AVID
A brand of computer film-editing software. Footage is scanned into the system and editing can take place on screen. It's quicker than physically cutting film together and also better because you can experiment endlessly without fear of damaging your film stock. Systems such as AVID began becoming popular in film studios in the early 90s and are now the norm for movie editing.
Best Boy
Once a chief assistant to the gaffer, this is now someone who may be that but could equally be second in command of any set of people. Women can be best boys too; there's no 'best girl' term.
Camera position (aka set-up)
Films are sometimes shot with just one camera even though a scene may have many different viewpoints. This means the camera has to be physically moved for each shot, which may also require changes to the lighting, the sets, etc. Sometimes called a set up.
Call Sheet
There is a call sheet - actually often several sheets bound together - for every morning during the filming of a movie. It lists what scenes are to be shot (and therefore which sets must be ready or which locations found!) and who is required for the day. Not just who, but when: the actors's section of the call sheet lists the time they are required in make up and then the time required on set.
Editing
Taking the raw film footage and producing a coherent sequence out of it. Physically it's necessary just to get the different takes together but artistically the editing has the power to alter how a film works. The standard example is of a film consisting of three shots: a shot of a man walking, a shot of a banana skin on the ground, and a shot of the man falling over. Edit the film in that sequence - walk, banana, fall - and the audience anticipates the fall. Do it as man walking, man falling down and then the banana, you've changed the scene to one of surprise.
Gaffer
Head electrician with particular responsibility for lighting. The term is actually a corruption of the word 'grandfather' and is a term of respect.
Grip
In the UK grips handle the moving and some setup of the camera equipment, especially any particular mountings for the camera. In the US the term means someone who does that but also lays dolly tracks and generally handles a production's extensive equipment on set.
Insert
A simple, quick shot of something not important enough to tie up the main crew. If someone is reading a letter in a film, for instance, the shot of them reading will be done by the director but the shot showing us the text of the letter will be an insert.
Looping
Also known as dubbing, re-recording, and even Automatic Dialogue Replacement (ADR), this is when an actor is recalled after shooting to re-record his or her voice. It is extremely common. Dialogue is always recorded on set but is rarely useable because it is obscured or otherwise affected by extraneous noise. The actor doing the looping stands in a sound studio watching a scene of theirs projected onto a screen. The actor repeats the dialogue and must also match the way it was recorded at the time. It's not enough to be clearer, the new dialogue has to match exactly the lip movements and it takes time to get it right. The scene being re-recorded will be shown again and again, continuously looping around - hence the term.
Post-production
Also known as just 'post' - though pre-production is never 'pre' - this is every stage from when the shooting is finished to when the film opens, including editing, looping, music scoring and recording, re-shoots, sound editing, and a thousand other tasks.
Safe Area
Two definitions for this, one for during production and one after. During filming, the lens of a camera will capture more than you later see in the cinema: it has a broader lens than the final frame size. To make sure that what you need to see will be seen, lenses may be marked with a 'Safe Area': anything within it can be guaranteed to be screened in normal cinemas.
There's also a safe area when you're talking about the widescreen showing of films. As widescreen varies a little and films may also be shown in TV's truncated square shape, captions or credits can be arranged to fall within a safe area that means they can be seen on both.
Second Unit / Second Unit Director
While the director and actors film their scenes, there are bound to be many times when neither are really necessary: if a film needs to show a car being driven by, for instance. Early on in the preparation of the shooting schedule, a plan will be worked out whereby this kind of simple work can be passed to the second unit and its director.
