Cinematic Techniques

For many people, film or video texts are a primary source of entertainment and information. This guide explains the cinematic techniques used by filmmakers to engage audiences in the audiovisual medium. 

Introduction

The history of film texts can be traced to a bet made to determine whether all four of a horse's feet leave the ground when it runs. (They do.) Since that time, the popularity of film texts has continued to increase across the globe, gaining further popularity with the rise of television in the mid-twentieth century, and exploding exponentially with the proliferation of the internet. 

In addition, the barriers to entry for creating these texts have continued to decrease: while in the past the backing of a major studio or production company was needed to produce films or television shows, these days, all that is needed to create and share videos with the world is a smartphone and an internet connection. 

Regardless of the scope or scale of a film text, however, the techniques used by creators to communicate meaning remain the same. 

By learning these techniques, we can better analyse and interpret the texts we come across in the classroom. And, given the low barrier for entry, we can also make our own creative film projects to engage audiences in interesting ways. 

Note that while the techniques described in this guide are unique to the medium of filmmaking, they rely intrinsically on the visual techniques that have been developed by artists since the first human used clay to depict an image on a stone wall. If you have not already read the visual techniques guide, it is worth doing so before you begin here. 

You can move through the entries in this guide sequentially or navigate using the menu.

Let's get started. 

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Editing