farce: Light hearted, gleeful, crudely humorous comedy that broadly satirizes, pokes fun at, or exaggerates an unlikely situation.

 

feature film: A full length motion picture is more than 60 minutes long; usually 90-120 minutes.

 

featurette: 20-45 minute film;usually a "behind the scenes" documentary.

 

feel good film: A film that ends with an audience pleasing reaction.

 

film: 1) to record a scene or movie. 2) a motion picture. 3) thin material on the film negative used to create images.

 

film aesthetics: The study of film as an artform.

 

film artifact: Unwanted film damage that could be a defect or error.

 

film clip: A short section of film removed from a movie and exhibited.

 

film noir: Genre of movie derived from the French term "black film" popular from the early 1940s until the late 1950s. Film noir films were mostly black and white and had bleak subject matter and a somber tone with low key lighting and a dark atmosphere. Example: "Double Indemnity" (1944) and "The Maltese Falcon" (1941)

 

filmography: Comprehensive list of films featuring the work of someone.

 

film review: An evaluative judgement about the quality of a film based on various aspects.

 

film stock: the size of film and the speed of film.

 

film within a film: Literally to have one film inside of another. Example: The "News on the March" scene in Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" (1941)

 

final cut: The last edited version of a film as it will be released.

 

fish-eye: Extreme type of super wide angle lens with a very short focal point that exaggerates and distorts the linear dimensions and gives the image a curvature. Example: when a character is looking through a peep hole.

 

fish out of water tale: When the main characters are placed in unfamilair surroundings or situations.

 

flashback: Film technique that alters the natural order of the narrative and takes the story back chronologically in time to previous events.

 

flash forward: Opposite of flashback; Film technique that depicts a scene in the future.

 

flash frame: A single clear frame that is inserted between two shots that can barely be perceived giving the appearance of a flash that may startle a viewer.

 

 

 

focus: the degree of sharpness of distictiveness of an image.

 

foil: An acting role that is used for personalizing comparison and contrast as a means to show and highlight a character trait.

 

foley artist: Crew member that creates or addssound effects and noises to the film as it is projected.

 

foreground: Objects and action closest to the camera.

 

foreshadowing: Supplying hints within the film about upcoming action that will occur.

 

fourth wall: Imaginary, invisible plane through which the audience is thought to look through toward the action.

 

forward: Anything that arouses an audience's interest in things yet to come.

 

frame: A single image.

 

freeze frame: An optical printing effect in which a single frame image is identically repeated, reprinted, or replicated over several frames to give the illusion of a still photograph. Example: The final image of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid (1969).