September 17, 2004. A prototype of the Film Language Glossary, for use by students making and studying motion pictures, was released earlier this week. Specifically, the focus will be on defining film terms and film language, which are representative of all the major categories of Film Studies: practical terminology, technical terminology, the language of business, historical terms, and the language of criticism and theory. Each glossary term is illustrated by film clips, images, and animations.

The Film Language Glossary prototype will be used this fall in Richard Peña's Introduction to Film Studies course, a graduate class with an enrollment of 70 students. The prototype consists of 18 terms and 30 film clips. Eleven of the film clips include a commentary track narrated by Peña. Access is currently restricted to the Columbia network. Instructors interested in using, or contributing to, this reference tool should send email to ccnmtl@columbia.edu.

Film Language Glossary