ACM
Association for Computing Machinery; An organization in the computing industry; see SIGGRAPH.

actuals
The length of time that it took a task to be completed in reality. Useful when comparing Bids vs Actuals to track variance in project performance.

ADR
automated dialogue replacement / additional dialogue replacement

Usually brought up in editorial and refers to a re-recording of an audio.

aerial shot
Sometimes called bird’s eye view. When a shot is filmed from above like drones or helicopters.

After Effects
A video editing program usually used for motion graphics and 2D Comp.

agile
A way of managing projects that is different from the traditional/waterfall project management. The practice is most commonly used in software development, but is now being adapted to different areas of work. In contrast, it produces deliverables more iteratively and team structures and meetings are vastly different. It prioritizes the constant delivery of requests until a sprint or the time allotted to the task is exhausted as opposed to long term planning and scheduling.

alembic / .abc
A type of file format that contains data for CG files.

alias
A code name or shortened name. Projects may have a full title, but could have an alias composed of 3-4 letters. This is helpful in organizing and naming files as it allows for shorter file names while still clearly denoting for which project the file is.

aliasing
A rendering error; it could look like flickering or jagged edges

alpha channel / alphas
A setting or level in an image that controls the image’s transparency.

ambient light
Overall lighting in a set.

ambient noise
Overall sound in a scene.

anamorphic
Adjustment to a lens that results in a wider aspect ratio.

animatic
A video file of a series of shots cut together as a sequence or in full duration.

Animation Department
Takes Layout’s setup and adds details to shots by finalizing the acting, lip sync, cuts, and overall movement of CG elements.

Animation Principles
There are 12 animation principles that guide feedback and reviews for animation. These are: (1) squash and stretch, (2) anticipation / antic (3) staging, (4) straight ahead action / pose to pose, (5) follow through / overlapping action, (6) slow in and slow out, (7) arc, (8) secondary action, (9) timing, (10) exaggeration, (11) solid drawing, (12) appeal.

annot / annotate
Written revision notes directly on a frame of a shot or turntable as a reference for the artist.

anti-aliasing
A technique to reduce the rendering error of seeing jagged edges on an image or frame when high-res images are viewed at lower resolutions.

AO / ambient occlusion
A render pass containing the soft shadow on surfaces that appear when objects are physically close to each other.

AOVs
Arbitrary Output Variables; Enables artists to render shading network components into different images, thus allowing them to manipulate attributes even at a later time in the pipe (compositing).

aperture
An opening that controls how much light travels through a camera lens which affects an image’s quality like exposure or depth of field.

AR / augmented reality
When CG elements are integrated into a real world environment and interacted with in real-time.

Arnold
A rendering software used for photorealistic renders.

artifact
A rendering error on a frame or image.

Artist Management Department / AM
A department more commonly seen in film studios and less so in smaller/episodics studios. Artist Managers support a crew member’s career growth and serve as a liaison between the crew member and their manager or supervisor, offering guidance and performance feedback.

ArtStation
A website or platform for artists to share their portfolio.

ASCII / ASCII File
American Standard for Computer Information Interchange; A type of text file.

aspect ratio
The proportion of an image or frame written in the format: width:height

Aspera
An app for file transfers. Usually used for deliveries as it allows for large file sizes and is secure.

associate producer
Responsibilities vary per studio. Hierarchically, usually on par or above a Production Manager.

atmos  / atmosphere
An element added in Comp to make a shot look smokey when rendered.

attribute / att
Part of software UIs; These are toggles or menu options that allow artists to control how an object or scene will appear when rendered.

audio mixing
Editing and adjusting the sound and audio tracks of a media file.

Autodesk
A company that owns multiple of the most commonly used software in the industry such as AutoCAD, Maya, 3DS Max, Shotgrid, Flame, Mudbox, etc.

autofill
A software feature that automatically completes a form or field.

Avid
A company that develops software/hardware for film, tv, & audio production. Mostly used by Edit.