Glossary of Terms

You’re going to see a lot of terms, funny words, acronyms, and abbreviations in this Almanac and in your life working with tech things.

In a field where most of us are on the spectrum; this is a place to really shine. 

“Make sure the FPS is set to 23.9, and check with your ISP to make sure the TX/RX is squared with at least 20 Mb/s so it can do the 264 encode and stream from the BTS. Also, is that a dual-nic nuc?”

“It’s baked so we don’t have to cook it, but man am I toasted”

“When you take the Boxx out of the box, please make sure to install Box and add a box to get SDI to the OLED - like the same way you installed it on the other boxes.”

If it’s not in here, don’t despair. Leave a comment and I’ll add it into this section. 

Most software names’ acronyms and abrevs can be found in sections on specific software

≈	Represents "approximately equal to" – closer to the real number than "~"
~	Represents "similar / approximately" – rougher approximation than "≈"
264	Short for "h.264" which is a codec / compression type
709	Short for REC709 which is a standard color-space that color nerds like to talk about (and is a good space to work in)
86	Restaurant industry for "cut." There is a lot of crossover with folks in this industry, so you'll see this lingo occasionally. As in "the french fries are 86'd" - there aren't any left or it's been cut from the menu
AC	Assistant camera, or air conditioner, or alternating current
AD	Assistant director. Generally speaking, this is a management position, not a creative position. The First AD is kind of like your angry Dad that you want/need to seek approval from. They run the show. Listen to them. Be nice. Anecdotally, they have the lowest life expectancy out of all folks on film sets. These are the risks of a high-stress job
ADL	Adobe dynamic link. This is a method of software inter-exchange where you can embed a project from one piece of software and view a compiled version of it "live" in another piece of host software. Mostly limited to the Adobe ecosystem.   Not to be confused with EDL, which is a much more limited, much more boring, related thing
ASL	Age / Sex / Location or American Sign Language
Abrev	... Abbreviation 🤦‍♀️
AEPR	Combination shorthand for anything that includes these commonly put together file types (After Effects, Premiere), like a folder of working files
APR	"Apple Pro Res" - an often used family of codecs that include 422 / 4444 and all their suffixed options (eg, LT, XG, HQ, Proxy, etc)
AR	Augmented reality
AU	Audio or audio dept, also a plug-in type for some audio programs (eg, AU Bandpass)
BA	Like PAs but more likely to be aspiring actors. More often than not, BAs can be helpful and keep you protected from the wrath of guests and visitors. Meaning: Brand Ambassador
Baking	Or bake or baked. Referring to locking processed visual graphics into a render (ie, let's bake the text into this video so that we don't have to cook it). Not to be confused with cooking 😵‍💫. Baked also means: pretty high
Behind	The perfect crossover term from the film industry and the hospitality industry. It means "just so you know I'm behind you so be careful please." It's kind of like a verbal version of the bike bell. Understood? Chef!
BMD	Blackmagic Design

Borked

Broken, full of Gremlins, etc. 

C47

 

Grip talk for "clothespin" - the lore, according to a fantastic Chicago PA I worked with (Colin Parker!), is that producers were seeing clothespins in budgets and were concerned about the price of them.

 

When the name was changed to C47, people stopped asking because they didn't know what it meant!

 

CAD

 

Computer Aided Design. This generally refers to the genre of architectural and engineering software; like AutoCAD, Vectorworks, Rhino, etc. Although, it's confusing because technically… all software is computer-aided

 

Chaos Mode

 

When something goes incredibly wrong – if you're not careful, going Rock & Roll can become Chaos Mode

 

Cheese

 

Cheeseborough - a piece of rigging hardware that lets you mount a pipe to a pipe. It can also be used as shorthand for cheese plate which is a different rigging thing in the camera world. Neither is cheese, but a cheese plate looks kind of like cheese

 

Comparator

 

Probably not the OG source: an "actor" from Isadora that triggers or gates based on simple logic. I use this to teach logic and it's good shorthand to describe "If than" statements in a more interesting way

 

Coms

 

Meaning communication(s) but most often referring to RF communication devices. Walkies. Here are some terms to remember: "How's the weather?" Response "All Clear" means no one is listening. Response "A little cloudy" (and other creative language opportunities) means someone is listening (eg clients)

 

Concat

 

Short for concatenate, which means putting things together in a series (ie, concat "1" + "2" will give you "12', not "3")

 

Copy

 

"affirmative," or text, or a duplicate. Can you copy that copy? Copy that, standby

 

Cooking

 

or cook or cooked. Referring to something processing (ie touchdesigner is cooking the generative graphics and that's slowing down the frame rate). Not to be confused with baking! Cooked also means: busted or broken, as in "this cable is cooked."

 

D

 

Depth (as in H x W x D)

 

DA

 

Generic term for a digital to analog thing. Sometimes a DAC, which adds the word "converter." Can also mean a certain Sam Waterson in Dick Wolf productions

 

DC

 

Direct current or diet coke or a city I don't love spending time in

 

DFD

 

Google Drive For Desktop

 

D.I.T.

 

Digital Imaging Technician - a film production position for someone who manages media and often does on-set color

 

Do It Dirty

 

This is when you go rogue to get something done. Some good examples of this are - throwing project files or assets on the desktop, or having a workspace that's a dumping ground rather than organized, or intentionally voiding a warranty in order to meet a requirement. This is also called Rock & Roll or Cowboy

 

Doom Scroll

 

Scrolling forever through some media platform. Typically following some kind of eco/social/political disaster, but is also used to describe getting sucked into a feed and turning into a phone zombie

 

Doom Spiral

 

Getting stuck in the sadness. For example: when you're unemployed or don't have a ton of active projects and you start reconsidering your entire life's direction, then fall into an acute depression. A Doom Scroll can you lead you into a Doom Spiral if you're not careful

 

DP

 

Director of photography or Displayport

 

Dutch

 

As in "Dutch Tilt" - a famous crooked camera angle often used in Horror cinema. Used generally to describe that something is crooked or off-axis

 

Ecosystem

 

Referring to a genre related to and including a product line. Kind of like the Marvel Universe, but specifically something like "the thunderbolt ecosystem," which refers to anything that supports Thunderbolt

 

EDL

 

Edit Decision List - a very annoying and easy method of exchanging edit files between non-friendly NLEs and other post programs like Premiere and Resolve, for example

 

Fanless

 

A fanless piece of gear is gear without fans; but something without fans might need external cooling. Fanless things should have a high heat threshold, so always check the spec. Fanless NUCs, for example, are often engineered with heat dispersion elements, like heat-syncs. Fanless doesn't necessarily mean "good."

 

FPO

 

For Placement Only. Usually a video, image, text, or graphic that is used as a placeholder. An FPO is typically "to-spec", meaning the right resolution, the right color, probably the right font. A proxy can be used as FPO. A WiP can be used as FPO. An FPO is never used as a final delivered asset and some folks put some kind of watermark on the FPO to define it as such. If you see FPO in a final render, somebody made a boo-boo

 

FPS

 

Frames Per Second. Common examples are "drop frame" 23.976 / 29.97 / 59.94 and their whole number cousins 24 / 30 / 60. 23.976 is perhaps the most used frame rate and it is also called 23.9 or 23.98 or "progressive." Also "first person shooter" which is a video game genre started by Wolfenstein in the late 80s (I think? or maybe OG Doom?)

 

 

Garbage In, Garbage Out

 

A universally true term that means the problem is at the source, not in how the source is interpreted. Really shaky footage that's unusable even with stabilization? Garbage In, Garbage Out. Frame flicker in composited rendered media before it's authored for projection? Garbage In, Garbage Out

 

Gatekeeping

 

The act of safeguarding access to resources and people. As in, I'm gatekeeping my development team from my creative team

 

G-O

 

Gee-Oh: safe word version of "go" that is used over coms to prevent accidental triggering of a cue or action

 

Golden Handcuffs

 

When a job pays you so well that you have to stay there, regardless of how you feel about that job. Generally, when someone says this about their gig, it means they probably don't like it

 

Gotcha

 

A "gotcha" is the "and" or the "but" of a specific software, gear, process, or methodology. A gotcha for biking to work is that you're surrounded by e-bike ding-dongs who prove that cheating might get you there faster, but you won't learn anything. A gotcha for going to the Home Depot in Bed-Stuy is that it's a dice roll to ask the staff any real questions. They might recommend that you build a window sill out of MDF. Proceed at your own risk!

 

GPU

 

Can't believe I don't actually know what this stands for but it's Graphic-something-something. Graphic processing unit? Sure, that sounds right; it means the graphics card. Some examples are: AMD - a manufacturer of cards / boards, Integrated - this isn't really a GPU, it's a way for the logicboard to process video without a GPU, NVIDIA - a manufacturer of cards / boards, RTX A Cards - commonly used in media servers, P Cards - their still pretty good ancestors

 

Gremlins

As in "Render Gremlins" or "EDID Gremlins" – a problem that is difficult to diagnose and is potentially fixable, but perhaps not. The etymology of this isn't from the 1984 horror comedy film, but rather a term the Royal Air Force (UK) used starting in the 1920s to describe "an imaginary mischievous sprite regarded as responsible for an unexplained problem or fault, especially a mechanical or electronic one"

 

H

 

Height (as in H x W)

 

HDBaseT

 

A protocol that allows you to send video signal over network cable, usually cat cable, and usually limited to a max of 100-120 meters

 

Hell Loop

 

A process that one gets stuck in as a result of bad bureaucracy. Getting handed from department to department, or company to company, or person to person in order to solve something. Happens with tech support a lot, but is common with car rentals, too

 

HFS

 

Hierarchical File System or Holy F***ing Sh**

 

HMU

 

Hair & Make Up department for film/tv/photo or Hit Me Up

 

I/O

 

In 'n' Out: literally the data or signal in and out on a device (ie, the camera's I/O is USB-C and HDMi). Can also mean on and off or the in and out points within a video clip. 

 

IFB

 

"Interruptible Foldback" - I don't know what that means, but this is a personal wireless audio device that receives the live audio feed on-set and you can plug in a pair of headphones to the device. It's also called Comtek which is a brand that makes them

 

ISP

 

Internet Service Provider (eg Earthlink, AOL, NetZero, Roadrunner, Comcast, Optimum, etc)

 

IT

 

Information Technology, usually referring to the IT department, who traditionally manage network, printing, and company hardware

 

iX

 

An abbreviation that I use for "interactive" that's hasn't really caught on, but I'm trying my best

 

KTN

 

Known Traveler Number for TSA pre-check

 

LAN

 

Local Area Network

 

LAN Cable

 

A network cable, nearly exclusively RJ45

 

Lx

 

Lighting or lighting dept

 

LCD

 

Liquid crystal display

 

LED

 

Light emitting device

 

MIB

Good guys dress in black, remember that. 

 

MDF

 

Medium Density Fiber board. Used as a wood alternative because it's cheap. Don't get it wet because it expands and warps really easily

 

MDP

 

Mini-display-port

 

MVP

 

Most Valuable Player, or very different and confusing: Minimum Viable Product. One can be both, but that is often not the case.

 

MP

 

Market Price. Used for things like seafood and to describe someone's rate in a standardized role

 

NAS

 

Network Attached Storage or a recording artist who was once married to Kelis

 

NIC

 

Network Interface Card

 

NFG

 

Non-functioning-gear or as a Mr. David Ogle taught me: no-fucking-good

 

NLE

 

Non-linear Editors like Final Cut Pro, Premiere, and Resolve

 

NUC

 

Next Unit of Computing. This is a term referring to a tiny Windows/Linux computer. Think of a variety of Mac Minis with tons of different features. Can recommend SimplyNuc as a vendor

 

NUG

 

As in "nugget of information," or a small but functional measurement of marijuana, usually enough for a bowl but not always enough for a joint

 

OG

 

Original

 

On The Budge

 

Putting something on the budget, as in "Let's throw those Kit-Kats on the Budge" or "Dinner tonight is on the budge!"

 

Op

 

"Awp" short for operator (or original poster in web lingo "oh-pee")

 

OS

 

Operating System - like Linux or Ubuntu or Windows OS or Mac OS or Palm OS

 

OT or O/T

 

Overtime

 

P-Touch

 

Gold standard of label makers iMHO

 

P2P

 

Peer to peer file sharing, like KazAa or Limewire

 

PA

 

Production Assistant: Closer in meaning to apprentice than, say, interns or BAs. As in, Luke was Old Ben's PA

 

Phonetic Alphabet

 

When you use whole words to spell something out to someone, you are using a phonetic alphabet. Alpha Bravo Charlie, etc. There is a standard alphabet but I always forget it.. It is useful to know the actual phonetic alphabet when on with tech support, making orders, on internal Coms, and in situations where audio quality is bad. Here's my version, which is probably pretty close to an "official" version:

 

Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta  Echo Foxtrot Giant Henry Instant

Johnathon Kilo Lima Mary Nancy Orange Peter Quincy Relay

Soft Tango Uniform Victor Whiskey X-Ray Yellow Zebra

One of my favorites things to say to someone is "B as in Bavid"

 

Phygital

 

An annoying marketing term that's used to describe experiences that blend digital and physical.

 

To me (Cam), this is annoying, kind of like engineering a fake neighborhood name when gentrifying a neighborhood (IE, the "Crow Hill" section of Crown Heights)

 

POS

 

"Point of Sale" or "Piece of Shit"

 

Plane Crash Document

 

Contingency plan if all key personnel die in the same plane crash. Dark, but real! Also, it's great practice to track your projects this way, The document usually contains all project SOPs, and where to find all the media, all the project files, and all the project tracking. Also called "hit by a bus" contingency

 

PRJ or PROJ

 

Projector, or sometimes, Project

 

QA

 

Quality Assurance

 

QC

 

Quality Control

 

R/W

 

Read / Write. This is often connected to disk or network speeds. Some related additional nomenclature measures R/W speeds.

 

These are case sensitive. B=Bytes, b=bits.

 

For example:

MB/s - Megabytes per second, Mb/s - Megabits per secon 

KB/s - Kilobytes per second, Kb/s - Kilobits per second 

 

You can figure out the rest. (sometimes the slash is a "p" e.g. Mbps)

 

R&B

 

Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross, a little Anita: we'll definitely set this party off right

 

R&D

 

Research & Development

 

RJ11

 

A cable end type used for telephone runs - sometimes used with sensors that require very low voltage (AVTech's sensors are all RJ11!). For the post-9/11 generation: it looks like an internet cable but smaller. It's more accurate to refer to these as "6P2C" because RJ11 is generically used for all phone-sized RJs. RJ means "Registered Jack" and "11" isn't for the number of pins, but rather that this is the 11th Registered Jack type. 

 

See the image below to see the jack that started it all : the RJA1X. Technically this is an RJA1X to RJ11 adapter. 

 

RJ45

 

A cable end type used for Cat-5, Cat-5e, Cat-6, Cat-6A, Cat-7. Mostly used for network things, but also used for things like HDBaseT or used in a sneaky way to wire micro controllers (thanks DAVE TENNENT). 8 high-gauge cables in one!

 

ROM

 

"Rough Order of Magnitude" for the approximate range of a budget or "Read-Only Memory" for a CD-ROM

 

RRR

 

"Red Right Returning" - This is a mnemonic you can use when you're driving a boat with a motor and you need to follow channel markers: when Returning back to port, you want to keep the Red markers on your Right!

 

RSG+

 

"Red Stripe Gold Plus" - This is a mnemonic that I use to remember how to identify audio cables. Audio cables come in pairs of LEFT and RIGHT. If an audio cable is Red, or it has a Stripe on it (and the other cable is blank), or the cable is Gold technically Copper (and the other cable is silver), or it has a Plus sign: it is the RIGHT channel. It sounds like the Jamaican beer Red Stripe started making cigarettes and these are the 100s. By default, the opposite of each RSG+ is LEFT. "Black Blank Silver Minus" doesn't have the same ring to it

 

RTFM

 

"Read the fuckin' manual" – think I learned this one from my Dad

 

SFX

 

Sound effects or, a different thing: special effects. You can usually tell the difference by context

 

Shore

 

As in shore power. Shore power is hard-line power from standard electrics (not PoE)

 

Snips

 

Usually refers to tiny scissors used to clip little cables, but can also mean any type of scissors

 

Standby

 

Meaning: hold on, I'll get that to you shortly. Or, on-standby, when you're on the maybe list to get on a flight

 

Squared

 

Can mean 10' squared, meaning 10x10'. It can also mean the same. When speed is squared it means that it's the same on the TX and RX

 

Tie Line

 

Or Trick Line, is usually an ⅛" diameter black rope cut to size to help secure cabling to things, or curtains to pipes, or to stretch a projection screen. The standard cut is about 18" or the length of a loop from your thumb to the back of your elbow and returning to your thumb. Comes waxed or non-waxed

 

Toasted

 

Really really tired, or high, or wasted

 

Toasty

 

Like toasted, but can also mean someone's acting really aggressive or fresh, as in "Cam's really toasty this morning because he had to give the vendor the schedule for the fifth time"

 

Tour Rules

 

Only #1 on the bus

 

Triage

 

When you can't execute all notes for a list of tasks, prioritize the must-haves against the nice-to-haves. You have now triaged your to-do list! In general, I don't like using war and/or medical terms applied to creative work, but this one is tough language to replace. 

 

As in "We need to triage this scope to reach MVP"

 

TX/RX

 

Transmit(ter) / Receive(r). This is usually used to refer to conversion boxes or wireless data devices. This is also sometimes used to measure upload / download speed (eg "up" and "down"). In some cases interchangeable with R/W

 

Vanilla

 

A word to describe the base version of something (like Ice Cream). A Vanilla Macbook Pro could mean: the basic RAM/CPU/SSD build, or that it still is in default settings (or both)

 

V-Mount

 

A type of battery mount, mostly for cinema cameras and lights

 

VFX

 

Visual Effects

 

W

 

Width (as in H x W)

 

Walking

 

Coms for "traveling" - as in, the talent is walking

 

WAP

 

Wireless Access Point, but also something else that I don't feel comfortable putting in here

 

Whip

 

As in "my main whip" - typically used to refer to someone's primary automobile, but also used to describe their main camera or computer

 

WiP

 

Work-In-Progress. The "i" doesn't need to be lower case, that's just how I like to do it

 

www

 

Means 'World Wide Web' but is mostly used to describe an external (not local) network-based process. Frequently referred to as dub-dub-dub. As in: "Is it on dub-dub-dub?" "Yes, you can access it from anywhere."

 

WYSIWYG

 

Acronym for 'What You See Is What You Get' – pronounced "whizzy whig." It's often a term used to describe visual editors vs. code based editors. Website builders like Wix and Squarespace have WYSIWYG tools

 

XFer

 

Means "Transfer"

 

Zhuzh

 

To slightly adjust something, as in "we'll zhuzh the projector color settings to taste." This is a very powerful word that can be useful in negotiating revisions with creative executives and clients, as in "don't worry about it, we'll zhuzh it" or "it just needs a little zhuzh"