Curtain. Placing a conventional 4:3 video image
within a wide screen image (typically 16x9) in a
frame by placing black bands at the left and right of
the screen. See Letterbox.
Cutaway. A shot of an image or action in a lm
which is not part of the main action, sometimes used
to cover breaks in a scene's continuity. In
documentary often called “B-roll.”
Dailies. In lm production the rst positive prints or
video transfer made by the laboratory from the
negative shot on the previous day. Also known as
rushes. It can also mean on a video production the
video shot the same day when it’s watched at the end
of the day.
Deep-focus cinematography. A cinematographic
technique which keeps objects in a shot clearly
focused from close-up range to innity. Involves the
use of wide lenses and small apertures. Citizen Kane
contains some wonderful examples of deep focus
cinematography.
Depth of eld. e range in front of the camera lens
within which objects appear in sharp focus.
Diagonal. A shot where the camera pivots both
horizontally and vertically, a combination of
DCT. Discrete Cosine Transform. A widely used
method of video compression. e technique is
employed in formats like DV and DVPRO HD.
DCT requires more space than formats like
MPEG-2, however, it exhibits signicantly fewer
artifacts.
Digital. A representation format in which data is
translated into a series of ones and zeros. Numerical
data (base 10) is translated into binary numbers (base
2). Symbolic data is translated according to codes (for
example, the ASCII code system assigns binary
numbers to characters so they can be encoded
digitally). Audio and images are sampled. See also
sample, sampling rate.
Digital Image Stabilization. See Electronic Image
Stabilization.
Digital recording. A method of recording video (or
audio) in which samples of the original analog signal
are encoded on tape or a le as binary information
for storage and retrieval. Unlike analog recordings,
digital video (or audio) can be copied repeatedly
without degradation.
Digitizing. e act of taking analog video and
converting it to digital form. e term is often used
synonymously with ingest or capture, which is the
process of transferring a digital video format into a
non-linear editing system (it’s already digital, so you
are simply capturing or ingesting, you’re not actually
digitizing).
Direct cinema. See Cinéma vérité.
Distortion. e addition of artifacts to the original
audio signal appearing in the output which was not
present in the input.
Documentary. A non-ction lm, usually
photographed using actual people in real locations
rather than with actors and a scripted stories. Dened
by John Grierson as “the creative treatment of
actuality,” a denition that allows for a wide range of
lms to fall under the denition, which has always
been a source of debate among lmmakers, viewers,
and theoreticians.
Dogme 95. An avant-garde lmmaking movement
started in 1995 by directors Lars von Trier and
omas Vinterberg with the signing of the Dogme
95 Manifesto and the “Vow of Chastity”. e goal of
the Dogme collective was to purify lmmaking by
refusing expensive and spectacular special effects,
postproduction modications and other gimmicks.
More information may be found on the official
Dogme 95 web site at: http://www.dogme95.dk/
Dolly shot. See Tracking shot.
Doorway dolly. A versatile plywood dolly with four
soft tires which is narrow enough to t through a
doorway. On big features it is used to transport
equipment and cables, on smaller productions it is
used as a camera dolly with the camera placed on a
tripod which in turn sits on the plywood platform.
e four soft tires can be replaced with track wheels
allowing the doorway dolly to operate on standard
track. Panther has developed a version of the doorway
dolly called the briefcase dolly that folds up into a
smaller unit for easier transport.
Double exposure. e superimposition of two or
more images. Also called multiple exposure. With
lm it is achieved with multiple exposures.
Double-system sound. e technique of recording
sound and image using separate recording devices. In
lm production this is the normal methodology since
lm camera can’t record sound, however, it is
sometimes used in video as well when mobility is
required by the sound recordist who may want to
avoid running wires to feed the video camera with the
audio signal.
Drop Frame (DF). A system of time code generation
that adjusts the generated data every minute by
Introduction to the Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCHD camcorder (rough draft) http://kino-eye.com/dvb/ 27 /35
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