Keywords:  Backwind   |   Balance Stripe   |   Barndoors   |   Barney   |   Base   |   Bayonet   |  
Best Light   |   Bin   |   Black Leader   |   Blow Up   |   Blow Down   |   Blimp   |    Blimped Camera
 or Self-Blimped Camera   |   Bolex   |   Bounce Card   |   Bracketing   |   B-Wind

Backwind - Rewinding film in the camera to shoot a Double Exposure.

Balance Stripe - A second stripe found on 35mm stripe mag stock and super-8 sound film to prevent warping.

Barndoors - Handy blinders on the sides of lights that can be used to keep light from going everywhere. They can also be used to clip on a lighting gel. They get very hot when a light is on, so it is best to wear work gloves when adjusting them.

Barney - A quilted cozy that fits around a camera to reduce camera noise. Generally it is only effective on a camera that is pretty quiet to begin with. The term comes from barney blanket, a kind of horse blanket.

Base - Film has two basic elements: The base is the clear, perforated strip, and the emulsion is the thin, light-sensitive layer that is glued onto it.

Bayonet - A type of lens mount commonly used with heavier lenses, such as zoom lenses. In contrast to screw-mount lenses, bayonet lenses are attached to the camera with a locking mechanism. Bayonet lenses can typically be changed much faster than screw-mount lenses.

Best Light - Similar to a One Light, but by implication, the timer has gone through the film more thoroughly in selecting a timing light that will agree with the majority of the footage.

Bin - see Trim Bin.

Black Leader or Black Emulsion Leader - Black leader is black, opaque film, often specifially called black emulsion leader. It is what the negative cutter uses when preparing A&B rolls. It is very important that it be emulsion leader rather than plastic leader when used for A&B rolls, since plastic leader cannot be cement spliced. It also must be very opaque, not any black piece of film will do.

Blow Up - An optical enlargement of a film from one gauge to another, such as 16mm up to 35mm. The opposite of a blow up is a Reduction Print.

Blow Down - The actual term for the opposite of a blow up is a Reduction Print, but this term has been coined by Colorlab in Rockville, Maryland, for a reduction print made from super 16mm to regular 16mm, as an alternative to the much more expensive process of blowing up super 16mm to 35mm.

Blimp - A fiberglass housing used to encase a noisy camera to make it suitable for sync sound filming.

Blimped Camera or Self-Blimped Camera - The term is used not to mean a camera in a blimp, but a camera that is designed with internal soundproofing without the need for an external blimp. For instance, with an Arri BL the “BL” stands for “blimped.”

Bolex - One of the more widely used 16mm non-sync cameras, it is made in Switzerland by the Paillard Company. There are many varieties, non-reflex, reflex, springwound and electric motor driven. But when someone says “Bolex,” typically they mean a reflex, springwound model, such as the Rex-4.

Bounce Card - A white or silver card used for soft indirect lighting of the subject by bouncing light off the card. Can also be used to provide a gentle brightening of shadow areas. Especially out-of-doors as it does not require power.

Bracketing - The filming of several takes of the same shot at different f-stops to achieve the desired result. Usually this technique is applied to shooting titles much more than anything else. (It is a good idea to film a few frames of black in-between, since it is sometimes difficult to tell where the camera was stopped.)