Daniel Benchimol concludes his latest video, on the town of Montmorency, a little differently than he usually does. He introduces us to Philippe, the man behind the scenes of Daniel's numerous travel videos. Philippe does it all: he films, he directs, he edits. Daniel uses some basic film terminology in his description of Philippe: 

BANNER PLACEHOLDER 

Laissez-moi vous présenter mon compagnon de tournage, Philippe,

Let me present to you my filming companion, Philippe,

qui réalise, qui monte

who directs, who edits,

et qui fait l'ensemble de ce que vous ne voyez pas.

and who does everything that you don't see.

Captions 47-48, Voyage en France - Montmorency

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Tournage comes from the verb tourner, which, as you might have guessed, means "to turn." But in movie parlance, tourner means "to film" (and le tournage means "filming" or "film shoot"). To remember this, just think of film reels turning on an old movie camera. 

We discussed the verb réaliser in a previous lesson. Among its many meanings is "to direct" a film or stage production. The related word réalisateur (masculine) or réalisatrice (feminine) means "director" or "filmmaker"—in other words, the person who "realizes" the film.

Yabla has a lesson on monter as well! Its basic meanings are "to climb" and "to put up," but monter can also mean "to edit" a film. The English word "montage" refers to a specific technique of combining short clips to form a continuous sequence, but the French le montage refers more generally to the "editing" of a film. 

Another Yabla video takes us to Concarneau in Brittany, where a film crew documented the town's rich maritime heritage. You'll find some interesting film-related words at the beginning of the video:

Moteur!

Action!

Séance de tournage sur le port de Concarneau.

Filming session on the Concarneau harbor.

En face de l'objectif, le maître du port.

In front of the camera lens, the harbormaster.

Captions 1-3, Télévision Bretagne Ouest - Concarneau: Un tournage sur la vie maritime

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Moteur usually just means "motor" or "engine," but here it means "Action!" This is actually a shortened version of the phrase silence, moteur, action! (literally, "silence, motor, action!"), the French equivalent of "lights, camera, action!" You can also say moteur, ça tourne, action! ("motor, it's filming, action!"). 

You might be wondering what a "camera lens" has to do with an "objective." If you consider that un objectif also means "an aim," the relationship might be clearer. A filmmaker or photographer aims their camera lens at their subject, so it makes sense that objectif is the word for "camera lens." 

BANNER PLACEHOLDER

Check out this lesson for some more French film words.
 
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