How to read this: terms are grouped into nine areas — editing, shot size & angle, camera movement, composition, lighting, color, sound, narrative, and psychology. Each entry gives a one-line meaning and when to use it. Not exhaustive — only the terms that actually come up when you dissect footage, write a script, or talk to an editor.
一、剪輯與轉場：先搞懂 J-Cut 和 L-Cut
Short video is 99% hard cuts, but which frame you cut on is the difference between smooth and clumsy. The first thing worth mastering here is the split edit — where sound and picture do not cut on the same frame — namely the J-cut and the L-cut.
| Term | What it is | When to use it |
|---|
| J-cut (audio leads) | The next shot’s audio comes in before its picture | To smooth a transition or foreshadow the next scene with sound |
| L-cut (audio trails) | The picture has cut away but the previous shot’s audio keeps playing | Cut to the listener’s reaction while the speaker is still talking |
| Match Cut | Hard-cut two shots that share a shape, composition, or motion | Time/space jumps, wardrobe swaps, transformations |
| Match on Action | Cut mid-action, at the peak of a gesture | The brain fills in continuity; the cut goes unnoticed |
| Jump Cut | Same framing, a jump forward in time | Compress a process, add pace, create unease |
| Freeze Frame | The image holds on a single frame | Comedic endings; nail the funniest/strongest frame as a memory hook |
| Speed Ramping | Sudden speed change within one shot | "Fast-slow-fast" punch; slow-mo to enlarge a payoff |
| Reaction Shot | Shoot the person absorbing the emotion, not the event | Cheapest empathy device — a face tells viewers how to feel |
Mnemonic: J = audio arrives early (hook to the left), L = audio lingers (foot extends right) — the names are literally the shape the exposed audio block makes on the editing timeline. A J-cut is also called a "sound bridge," the most common trick for smoothing a hard cut.
二、景別與機位：拍多近、從哪個高度拍
Shot size is how close; angle is from what height. Short video loves skipping the middle sizes for impact, and uses low/high angles to encode who holds power.
| Term | What it is | When to use it |
|---|
| Shot sizes (wide → ECU) | Six distances from "see the room" to "see the eyes" | No two adjacent shots share a size; the pre-payoff shot is one size wider |
| Size Jump | Cut straight from wide to extreme close-up, skipping medium | For impact; the middle sizes are the enemy of pace |
| Low Angle | Shooting upward at the subject | Power, dominance, heroism (the boss enters) |
| High Angle | Shooting downward at the subject | Smallness/scrutiny; a CCTV top-down is a public-humiliation gag |
| Dutch Angle | The camera is deliberately tilted | Imbalance, danger, disorientation |
| POV | The lens is the character’s eyes | Immersion; disguises a staged clip as a candid grab |
| Foreshortening | An object facing the lens looks compressed | Fist/muzzle at the lens — aggression, puts you in the victim’s seat |
三、運鏡：機位怎麼動
Whether and how the camera moves. One counterintuitive rule: with AI or low-budget shoots, lock the camera and let the subject move toward it or objects shift — it is steadier and hides flaws better than actual moves.
| Term | What it is | When to use it |
|---|
| Dolly In / Out | The camera physically moves in / out | Push = focus/pressure; pull = reveal, detach, isolate |
| Pan / Tilt | Camera stays put; head turns horizontally / vertically | A tilt-up does the "peel the layers" full-body reveal |
| Zoom | Change focal length without moving (compresses space, not a dolly) | When you want to get closer fast without moving the rig |
| Whip Pan | A very fast pan with motion blur | Stitch two distant spaces; use as a transition |
| Dolly Zoom | Dolly one way, zoom the other — subject stays, background warps | Vertigo, dawning realization, the world tilting (the Hitchcock effect) |
| Arc / Orbit | The camera circles the subject | Orbit with the subject’s spin to amplify speed |
| Gimbal / Handheld | Smooth and steady / deliberately shaky | Steady = polish; shake = documentary feel, and it hides AI flicker |
四、構圖：畫面裡東西怎麼擺
| Term | What it is | When to use it |
|---|
| Rule of Thirds | Place the subject on a thirds intersection | A more pleasing default than dead center |
| Leading Lines | Lines that steer the eye to the subject | Long objects (a gun, a road, a rail) are ready-made rails for the eye |
| Framing | Use a door/window/car window as a frame within the frame | Imply the character is trapped or watched |
| Negative Space | Empty space around the subject | Loneliness, breathing room, tension |
| Depth of Field | How much of the depth stays sharp | Shallow locks the subject and hides AI artifacts; deep enables fore/back dual storylines |
| 180-Degree Rule | Keep the camera on one side of the action line | Do not cross the line, or viewers lose their spatial bearings |
| UI-safe framing | Keep faces/hands clear of the like, comment, and progress-bar zones | So the platform overlay does not cover the face on a vertical feed |
五、光影：光怎麼打
| Term | What it is | When to use it |
|---|
| High-key / Low-key | Bright with few shadows / heavy shadow, high contrast | High-key = light/healing; low-key = suspense, drama, premium |
| Three-point Lighting | Key + fill + back/rim light | The baseline setup for portraits and talking-head |
| Rim / Backlight | Light from behind creates a gold edge or silhouette | Elevate an ordinary person into an icon |
| Chiaroscuro | Strong light/dark contrast to model volume (from painting) | Bind to power, crisis, political darkness |
| Practical Light | A real in-frame source (lamp, neon, phone screen) | Use as a state tag — cold screen = illicit, warm lamp = safe |
| Golden / Blue Hour | Warm gold before sunset / cool blue after | A free filter for healing, beautiful footage |
六、色彩：用顏色敘事
| Term | What it is | When to use it |
|---|
| Color Temperature | Warm (orange) vs. cool (blue) | The mood engine, and a way to zone the story (warm = memory, cool = now) |
| Complementary Colors | Two opposite colors side by side (teal & orange) | To pop the subject, give the background its complement |
| Single Saturated Anchor | A desaturated base with one saturated accent | Lock the focal point (the red scarf in the snow) |
| Color Grading / LUT | Unify the look in post | A unified high-contrast grade makes mixed-source edits feel seamless |
七、聲音：耳朵完成眼睛做不到的事
| Term | What it is | When to use it |
|---|
| Diegetic / Non-diegetic | Sound characters can hear / cannot (music, narration) | Blending or offsetting them reads as sophisticated |
| Foley | Everyday sound effects rebuilt in post | Sound is the anchor of realism — the faker the image, the realer the Foley must be |
| Sound Bridge | Carry sound across a cut to link two scenes (a J-cut) | To smooth a hard cut |
| Asynchronous Sound | Subtitles/lines and the audio deliberately say different things | Trade the viewer’s inference for information density |
| Audio Cut | Kill music and ambience right before the payoff | The loudest beat is the one where you remove the music |
| Beat Matching | Land action accents on the beat or the lyric syllable | Hitting the freeze frame of a move feels best |
八、敘事結構：怎麼講、怎麼留懸念
| Term | What it is | When to use it |
|---|
| Hook | The unresolved gap in the first 0–3s that keeps people watching | The first three seconds decide completion |
| MacGuffin | A goal object that drives the plot but barely matters and is never explained | Sustain suspense to hold completion |
| Chekhov’s Gun / Setup-Payoff | An element shown early must pay off later | Plant foreshadowing; build the foundation for a twist |
| Dramatic Irony | The audience knows the truth before the character does | Creates "I know, he doesn’t" tension and tears |
| Cold Open / In Medias Res | Cut the setup; open on conflict or the result | Drop the viewer mid-scene, backfill later |
| Zeigarnik Effect | Unfinished things are remembered better | End on the brink of the payoff to convert completion into a follow |
| Breaking the Fourth Wall | A character looks at or talks to the lens | Open to hold viewers; close to make them "jurors" and fire up comments |
| Kuleshov Effect | The same face next to different shots reads as different emotions | Explains why reaction shots and indirect characterization work |
九、心理與傳播機制：為什麼有效
| Term | What it is | When to use it |
|---|
| Uncanny Valley | The unease when something is almost-but-not-quite human | AI clips dodge it with non-human characters, cuteness, micro-expressions |
| Supernormal Stimulus | Push a signal past its natural extreme | Trim a dog into a perfect circle to trigger the cuteness instinct |
| Barnum Effect | Vague, universal statements everyone reads as personal | "Are you waiting on a message lately?" |
| Loss Aversion | Fear of losing outweighs desire to gain | "Skip this and stay poor" beats "grab this and get rich" for engagement |
| Social Proof | Let other people’s reactions, queues, crowds vouch for you | More credible than praising yourself |
| Von Restorff (Isolation) Effect | The odd one out in a uniform set is remembered most | One red in the cool palette; one cute thing amid the serious |
