Every term in the edit suite, explained in plain English — from the humble cut to LUTs, codecs and the 180-degree rule.
Keep the camera on one side of an imaginary line so screen direction stays consistent.
Academy Color Encoding System, a standardized color-managed workflow for consistent color across cameras and outputs.
An outer guide region where important picture content should stay so it is not lost to screen overscan or cropping.
A transparent layer that applies its effects to every clip beneath it on the timeline without holding any footage itself.
Automated Dialogue Replacement: re-recording an actor's lines in a studio to replace unusable production audio.
An extra image channel storing per-pixel transparency alongside the red, green, and blue color data.
The background sound of a location that establishes its space and atmosphere beneath the main audio.
The pivot point of a layer around which its scaling, rotation, and position transforms are calculated.
The width-to-height proportion of the frame, like 16:9 or 9:16.
The first pass that lays selected shots in rough story order.
The final loudness and polish pass on a finished mix.
Adjusting overall level so audio hits a target peak or loudness value, often for consistent delivery.
Supplementary footage cut over the main footage to illustrate or cover edits.
The number of bits used per audio sample, which determines dynamic range and how quiet detail is preserved.
The amount of data used per second of video, affecting quality and file size.
A soft glow that spreads from bright areas of an image, mimicking how light scatters in a lens or the eye.
A short branded clip that opens, closes or breaks up a video.
Removing a solid-color background (usually green) to composite a new one behind the subject.
Compressing color detail (e.g. 4:2:0) to save data while keeping brightness.
Distortion from a signal exceeding its maximum — in audio or image.
A tight shot, typically of a face, that emphasizes emotion or detail.
The method used to compress and encode video, such as H.264 or ProRes.
Content that plays before the title or intro to hook the viewer.
An unwanted overall tint of a single color across an image, often from incorrect white balance.
Balancing and normalizing footage to look natural and consistent across shots.
The creative process of giving footage a deliberate look, mood and style.
A tool that isolates a specific range of hue, saturation, and luminance so you can grade only those pixels.
A defined system of color primaries, white point, and gamma that specifies exactly how colors are represented.
Circular grading controls that let you push color into shadows, midtones, and highlights by dragging toward a hue.
Combining multiple visual layers into one seamless image.
The file wrapper (like MP4 or MOV) that holds video, audio and metadata.
The standard style that keeps space and time coherent so cuts feel seamless.
The difference between the darkest and lightest parts of an image.
All the different shots of a scene an editor has to work with.
Intercutting between two or more separate actions happening at the same time.
A gradual blend between two audio clips (or video) so the join is smooth.
Shadow areas pushed so dark they lose all detail and read as pure black.
The most basic edit: an instant change from one shot to the next with no transition.
A shot of something other than the main action, used to add detail or bridge a cut.
The amount of data a video uses per second of playback, the key factor balancing quality against file size.
A processor that tames harsh sibilant sounds like S and T in vocal recordings.
Sound that comes from within the scene's world.
A transition where one shot gradually blends into the next.
Avid's intermediate codec for high-quality, edit-friendly HD video, comparable in role to Apple ProRes.
Automatically lowering music when dialogue or narration plays.
The range of brightness a camera or image can capture, shadow to highlight.
Adjusting the balance of frequencies in audio to boost, cut, or shape specific tonal ranges.
A wide shot that sets the location and context before cutting closer.
The overall brightness of an image, from shadows to highlights.
Cutting from a person looking to what they see, with consistent gaze direction.
A gradual transition to or from black (or another color).
A monitoring overlay that maps exposure levels to distinct colors so you can read brightness at a glance.
Texture added to digital footage to mimic the look of film.
A refined edit with tightened timing, transitions and detail, near final.
Everyday sound effects recorded or added to match on-screen action.
How many frames are shown per second (fps), affecting motion feel.
Setting levels at each step of the audio chain so every stage runs cleanly without noise or clipping.
A control that adjusts the brightness of midtones.
The full range of colors a device or color space can actually reproduce, from its most saturated primaries inward.
A Group of Pictures: the repeating frame pattern in long-GOP codecs, made of I-, P-, and B-frames between full keyframes.
A cut linking two shots by similar shape, composition or color.
A widely used long-GOP video compression standard prized for small files, ideal for delivery and streaming, not heavy editing.
A newer codec offering roughly H.264 quality at about half the bitrate, common for 4K, HDR, and efficient streaming.
A soft reddish glow that blooms around bright highlights, a look associated with film stock.
High Dynamic Range video that carries brighter highlights and a wider range of color than standard SDR.
The safety margin between your normal audio levels and the maximum before distortion or clipping.
The brightest parts of an image.
A graph showing how many pixels fall at each brightness level, from pure black on the left to white on the right.
A fully self-contained video frame (keyframe) that holds a complete image without referencing any other frame.
Importing and copying footage into your editing system and storage.
An edit that adds a clip at the playhead and pushes all downstream clips later in time to make room.
A close detail shot cut in to highlight something specific.
Two ways video draws frames: alternating fields (i) or whole frames (p).
A split edit where the audio of the next shot starts before its picture appears.
A cut between two very similar shots that makes the subject appear to 'jump'.
A marker that sets a value at a point in time so properties can animate.
Animated text that moves and changes to convey meaning and rhythm.
A split edit where the audio of the current shot continues over the next shot's picture.
Black bars added to present footage in a wider aspect ratio.
A three-way control set that adjusts shadows (lift), midtones (gamma), and highlights (gain) independently.
A processor that hard-stops audio from exceeding a set ceiling, preventing clipping and controlling peaks.
Flat, low-contrast footage that preserves dynamic range for grading.
A camera gamma curve that records a flat, wide-latitude image to preserve maximum detail for grading.
Reviewing and labeling footage with notes, ratings and selects.
A graphic in the lower portion of the screen showing a name or title.
A standard unit for measuring perceived audio loudness.
A Look-Up Table: a preset that maps input colors to output colors for a look.
A colored flag placed on a clip or timeline to tag a specific frame for reference, navigation, or notes.
Isolating part of the frame so an effect applies only there.
A wide shot covering the whole scene from start to finish.
A cut between two shots linked by matching composition, motion, shape or subject.
A command that loads the source clip in the viewer parked on the exact frame currently under the timeline playhead.
A unit of data rate (Mbps) measuring how many millions of bits of video data are processed each second.
A high-quality intermediate master used between production and final delivery, made for re-encoding rather than direct distribution.
The tones between shadows and highlights, where skin usually sits.
Balancing all audio elements into a clear, cohesive whole.
A sequence of short shots edited to condense time, space or information.
The streaking of fast-moving objects across a frame, which makes motion read as smooth and natural rather than stuttery.
Animated graphic design — text, shapes and elements in motion.
Analyzing footage to follow the movement of a point or area so other elements can be locked to that motion.
Editing footage from several cameras of the same event, synced together.
Using a pre-existing, recognizable song in a video.
Bundling a group of timeline clips into a single container clip that you can treat and edit as one unit.
Non-Linear Editor — software that edits clips in any order, like Premiere or Resolve.
A step in a color grade, especially in DaVinci Resolve's node graph.
The constant background level of unwanted sound, like hiss or hum, beneath the actual signal.
Sound the audience hears but characters can't — like score or narration.
An edit that lays a clip onto the timeline at the playhead, replacing whatever footage it covers without changing sequence length.
Planning a cut on paper (or in a doc) before touching the timeline.
A waveform scope that displays red, green, and blue channels side by side to reveal color balance and casts.
The point where the edit is final and no more cuts will change.
The width-to-height ratio of an individual pixel; non-square pixels must be corrected to display the image undistorted.
A shaped, often tracked mask used to grade part of the frame.
Apple's family of intermediate codecs that store high-quality, lightly compressed video for fast editing and finishing.
A smaller, easier-to-edit copy of high-resolution footage.
Unprocessed camera data with maximum quality and flexibility.
A tool that cuts a clip into two separate pieces at the point you click, creating a new edit without removing media.
A shot of someone responding to what's happening.
The standard color space and gamma for HD video, defining the colors and contrast most SDR screens display.
Processing effects and edits into playable or final video frames.
The pixel dimensions of an image, such as 1080p or 4K.
Removing a clip or gap and closing the hole by sliding all following clips earlier so no empty space remains.
A trim that lengthens or shortens one clip and shifts all later clips to absorb the change, keeping the sequence tight.
A trim that moves the boundary between two adjacent clips, adding frames to one as it removes them from the other.
A skew distortion from cameras that scan the sensor line by line.
The ambient background sound of a location, used to smooth audio edits.
Manually drawing masks frame by frame to isolate a moving subject.
An early, unrefined assembly of a video that establishes structure and pacing.
How many times per second audio is measured during recording, which sets the highest frequency it can capture.
The intensity or vividness of the colors in an image.
Original or selected music written to underscore a video's emotion.
Standard Dynamic Range video, the conventional brightness and contrast range used by most everyday displays.
Targeted grading that affects only a selected region or color rather than the whole image.
A container in the timeline holding an arrangement of clips at set settings.
The darkest parts of an image.
Alternating between two subjects in a conversation.
Compression triggered by a separate audio signal, so one sound automatically ducks the level of another.
An edit that moves a clip earlier or later in the timeline while the two neighboring clips stretch to fill the gap.
An edit that changes which frames of a clip play while keeping its position and duration on the timeline fixed.
An abrupt, jarring cut between two contrasting shots or moods.
A timeline aid that makes clips and the playhead jump to align exactly with nearby edit points, markers, or boundaries.
An editing technique where audio carries across a picture cut, smoothing or linking two shots or scenes.
Creating and layering the non-musical audio that builds a scene's world.
A discrete recorded or designed sound added to picture to represent a specific action or event.
A smooth change in playback speed within a shot, like easing into slow motion.
Removing the green or blue color that bounces from a chroma key screen onto the foreground subject's edges.
An edit where audio and video cut at different points (a J-cut or L-cut).
A short, sharp sound or branded clip used to punctuate or transition.
A shorter selection saved from a longer master clip, referencing the same media but with its own in and out points.
A workflow where you set any three of four in/out points across source and timeline, and the editor calculates the fourth.
A precise time reference (HH:MM:SS:FF) used to identify and sync frames.
The workspace where clips are arranged in order to build the edit.
An inner guide region where text is guaranteed to stay visible after overscan or cropping on any screen.
Compressing a wide range of brightness into a smaller one while preserving the look of highlights and shadows.
A technique that uses one layer's luminance or alpha to define the transparency of another layer below it.
Converting video from one codec or format to another, commonly to make footage easier to edit or to meet a delivery spec.
Any way of moving from one shot to the next, from a cut to a dissolve.
Adjusting a clip's in or out point to change where it starts or ends, shortening or lengthening what plays.
The actual highest level of an audio signal between samples, measured to catch peaks that ordinary meters miss.
A single frame containing two subjects.
An encoding method that spends more bits on complex scenes and fewer on simple ones to optimize quality per file size.
A scope that displays the color (hue and saturation) of an image.
Visual effects: imagery created or altered beyond what the camera captured.
A gradual darkening (or brightening) toward the edges of the frame that draws the eye to the center.
The murmur of indistinct background crowd voices used to make a scene feel populated.
A visual representation of audio used to read and sync sound.
Adjusting colors so whites look neutral under the scene's lighting.
A shot showing the full scene or subject in its environment.
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