alexxkay: (Bar Harbor)
Alexx Kay ([personal profile] alexxkay) wrote2016-10-27 07:51 pm

Technical horror term: Forezoom

I spend a *lot* of time providing on-the-fly descriptive tracks for Kestrell. In that time, I have gotten great utility out of a technical term I picked up from Buffy scriptwriters, "Baitcam". This describes the frequently-used shot where the camera starts looking at the protagonist and/or potential victim from behind concealing foliage, usually from the middle distance, implying that something dangerous is hiding in the bushes. (There usually is, but sometimes it's just a fake-out.) This is, as you can see, complex to describe, but sufficiently quick to establish visually that it's very handy to have shorthand for it.

After the third time in a week that I found myself pausing a video to say: "They're doing that thing with the protagonist in the middle distance and suddenly an indistinct outline figure dashes across the camera in the foreground," I decided I needed a new piece of shorthand. After some thought, I decided that "Forezoom" did the job nicely, being evocative, and only rwo syllables.

Having used it successfully for a month or so, I've decided to share it with the world :)

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