Joseph's
Glossary of Film Terms
M
- majors
- the principal production studios in the golden era of Hollywood filmmaking (1930's and
1940's) which included: MGM, Warner Brothers, RKO, Paramount Pictures and 20th Century
Fox.
- masking
- a technique by which a portion of the movie's image on the screen is blocked out,
thereby temporarily altering the dimensions of the screen's aspect ratio. For example, the movie scenes in
Boogie Nights. See also iris shot.
- matte shot
- the process of combining separately photographed shots onto one print, usually used to
create special effects such as combining a cartoon character with a human actor (e.g., Who
shot Rodger Rabbit?).
- medium shot
- a relative close shot of a human figure usually from the waist up.
- metaphor
- equating two things in a figurative (rather than literal sense)
- method acting
- originated from the Russian stage director Stanislavsky, method acting involves the
actor's "living" out the emotions and experiences of the character internally
rather than just imitating. In American film, method acting has been dominant since
the 1950's. Dustin Hoffman is probably the leading male method actor in the US.
- metteur en scène
- the director who creates the mise en scène
- mickymousing
- film music often used in cartoons which attempts to mimic the visual action
- miniatures, also model or miniature shots
- models photographed to give the illusion that they are full scale objects; for, example,
the space craft in George Lucas' Star Wars (1977) were all models on wire guides.
- mimimalism
- auster filmmaking in which the cinematic elements are keep to an absolute minimum
- mise en scène
- the arrangement of the visual elements within the frame of the film
- mix
- combining of separately recorded sounds into a single sound track
- montage
- a transitional filming technique in which a series of images appear on the screen
producing the effect of the passage of time.
- motif
- the systematic repetition of a theme, object or technique
- multiple exposures
- the effect of superimposing several images on top of one another
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