Transcript Film Lingo B

Vocabulary List – Film Lingo (B)
IMAX
• a specialized, big-screen film format about ten
times larger than the traditional 35mm cinema
format (70mm); IMAX film produces incredible
high-definition sharpness and is projected on up
to eight-story high screens in theatres or domes
equipped with advanced digital surround-sound
systems.
GREENLIGHT
• the “go-ahead” for a film to be made
BOX OFFICE POISON
• a term of contempt for movie stars who lose
popularity, typically making their subsequent
films financial disasters.
PAPARAZZI
• an Italian term for pushy photographers who stalk
celebrities in their private lives.
BALLYHOO
• an Irish term which denotes hype/publicity
regardless of the film’s actual merit
CASTING COUCH
• a term that implies the trade of sexual favors to a
director or producer to obtain a film role.
“CHEW UP THE SCENERY”
• self-indulgent hamming or overacting by a famous
actor
MOVIE MOGUL
• an important film industry executive.
Harvey Weinstein
Scott Rudin
Steven
Spielberg
Tyler Perry
Jerry Bruckheimer
MacGUFFIN
• Alfred Hitchcock's term for an item, object, goal,
event, or piece of knowledge that drives the logic
or action of the plot; although it appears
extremely important to the film characters, it
often turns out to be insignificant.
PRODUCT PLACEMENT
• advertising space within a film sold to namebrand companies for their products to appear
within the film as a way for a producer to fund
some film production costs.
STUDIO SYSTEM
• the all-powerful control that monopolistic film
studios had over all aspects of assembly-line
filmmaking and film production from the 1920s
until the late 1950s, when movie moguls such as
Mayer, Selznick, and Zukor ruled ownership of
property, control of publicity and marketing and
brokered iron-clad contracts with star actors,
directors, composers, cameramen, costume
designers, writers, and producers.
HAYS CODE
• named after Will Hays, a series of rigid censorship
restrictions imposed on films by the Motion
Picture Production Code, beginning in mid-1934
and lasting until the lat 1960’s;
enforced/administered by Joseph Breen, the Code
explicitly prescribed what couldn't be shown in
films, e.g. "nakedness and suggestive dances,"
"methods of crime," "illegal drug use," "scenes of
passion," "pointed profanity," etc.
Will Hays