cramp roll a step forward of one foot while raising the heel, followed by a step forward of the other foot with raised heel, then a drop of both heels in quick succession.
dig a step in which the arms are held aloft gracefully to the sides while each foot crosses the other alternately and taps the floor once.
doll hop a step followed by a hop with one leg, followed by another step and a hop with the other leg.
falling off the log a mixture of shuffles and cross steps that produce the illusion of the dancer losing his balance and falling off a log.
flap a brush with the right foot followed by a step on the right foot, producing two sounds.
heel drops moving the right foot forward with the toe pointed up and heel touching the floor, then moving the foot back and repeating with the left foot while arms are placed one over the other at chest level.
heel plate an optional plate placed on the heel of a shoe for tapping.
hop a hop and landing on the same foot.
nerve taps tapping the floor in quick succession with the toe of one foot, frequently used in practice to develop speed and flexibility.
riff a toe tap and a forward slide of the foot while scuffing the heel.
scuff scuffing or scraping the floor with the heel.
shuffle a brush of one foot forward and then back, producing two sounds.
shuffle leap a shuffle followed by a leap and landing on the same foot, producing three sounds.
soft shoe any slow, soft dance with light tapping and a variety of intricate steps, originally performed with sand on the floor.
stamp a tap made by the entire foot, instead of just the ball.
step a simple raising and lowering of one foot, with the weight of the body shifted to that foot.
step-clap a step followed by a hand clap, then repeated with the other foot.
time step any of various combinations of shuffles, flaps, and steps.
toe heel tapping with the ball then the heel of one foot, producing two sounds.
toe point tap a tap with the tip of the toes.
FILM
adaptation a screenplay adapted from a novel, biography, or other source.
aleatory technique a film technique in which scenes are not specifically planned and are left to chance.
arc light a powerful set light.
art director the designer in charge of sets, costumes, or both.
artifact a visual defect in a film.
auteur French term for a movie director who "authors" a film by exercising personal artistic vision.
backlighting lighting that originates behind the subject for a silhouetting effect.
back lot a large plot of land owned by a studio for constructing outside sets.
barn doors the louvers or blinders that are adjusted on large set lights to increase or decrease illumination.
best boy on a set, the assistant to the chief electrician.
billing the position and status given to an actor's name in publicity and in a movie's credits. The actor given top billing is usually listed first and often in the largest letters. Equal billing is shared between two or more actors. Diagonal billing is when top actors are listed side by side, with equal height of lettering, but because the name positioned on the left is considered to have higher status, the names are transposed in different promotional materials.
biopic a movie based on an actual person's life; a biographical movie.
bit player an actor with a small part or role.
black comedy a comedy in which the humor springs from such dark subjects as death, political incorrectness, prejudice, etc.
blacklisting in 1950s America, Senator Joseph McCarthy's formal discrimination against filmmakers who were thought to be communists.
blockbuster in the past, any motion picture that takes in more than $100 million in ticket sales, but increasingly, due to higher ticket prices and inflation, a motion picture earning $150 million or more. The term originated with the British military during World War II, after the massive, city-block-levelling bombs they dropped on German cities.
blocking setting up and rehearsing a scene, including determining where the actors should stand or move, where the cameras should shoot from, and so on.
blooper a muffed line spoken by an actor or a scene that goes awry, cut from a movie but sometimes archived for use on blooper shows.
boffo industry slang for box office hit.
boom a long, mobile arm used to suspend a microphone above the action and out of view of the camera.
bootleg an illegally copied and distributed movie, often of poor quality. Also, the underground industry that illegally copies and sells movies.
B picture any second-rate, low-budget movie.
breakdown script a list of actors, props, and equipment needed for a scheduled day of shooting.
cameo role a role in which only a brief appearance is made by a major actor.
camp exaggerated homosexuality or other wild behavior, such as actors appearing in drag, used for comedic effect.
card a type of credit optical in which names and titles fade in and out in the same position.
cast all of the actors appearing in a movie.
casting the department headed by a casting director, in charge of auditioning and hiring actors.
casting couch reference to the most notorious location for a trade of sexual favors for a role in a motion picture, allegedly common in the old days of movie making, but less so today.
casting director the person in charge of auditioning and hiring actors.
cell one of thousands of individual drawings on celluloid sheets used in creating animation or cartoons.
changeover cue a dot in the corner of a film's frames to cue the projectionist to start the next reel.
character actor an actor who is natural at playing a certain personality type, such as a crotchety old man or a sex siren, and who in fact may be called to play the same type again and again in other movies. Such actors may be unconvincing in any other role.
Cinemascope a film process invented by 20th Century Fox in which anamorphic lenses are used to squeeze film scenes onto 35mm film so that they can be unsqueezed and expanded by a theater projector to create an image more than twice as wide as it is high.
cinematographer a motion picture photographer. Also known as the director of photography.
cinematography motion picture photography.
cinematology the study of films.
cinema verite a realistic or documentary style of filming, sometimes with a handheld camera, under as natural conditions as possible and with little or no input from the director.
cinephile a person who loves movies.
cinerama a wide-screen process that employed three synchronized cameras and is now outmoded.
clapper a handheld chalkboard with data describing the next shot; the sound of a clapstick on its top signals the start of the next scene. Also known as a slate.
color cards cards showing a scale of colors, used as a guide to correct colors when filming.