the showrunner and the writers of a television series collaborate on the plot and develop the script.


pattern budget

The main order of business will be to discuss how to meet the requirements of the script that are beyond the pattern budget, which is the cost of a typical episode. The pattern will dictate what the usual demands are […]

2013, Bethany Rooney, Mary Lou Belli, Directors Tell the Story: Master the Craft of Television and Film Directing, →ISBN, page 68:

(television) The cost of producing a typical episode of a television series.


digislate

A DigiSlate is a clapperboard with the ingenious addition of a digital timecode display (hours : minutes : seconds : frames).

2003, Chris Jones, The Guerilla^([sic]) Film Makers Movie Blueprint, page 318:

A DigiSlate can be set to display either SMPTE or internal (real time) time code.

2010, Richard W. Kroon, A/V A to Z: An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Media, Entertainment and Other Audiovisual Terms, page 207:

(film) A clapperboard with a digital display.


retroscripting

(film, television) The technique of preparing a plot but leaving the actors to improvise their own dialogue.


standard definition

high-definition television
high-definition television

(television) A system that uses a resolution that is not considered to be either high-definition television (720p, 1080i, 1080p, 1440p, 4K UHDTV, and 8K UHD) or enhanced-definition television (EDTV 480p).


Dynamation

(film, historical) A stop-motion technique involving animated models integrated into live-action scenes.


practical effect

practical effect (plural practical effects)

(film) A special effect produced physically, without computer-generated imagery or other postproduction techniques.


one shot

When composing a one shot, the subject should usually be centered in the frame.

1998, Jerry Martin, Active Video: A Teaching Tool for Every Classroom, →ISBN, page 19:

Close ups are often one shots, which means that close-up one shots often come at the high points of scenes.

2011, Dennis J. Packard, The Film Novelist: Writing a Screenplay and Short Novel in 15 Weeks, →ISBN, page 19:

(film) A camera shot that focuses on a single subject.


DCT

DCT (countable and uncountable, plural DCTs)

digital component tape
digital component tape#English

(television) Abbreviation of digital component tape.


spot effect

(cinematography) A sound effect representing a single discrete event, such as breaking glass, as opposed to ongoing background sounds.


Shatnerize

en-verb

Shatnerize (third-person singular simple present Shatnerizes, present participle Shatnerizing, simple past and past participle Shatnerized)

Shatnerizes (present singular third-person)
Shatnerizing (participle present)
Shatnerized (participle past)
Shatnerized (past)

From Shatner + -ize, after the Canadian actor, author, producer, and director William "Bill" Shatner.

(rare, slang, chiefly film) To intentionally produce something that is perceived as both bad and good.


telop

A genericization of the trademark TELOP; an acronym of television opaque projector.

A telop can be made simply by printing on a 4 × 5 cardboard, or by making a mat print from a 35mm negative.

1969, Herbert Zettl, Television Production Handbook, 2nd edition, Wadsworth Publishing, page 259:

(television) A text or image superimposed on a television screen.


chicksploitation

From chick + -sploitation (from exploitation film).

The chicksploitation image of Nobu Kitamura's Hysteric Glamour seems to have evolved from hazy stoner dreams of rock 'n' roll groupies.

2007, Tiffany Godoy, Style Deficit Disorder: Harajuku Street Fashion - Tokyo:

(film, rare) A genre of exploitation films starring attractive young women.


mysterama

Owen Wilson is fantastic in this mysterama-crime flick.

1999, “The Minus Man (1999)”, in The Movie Crew:

This mysterama about two cops and a serial killer in a small Texan town would be a fantastic made-for-TV film but it's missing a feature-film story.

2012 February 27, “New In Movies This Week”, in My.McKinley.com:


dramystery

Fans of last season’s intricate plot twists certainly won’t be disappointed with the Season 2 opener of FX’s legal dramystery (yes, that’s what I said).

2009 January 5, Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub, “DAMAGES Season 2 Review - FX”, in Collider:

Perhaps it won’t be long until we will hear that Witherspoon or Reynolds is doing a movie, and we’ll immediately think, “Probably another silent existentialistic docu-dramystery!”

2012 February 27, “Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Reynolds Team Up for Tim Burton’s ‘Big Eyes’”, in Hollywood.com:

For eight seasons Showtime brought us “Dexter” which—in its own way—defined a serial killer in a serial “dramystery.”

2013 August 7, “Death, Drugs & Drama”, in Ion Television Arizona:


crimance

I like the way Brant herself describes the book as crimance... a perfect genre description.

2003, Lucinda Brant, Deadly Engagement: A Georgian Historical Mystery:


thrillmance

/ˈθɹɪlˌmæns/

Psycho-logic, an eight minute Hitchcock-type part-thriller-part-love story (which we’ve dubbed ‘thrillmance’), tells the story of a young woman finding her ultimate fantasy at the new Hollywood Louboutin store, and sees the supreme shoe sire make a cameo appearance alongside Elisa Sednaoui.

2009 September 28, “Christian Louboutin, film director?”, in – My Fashion Life:

This film is a romance, suspense and thriller all rolled into one. A thrillmance!

2013 February 19, “Film Review – Safe Haven”, in 4 Manchester Women:

(informal, film, rare, neologism) romantic thriller


TV timeout

TV timeouts (plural)
TV time-out (alternative)
TV time out (alternative)
television time-out (alternative)
television time out (alternative)
television timeout (alternative)

(Canada, US, sports television) A time-out taking place during a televised sports match where the game clock is stopped for a period of time to allow for TV commercials to air before the resumption of play. The delay is usually after a whistle or other stoppage of play occurs, and not an interference with gameplay in and of itself.


break character

break character (third-person singular simple present breaks character, present participle breaking character, simple past broke character, past participle broken character)

breaks character (present singular third-person)
breaking character (participle present)
broke character (past)
broken character (participle past)

Once Lynne and I realized that Jim was going to approach the role of Kaufman in a “method acting,” Kaufmanesque kind of way—i.e., he would become Andy or Tony Clifton for the entire shoot, never breaking character […]

2014, Bob Zmuda, Lynne Margulies, Andy Kaufman: The Truth, Finally, BenBella Books, →ISBN, page 43:

(intransitive, acting) To fail to act as a certain character; to be or act out of character.


twintail

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-twintail.wav

From twin + tail. Sense 2 is a calque of Japanese ツインテール (tsuintēru).

(fandom slang, chiefly anime and manga) Either of a pair of unbraided tails worn on the sides of the head; an unbraided pigtail.

(in the plural) A hairstyle with a pair of twintails; unbraided pigtails.


be a hundred years too early

head

be a hundred years too early (irregular; see conjugation of "be")

Calque of Japanese 百年早い (hyaku-nen hayai).

cal

Don't make me waste my time! You are a hundred years too early to be an opponent worthy of fighting me!

(idiomatic, anime and manga fandom slang) To be so immature and unprepared as to have no hope of achieving an accomplishment.


green band

From the green color of the horizontal bar on the cinematic rating screen at the start of the show.


red band

From the red color of the horizontal bar on the cinematic rating screen at the start of the show.


TBBT

The Big Bang Theory
w:The Big Bang Theory

(television) Initialism of The Big Bang Theory, an American television sitcom.


HIMYM

How I Met Your Mother
w:How I Met Your Mother

(television) Initialism of How I Met Your Mother, a US sitcom first aired in 2005.


below the line

(film) Who do not guide and influence the creative direction, process, and voice of a given narrative in a film, such as the boom operators, hair stylists, and location managers.

(television) Of expenses: paid for standard ongoing concerns such as insurance and technical equipment and crew.


tragic heroine

(drama) A heroine who suffers from a tragic flaw that eventually causes her downfall; a female tragic hero.


Scandi-noir

en-noun

Scandi-noir (countable and uncountable, plural Scandi-noirs)

(film, uncountable) Synonym of Nordic noir (“subgenre of film noir”).

(film, countable) Synonym of Nordic noir (“film or show of this subgenre”).


gangsploitation

(film) A genre of exploitation films about criminal gangsters.


soapumentary

(television) A reality show presenting people's lives in a sensationalistic manner across a number of episodes.


storyliner

(television) A person employed to write storylines.


rocksploitation

(film) A genre of exploitation film that deals with the lives of rock musicians.


queersploitation

(film, rare) A genre of exploitation films dealing with queer or homosexual people.


Lord Privy Seal

en-adj

Lord Privy Seal (comparative more Lord Privy Seal, superlative most Lord Privy Seal)

more Lord Privy Seal (comparative)
most Lord Privy Seal (superlative)

From a sketch on the British satire show The Frost Report in the 1960s, poking fun at the television broadcasting practice of displaying images on screen to accompany spoken monologues. In the sketch, the words Lord Privy Seal in a news report are illustrated with a photo of a lord, photo of an privy (outhouse), and photo of a seal (pinniped) balancing a ball on its nose.

Not bad, but it's a bit Lord Privy Seal.

(British, television, humorous) Of images, that match words too closely or in an overly literal manner.


room tone

en-noun

room tone (countable and uncountable, plural room tones)

(film, sound engineering) The ambient sounds in a room or on a set.


Japanime

Japanime (countable and uncountable, plural Japanimes)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Japanime.wav

Blend of Japan (“the country”) + anime (“an animated work”)

blend

(anime, dated) Synonym of anime; Japanese animated cartoons.


telecop

OK gossip mongrels, see what you can make of these bits of scurrilous gleaning.
#1- Which young telecop isn't re-signing further series options?

1998 July 6, peeby, “**BLIND ITEM FUN**”, in aus.tv (Usenet):

The brain scooping has been occuring^([sic]) in situ. The evidence cited by the FBI woman was that that it happened in that room. When hiro finds' Isaac in the future, there's blood and stuff around him. By comparison, the telecop was drugged and taken to a laboratory where he received some not terribly invasive monitoring. Completely different modus operandi.

2006 October 18, William George Ferguson, “Re: 1st Season Heroes - Collision - 5 star poll - SPOILERS AHOY !”, in rec.arts.tv (Usenet):

As portrayed by the marvelous actor Michael Kitchen in the British series “Foyle’s War,” he is sometimes so reserved – not eerily quiet or threateningly quiet, just quiet – that he actually appears to be thinking, something few American telecops are likely to be accused of.

2009 September 25, Mike Hale, “Smarts and Stiff Upper Lip in Times of War and Murder”, in The New York Times:

(informal, television) A police officer (especially a detective) as portrayed on television.


tear-cat

Fie upon't, mere fustian; I had rather hear two good bawdy jests then a whole play of such tear-cat thunder-claps.

1606, John Day, The Isle of Gulls, in White, Thomas, editor, The Old English Drama, volume 4, published 1830, Induction, page 15:

I am cal'd by those that have seen my valour, Tear-Cat.

1611, Thomas Middleton, Thomas Dekker, The Roaring Girl, act 5, scene 1: