A-Z
180 degree rule
Filmic guideline dictating that reciprocating characters in the same scene always need to have the same spatial relationship to each other.
A.D.R.
All dialogues that have been recorded in studio once to the image track have been captured
Acousmatic motion
Motion from the visualised to the non visualised field and vice versa
Acousmatic sounds
Sound heard without visualising the source; can be applied to any sound
Added value
Expressive or informative value that the sound supplements to the image and vice versa
Anempathetic sound
Sound that follows the narrative situation at an emotional level
Another voice
Audiovisual effect resulting from the visual revelation of the I-voice
Archetypal sound
Sounds that are embedded in the human collective unconscious; carrying a kind of semantic meaning with them
Asyndeton
Selective remembrance in a dense sonic environment; perceptive or memory deletion of a sound or a group of sound in an audible whole.
Audiovisual dissociation
Visual and audio information that are not following the same spatio-temporal continuum.
Auditory hierarchy
Three levels on which sound commands our attention based on the Gestalt principle of figure and ground
Back voice
Sound perspective of a person heard as if speaking with his back facing the listener.
Backtracking
The quantity of information retained by the spectator, either in the short term or long term memory.
Belongingness
A single sound component can usually be assigned to one source at the time
Bottom up perception
Absolute perception; information focused and not influenced by anything else
Character glance
Orientation of the look of a character onscreen; its direction orients the audience to something in the diegesis and enables to build spatial relationships within a scene
Classification of sounds
Natural sounds Water: rain, rivers, oceans and lakes, ice and snow, fountains, faucets, steam Air: wind (leaves, sand, window, etc…), storms and hurrica ...
Clear density
Film sound mixing rule that apply across the colour spectrum to reach a dense but still clear mix.
Close up
Visual display through framing of a small part of the figure of an object, person, etc…
Cocktail party
Perceptual ability with which a listener can focus on a conversation in a busy sonic environment Characteristics: Active focus of the viewer The dens ...
Common fate
Perceptive effect that dictates that one change in several sounds at the same time will affect the all group. Characteristics: Can be applied to individ ...
Context variables
The factors, aspects and their variables that affect and determine the context of a scene.
Continuity editing
Set of rules and conventions that maintain spatial and temporal continuity, allowing the audience to experience a smooth and concrete physical narration.
Cut out
The Cut out effect refers to the sonic difference of ambiance sounds when passing from a place to another. For instance, a person going from a busy café to a qu ...
De-acousmatisation
Bringing of a non visualised event or character on to the screen
Dead sound
A dry sound is a sound which is incorporating little or no sound waves reflections.
Debureau effect
The Debureau effect is resulting from the voluntary mutism of a character. It is the spectators’ expectation to hear the sound of his voice.
Decentering
Effect resulting from a combination of audiovisual effect allowing the spectators to have no focus on the voice.
Decontextualisation
Sonic dissonance compared to the overall context, unexpected sounds in relation to the context coming into perception.
Depth of field
Distance between the nearest and furthest object that appears reasonably sharp on the image due to the mechanical and optic properties of the lense and sensor of the camera.
Dialogue recording and post production
Any recording added to the footage in post production.
Dialogue variables
Type Examples Word choice Sentence structure Rhythm Education High Low Wide vocabulary range Limited vocabulary Precise sy ...
Diegesis
Everything part of the story world; everything that can be seen and heard by the characters themselves.
Digression
Sonic occurrence that change the overall sound ambience without affecting memory.
Directionality
If using a multispeaker projection, a sound coming from the right speaker will reach the right ear first, creating a temporal delay and sound shadow in the left ear; making us perceive upon hearing that the sound is coming from the right hand side.
Discontinuous editing
Set of rules and conventions that maintain spatial and temporal continuity, allowing the audience to experience a smooth and concrete physical narration.
Dissolve
A dissolve is the result of a shot fading out while another is fading in, this creates a link between the two.
Drone
Persistence of a constant sound layer with no apparent change in pitch and intensity.
E.A.S.
E.A.S. or Elements of Auditory Settings refer to the punctual sound residing in the ambient sounds.
Editing dialectics
Human ability in wielding and extracting meaning from consecutive shots, sequence and ultimately the whole film
Elimination
Elimination refers to the absence of vocal sound even with visual signal
Engulfment
Use of excessive volume of sound to put the recipient in a state that cannot be controlled cognitively
Establishing sound
Sound that establishes, from the very beginning of a scene, the general character of the surrounding
Expressive visual content
Emotions that can be felt through the visual content of the image
External logic (of the audiovisual flow)
Soundtrack that does not follow the narrative and does not tend to fluctuate organically considering the latest
Extra diegetic
Diegetic space which extend from the regular diegetic space; a common example is found in dream sequences. World = diegetic space Dream = extra diegetic spa ...
Eye-follow-ear effect
Editing technique that reveal visually a sound that has already been heard in the offscreen
Eyeline match
Shot revealing something that a character has seen (offscreen) in the previous shot
Fade
Change in the relative degree of darkness and lightness, the amount of contrast and the degree of clarity in a visual image
False eyeline match
Misleading the audience in showing a visual event not related to a previous character glance
Figure and ground
Notion explaining that the perception of similar individual sound becomes a group when three are perceived at the same time
Film modes and genres
Specific colouration and function that give meaning to a scene or the film as a whole
Film sound colour spectrum
Classification tool to proceed to the Murch’s density-clarity mixing method
Flashback
Temporal window within the diegesis that reveal a past event to the spectators
Flashforward
Temporal window within the diegesis that reveal a future event to the spectators
Generic sound
Sound that clearly represents a specific, easily recognisable type of sound event, but without salient particularities.
Good continuation
A single sound change in frequency, intensity, location or spectrum is usually smooth and continuous rather than impulsive and abrupt.
Group music
Music that is used in particular events coordinating the emotions of a group of people (ex: marching, rites, war, etc…).
Habituation
Tiring of the auditory nerves that result in a loss of awareness of a particular sound
Hyperlocalisation
Perceptive effect linked to the irresistible visual focus of a sound source by the person experiencing a sound.
Impossible space
A space that is deemed impossible to exist in the diegetic space of the film
Incursion
Sound occurrence that modifies the event and the behaviour of its participants.
Integration time of sound
Time for the hearing system to register the full volume of a sound.
Internal logic (of the audiovisual flow)
Soundtrack that follows the narrative and tends to fluctuate organically considering the latest
Internal sounds
Subjective sounds; physical and/or mental interiority of a character
Intrusion
Sound or group of sound inside a protected space that create a feeling of contextual violation when perceived.
Jump cut
Visual cut that omits the temporal continuity of a sequence for the narrative content.
Language identification
The ability to identify other languages, mostly foreign when not subtitled.
Law of closure
Perceptive phenomenon that joint two separate entities (ex: lines lying along the same trajectory).
Law of Similarity
Perceptive phenomenon that groups the same entities or events even with considerable break in time.
Listening modes
Conscious act of focusing on sound. There are three types, semantic, causal and reduced.
M.S.I.
Materialising sound indices: all little details in sound occurrence that will make the event appear more real in the cinematic world
Magnetisation
Mental spatialisation of a sonic event onscreen independent of its sonic location in the cinema space
Match on action
Visual cut that preserves the action as a whole throughout a sequence.
Mattes
Visual shape that covers the screen disabling the sense of vision to the audience
Medium close up
Displays small parts of the figure of an object, person, etc… in case of a human being, usually from the head to the shoulders.
Medium long shot
Displays the full figure of an object, person, etc… and its setting for the action.
Mobile framing
Displays areas that change all framing elements; It refreshes the onscreen-offscreen space temporally, it reveals space.
Modes of spectator awareness
Film spectatorship operates in three modes: story-awareness, medium-awareness, and world-awareness
Montage
Sequence of sound and images that omit temporal continuity, often put together symbolically.
Multilingualism and foreign language
Use of any other language than the film’s original
Multimodal perception
Perception that incorporates several sensorial inputs; in the case of cinema, sight and hearing mainly.
Narration
Methods of narrative exposition, how time and space are dealt with in the larger film structure.
Narrative cueing
Any types of information helping the audience to orient to the setting, character and/or narrative events providing a particular point of view
Narrative schema
Describes how an audience collects a series of episode into a focused causal chain.
Offscreen
Space implied by the physical limitation of the screen, the rest of the diegetic world.
On the air
Sound transmitted by Tvs, radios, etc in film space with no subject to the natural law of sound propagation.
Persistence
Spectator willingness to fill in or ignore some information to maintain a particular spatial and/or temporal context.
Point of audition
Point with which the sound perspective is heard in a filmic situation.
Point of audition sound
Sound identified by its physical characteristics as it might be heard from a character within the film.
Real sound
Sound capture that includes the attributes of the space in which it is recorded.
Rendered sound
Sound used in order to emphasize emotions conveyed by the event on screen.
Resonance
Room shape, dimensions and surfaces that gives emphasis to certain frequencies
Reverberation
Reflections of the sound emission on the surfaces of the surrounding space.
Room tone
Raw atmosphere sound of a room, including electrical hums, traffic background, weather sound, etc…
Semi sync
A characteristic of sound that is apparently synchronised with the onscreen actions of secondary importance.
Set design and props
Environment that surrounds the actors and makes the visual diegesis for the audience.
Shot-reverse shot
Features of the continuity editing method that exposes a character looking at another, and then, the opposite when the action permits
Six cognitive dimensions
Inherently linked with the narrative schema, it explains how the audience participates in the reconstruction of meaning in film.
Sound colouration
Frequency content added by the environment to a perceived signal.
Sound design
Overall sonic components and their conceptual arrangement as part of the film narrative.
Sound distance
The amount of loudness and high frequencies remaining in the emitting sound that allows the listener to perceive its distance.
Sound hermeneutics
Notion that encompasses the question and answer that the audience might ask of a sound occurrence.
Sound imagery
Parallels to the figures of speech that semantic and/or rendered sound can have.
Sound movement
The alteration of distance and directionality that provides us enough information to detect its movement.
Sound object
Sound constructed from one or more elements to create a full filmic impact.
Sound scale
Apparent size attributed to an object, character or event by the characteristics of the sound they make.
Soundscape
Characteristic types of sound heard in a given environment at a given time.
Source-connected sound
Another term to define the visual connection of a sonic event.
Source-disconnected sound
Another term to define the lack of visual connection of a sonic event.
Spatial signature
Testimony provided by every sound to the spatial circumstances of its production.
Split screen, divided screen, multi image
Frame divided into two or more parts so that different space or action can be presented simultaneously.
Static framing
Displays an area that does not change; all framing elements stays the same.
Subjectification
Narrative elements presented from the perceptual perspective of a character.
Subjective openness
Kind of trance that can be experienced by music listeners, lowering the threshold of belief required to open to the diegetic world.
Submerged speech
Dialogue covered by the territory sounds of its originating surrounding
Suspension
Extreme case of null extension, suppression of sounds that are naturally expected in a scene.
Synecdoche
Selective listening with which the listener is able to valorise one element over others.
Tempo and cutting rate
Relative length of shots making the sequence, scenes and ultimately the whole film.
Temporal and spatial order
Audience cognitive construction of time, space and causality through the compilation of two parts at the time.
Territory sound
Overall sounds produced by the diegetic world, usually perceived as background sound.
Theatrical speech
Speech having the purpose to inform spectators and affect other characters on dramatic and psychological levels.
U.S.O.
Unidentifiable Sound Object: sound that cannot be identified by the listener.
Visual superimposition
One image, and sometimes more than one, placed over another to yield a double or multiple exposure.
Voice personality
Formant attributes of the voice that can provide identification of a character type.
Worldising
Incorporation of a post production sound into the physical diegetic world.