Dailies: The first positive prints made by the laboratory from the negative photographed on the previous day. It also now refers to video which is transferred from that original negative. (Laboratory)

Dance Floor: A floor built of 3/4 inch plywood which is usually covered with masonite to provide a smooth surface for free-form dollying. (Grip)

DAT (Digital Audio Tape): Two-channel digital audio has become increasingly common as a professional master reference and for use in field recording. (Sound)

DAW (Digital Audio Workstation): A computer-based recording and editing machine used for manipulating sounds. (Sound)

Day Out of Days: A form designating the workdays for various cast or crewmembers of a given production.

Deal Memo: A form which lists the pertinent details of salary, guaranteed conditions, and other essentials of a work agreement negotiated between a member of the cast or crew and a production company.

Decoder: The device which reads the enclosed signal or pulse and turns it into some form of usable information.

Deep Focus: A style of cinematography and staging that uses relatively wide angle lenses and small lens apertures by maintaining objects in the extreme background and foreground simultaneously focused. (Cinematography)

Dead spot: A place in which a sound waves are canceled by reflections arriving out of phase with the wanted signal thus creating an area of silence or poor audibility. (Acoustics)

Dead Sync: An editorial term meaning that sound and picture elements are perfectly aligned. (Film Editing)

Degausser: A device used to erase recordings on magnetic tapes and films or to demagnetize magnetic recording heads.

Density: A factor which indicates the light-stopping power of a photographic image.

Depth of Field: The amount of space within lens view which will maintain acceptable focus at given settings (i.e. camera speed, film speed, lens aperture). (Cinematography)

Developing: The chemical process which converts a photographic exposure into a visible image. (Laboratory)

Deuce: A 2K fresnel lighting unit. (Lighting)

DGA: Director's Guild of America. A union which represents directors, assistant directors, production managers, and various video personnel.

Dialogue track: A sound track which carries lip sync speech. (Sound)

Differential Rewind: A device designed to permit simultaneous winding of film on more than one reel at a time even though the diameters of the rolls are unequal. (Film Editing)

Digital: A reference to a system whereby a continuously variable analog signal is reduced and encoded into discrete binary bits that establish a mathematical model of an original signal or other information.

Digital Recording: A method of recording in which samples of the original analog signal are encoded on tape or disk as binary information for storage or processing. The signal can then be copied repeatedly with no degradation. (Sound)

Dimmer: A device for varying power to the lights. (Lighting)

Dingle: Branches which are placed in front of a light as a cookie would to cut the light and provide a shadow pattern. (Grip/Lighting)

Dissolve: A transition between two scenes where the first merges imperceptibly into the second. (Film/Video)

Distortion: A modification of the original signal appearing in the output of audio equipment which had not been present in the input. (Audio)

Directional Characteristic: The variation in response or perception for different angles of sound incidence. (Acoustics)

Dolby Digital: This is a 5.1 channel digital film format that if optically recorded on to a film release print in the blocks of space located between the film's sprocket holes. (Sound)

Dolby SR: Spectral Recording. An encoding/decoding noise reduction system developed by Dolby Laboratories and used increasingly in film sound.

Dolly Shot: Any shot made from a moving dolly. These may also be called tracking or traveling shots. (Production)

Doorway Dolly: A plywood dolly with four soft tires which is narrow enough to fit through a doorway. It is used to carry a camera on a tripod or for transporting other heavy items. (Grip)

Dots: Small nets and flags used to control light. (Grip/Lighting)

Double-System Sound: Sound and picture on separate transports. This refers to the normal methodology of recording the picture on a camera while recording sound of a separate magnetic tape recorder. (Film)

Drift: Flutter which occurs at random rates. (Acoustics)

Drop-In: The process of inserting recorded audio by playing up to a chosen point and switching from playback to record mode. (Video/Audio)

Drop Frame: American system of time code generation that adjusts the generated data every minute to compensate for the spread of the NTSC television system running at 29.97 frames per second.

Drop Out: Loss of a portion of a signal, usually due to a loss of a tape's oxide coating or due to dirt or grease covering a portion of a tape.

DTS: This is a film sound system which utilizes a CD-ROM disc which is sychronized to film by means of timecode which is optically encoded into the exhibition film print. (Sound)

Dub: To make a taped copy of any progam source record, CD, tape. Also, the copy itself. Sometimes used to refer to the ADR process. (Audio/Video)

Dub Stage: Term generally used in California but to refer to the room where the final audio mix is made for a program or film. It might also be known as a mix stage.

Dubber: A high quality sound reproducer which is mixed with outputs from other dubbers that are generally loaded with sprocketed magnetic film. (Post Production)

Dubbing: An actor's voice synchronization with lip movements which are not the originally recorded sound. This is used to replace unusable dialogue or recordings, and also used to prepare foreign films for new markets. (Post Production)

Dupe: A copy of a negative. Short for duplicate negative.

Dutch Angle: This is the process where a camera is angled so that the horizontal frame line is not parallel to the horizon. (Production)

Duvetyne: A heavy black cloth, treated with fire proofing material, which is used for blacking out windows, making teasers, hiding cables, and hundreds of other uses. (Grip)

Dynamic Distortion: Alteration of volume range of a sound when it is transmitted. (Acoustics)

Dynamic Range: The difference in decibels between the loudest and quietest portions of audio. (Sound)