The video-craft encyclopedia.
Every shot, edit, audio trick, and crew role, defined in Cue's voice. Plain English. Industry-fluent.
Audio
The silence of a specific room. Always record 30 seconds. Editors patch with it forever.
Custom sound effects performed in sync with picture. Footsteps, fabric, kisses. The reason your film feels real.
A short, sharp musical hit. Punctuates moments. Used in news graphics, trailers, comedy buttons.
Automatically lowering one track when another plays. Music ducks under VO so dialogue stays legible.
Loudness Units relative to Full Scale. The standard for streaming loudness. YouTube targets -14, Spotify -14, broadcast -23.
Off-screen narration recorded in post. Documentary, ad, tutorial - all live or die here.
The actual maximum amplitude including inter-sample peaks. Keep below -1 dBTP for safe distribution.
Distance between the loudest and quietest moments. Compress it and everything sounds urgent. Preserve it and it breathes.
Equalization - boosting or cutting specific frequencies. The first move on every dialogue track.
Reduces the dynamic range so loud bits get quieter relative to soft bits. Glue, not loudness.
Targets harsh sibilance (the 's' and 'sh' frequencies). Saves bright voices from cutting through every mix.
Removes hum, hiss, or HVAC. Modern tools (Adobe Enhance, iZotope RX) work miracles. Use sparingly or voices go underwater.
Simulates the acoustic space a sound was recorded in. Match the room or break the illusion.
Automated Dialogue Replacement - re-recording lines in a studio to replace bad production audio.
Mic on a long pole, held above the actor out of frame. The cleanest dialogue source on most sets.
Tiny clip-on mic worn on a costume. Backup to the boom. Lifesaver for wide shots.
Hidden mic in the set - under a lamp, on a wall, in a bouquet. Solves boom-can't-reach problems.
Stereo technique using a forward mic and a sideways mic. Adjustable stereo width in post.
Two mics in matched positions (XY, ORTF, AB). The classic music or ambience capture.
Background sound of a location. Crickets, traffic, hum. Always record a 60-second ambience track.
Background crowd murmur. Crowded restaurants, busy offices. Often performed by foley artists.
A specific, sync-locked sound - gunshot, door slam, glass break. Pulled from libraries or recorded fresh.
Built from multiple layers. The lightsaber, the TARDIS, the Inception bwaaam.
Platform-specific LUFS goal. YouTube/Spotify -14, Netflix -27, broadcast -23/-24.