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narration: The telling of a story and information given to the audience by an off-screen voice.
Sometimes the narrator is a character in the film. Example: William Holden as the narrator in "Sunset Boulevard."
naturalism: An extreme form of realism in which life is depicted in an unbiased way.
Neo Realism: A movement in the late 1940s and 1950s that originated in Italy, inagurated by Jean
Renoir. Refers to films made outside of the studio, with shooting on real locations, often films that deal with contemporary
social and political issues.
New Wave: A group of individualistic, innovative, and non-traditional French filmmakers in the
late 1950s-early 1960s, including Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. The style was characterized by a cinema verite style
with the use of jump cuts, handheld cameras, non-linear stories, and improvised direction.
nickelodeon: A makeshift movie theatre. The name derives from the nickel admission to watch a
film. Popular in the early 1900s.
nihilism: A dark/brooding film featuring a downbeat, depressing, cynical, or gloomy tone.
Often concerned with the subjects of death, unhappiness, tragedy, etc. Exampes: "Sunset Boulevard" and "Taxi Driver."
non-speaking role: A film role in which the actor has no dialogue, yet is clearly identifiable.
nostalgic film: A film that looks back at an earlier time often depicting it unlike it truly
was historically.
nudie flick: Old term for pornographic film. The term was often used in the age of the Hays Code
when nudity was censored in mainstream films. Russ Meyer is known as the king of directing nudie flicks.
nuking the fridge: films equivalent of television's "jumping the shark" term; nuking the fridge
occurs when a successful film franchise is exhausted with bad sequels. The term comes from the 2008 Steven Spielberg film
"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." There is a scene in which the hero survives a nuclear explosion by climbing
into a refrigerator.
Oat Opera: Slang for a Western; also called an oater
obligatory scene: A cliched and expected scene for a particular genre. Example: a shoot-out in
a Western film.
obstacle: Any resistance to a character getting what they want.
offstage: Beyond the boundaries of the camera's field of vision.
ominiscient point of view: Form where the narrator knows and sees everything occuring in the
story.
one-liner: A short, one-line joke. Example: One-liners were usually used by Groucho Marx in the
Marx Brothers films.
one-reeler: A film 10-12 minutes in length.
opaquer: Artist that colors in the individual cells of an animated film.
outtakes: Camera shots not included in the film's final cut.
overacting: Poor, "over the top" acting.
overlap: Carry over of dialogue, sounds, or music from one scene to another.
over the shoulder shot: Camera records the action from behind the shoulder or head of one of
the characters, thus framing the image.
overture: Music selected for pre-credit or opening credits that sets the mood or theme for the
film.
ozoner: Slang for a drive-in theatre.
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