Film Lingo

Found in an American Cinematographer Magazine December 1921:

WHICH is your favorite expression???

Film Lingo

RELEASE—The film is released when it is placed on the market for distribution and exhibition.
REWINDER—The mechanism that reverses the winding of a film so that the beginning of the film will lie on the outside of the roll, ready for projection.
SAFETY SHUTTER—In a projector, the little door that falls between the lamps and the film when the machine stops or runs so slowly that there is danger of igniting the film.
SCENARIO—A scenario is a working script for a motion picture story. It constitutes the plans and specifications of the photoplay.
It is the action of the story written in scenes.
SCREEN—The surface upon which the image is thrown.
SCRIPT—This word is used more about the studios when reference is made to a photoplay than the word “scenario.” It means the same thing.
SCREAMER—A term applied by certain ungodly people to the patient, efficient and underpaid press agent.
SHOOT—To photograph.
SHOT—Past tense of shoot, meaning to photograph. Also used as a noun in describing some particular scene. A limited passenger train rushing down a mountain slope might be called a great shot, or a beautiful shot, or a fine shot, as you please.
SHUTTER—In projectors, the two-wing or three-wing revolving device that intercepts the light as the filmed is jerked down one frame at a time, and by multiplying the flickers on the screen tends to make them less apparent.
SPLICE—To join, by cementing, one piece of film to another.
SPLIT REEL—A reel containing two or more subjects under different titles.
SPROCKET—The revolving toothed wheel which moves the film through the projector by engaging the perforations.
SONG WRITER—A scenario writer.
SOUP—The chemical compound used to develop film.
SLAUGHTER HOUSE—The film-cutting department.
STEAL A SCENE—When a player of a minor part works so well that he takes the interest from the lead it is said that he steals the scene.
STRIKE—To strike a set is to take it down or remove it.
STATIC BREEDER—A camera that develops static electricity.
STILL—A picture not made by a motion camera.
SUBTITLE—A subtitle is used to explain any action of the play that cannot be fully interpreted by the action in the picture.
It is the only method by which lapse of time can be satisfactorily expressed. Clever subtitles add greatly to the enjoyment of a photoplay, but the ideal photoplay would be a picture without subtitles.
SWELL—The only word some people know with which to describe a picture they like.
SWINDLE SHEET—Expense account.
SYNOPSIS—An abridgement or outline of the picture play. It may be told in a few hundred words or may be much longer.
In brief, a short story of the play.
TAKE-UP—In a projector, the mechanism used in winding the film after it passes the projecting aperature.
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR—In production of picture plays the technical director has charge of all mechanical and artistic arrangements.
He devises the sets, designs all necessary apparatus, and, in fact, has charge of the production with the
exception of the direction of the action.
THREAD—To pass positive film through the projector so that when the machine is operated the images will be thrown upon the screen; and so that the film will be wound properly from one reel to another.
THROW—Distance from the projector to the screen.
TO EMOTE—To express emotion during action.
UKELELE—Properly spelled Eukeleli. A so-called musical instrument used by Hawaiian Islanders to kill rattlesnakes. The method used was to play the ukelele until the snakes went crazy and drowned themselves in the sea. Now used by certain motion picture actors and actorines as a method of divertisement in order that they may not have to think.
VIOLET—The player who is always talking about his work.
VAMP—Short for blood-sucking vampire. The villainess in a picture play who steals a man willing to be stolen, or that some other woman is trying to steal.
VAMPED—Past tense of the verb “to vamp.” Meaning that the villainess has completed her nefarious work of stealing the other woman’s man.
WOODEN INDIAN—An actor that acts like one.
YANNIGAN—An actor or actress green at the game.
ZERO HOUR—Borrowed from the war—time to begin shooting.