Common Videography Terms

There is a lot to understand about the videography process rather than simply setting up a shot and hitting record. Whether you are a videographer yourself, or someone who plans to hire and work alongside a videographer for an upcoming event; it is important to understand the basic/common terms for capturing a scene and making each moment look as good as possible.

First, you want to know what type of shot you want to use and what movements you want the camera to make in order to convey exactly the right emotion for each scene. A close up (subject’s entire head/face), medium close up (subject from the waist or knees up), wide shot (full body shot and its surroundings), low angle (shot from below, looking up at the subject), high angle (shot from above, looking down) and over the shoulder (capturing the subject from over the shoulder of the person he/she is speaking to) are some of the most commonly used shots used by videographers. A tilt (moving the camera up or down while keeping its horizontal axis constant), pan (moving the camera from one side to another), zoom (making subjects appear closer or further away), pedestal (moving the camera up or down without changing its vertical or horizontal axis), dolly (moving forward or backward with camera) and truck (moving left or right along with the camera) are some of the most common camera movement techniques used.

Other terms such as aspect ratio (the proportional relationship between the width and height of a shot), bitrate (the amount of data used in each second of a video), framerate (the amount of frames that appear on screen per second), white balance (adjusting the intensity of colors in a shot) and resolution (the number of horizontal and vertical pixels in the video) are also commonly heard when adjusting the settings on the camera.

Some of these terms take a longer time to fully understand than others, and it’s best to learn about all of them either from speaking with a professional videographer or from your own thorough independent research.

Sources:

Dolan,Aldam.“TheMostCommonVideoEditingTermsYouShouldKnow”.8Aug2017.https://newbluefx.com/blog/video-editing-terms/.NewBlue.Accessed26Nov2019.

Cassidy,Kyle.“CameraMovementTechniques”.https://www.videomaker.com/article/c10/14221-camera-movement-techniques.Videomaker.Accessed27Nov2019.

Archambault,Michael.“8CameraShotsandAnglesFromCinemaThatCanHelpImproveYourPhotos”22Sep2015.https://petapixel.com/2015/09/22/8-camera-angles-from-the-world-of-cinema-that-can-help-improve-your-photos/.PetaPixel.Accessed27Nov2019.

Hayek,Daniel.“Glossaryofcommonvideoterms”.20July2011.https://vimeo.com/blog/post/glossary-of-common-video-terms/.Vimeo.Accessed27Nov2019.