Welcome, class, to Philm Skool, another one of MRFH's knee-slapping hilariously misspelled features! MRFH: where we ain't advancin' the English language none.

In Philm Skool, we'll be giving you a crash course — so stock up on hazard insurance — in the "behind the scenes" terminology and aspects of filmmaking. What is a key grip, and why is it key? What does it mean when a movie begins with the confusing introduction of "PoolMan Presents: A Kyle Production, In Association With Sue Studios"? Who ate our last onion bagel? Questions like these and MORE... will be answered some other week.

This week, we're going to kick off with our friend, Mr. Camera. Say hello, Mr. Camera!

Wow. Apparently, MRFH spares no expense in its time travel department to give you a bonifide old timey experience. Because we are staring at a monitor at 7:56 in the bloody A.M. and we don't find it as interesting, we're going to largely skip over the physical characteristics of a movie camera to get to the good stuff. Just know that a camera has a lens, through which light makes its merry journey and on past a mirrored shutter, where magical gnomes pick up the image and paint it onto film before sacrificing tiny virgin fairies to Gurt, the Shutterbug God.

Here's a quick-and-dirty rundown of lingo you often hear involving camerawork, and how that relates to the coffee that we are now consuming. Sun, why haven't you come out yet!? It's not the Arctic Circle here, like Vancouver, where penguins and polar bears frolic in the midnight sky for half the year!

Frame Rate: Each "reel" (big circle) of film is comprised of many little film squares ("frames"), containing both an image, sound data, and holes for the camera to pull it through. The frame rate is how fast these frames are projected onto the screen. A typical frame rate is 24 frames per second, which has been determined to be the lowest frame rate to still give the illusion of smooth animation.

Film: Film stock comes in many different formats, usually classified by how wide the frames are. Most movie-quality film is 35 mm, but there are many other types, including IMAX's 70 mm and digital film. You pronounce "mm" like a low, appreciative hum, just in case you were wondering.

Aspect Ratios: DVD critics find the realm of aspect ratios fascinating, mostly because the DVD cases themselves are utterly concerned with transmitting this information, but we're guessing you've been surviving just fine in your utter ignorance. Probably had more dates than DVD critics, too. Anyway, an aspect ratio is the width vs. height of a projected screen. A normal TV screen is usually 4:3, high definition TV screens are 16:9, and movies use either 1.85:1 or 2.40:1. That makes us feel like we're doing algebra, so here we go on to...

Steadicam: For ever and ever, cameras were mounted on either tripods or dollys, the latter of which allowed for some camera movement but not over uneven terrain or in tight places. Hand-held cameras (like your camcorder work) tends to be too shaky for film. In the 1970's, Garret Brown invented the Steadicam, which became a major evolution in filming technology. The Steadicam is a film camera that's mounted onto a person via a harness, and uses counterweights and gyroscopes to keep the camera steady even if the operator is moving around. It was first used in movies for 1976's Bound for Glory, and is now a very common tool in both movie and TV production. Interesting fact: the large rifles of the Colonial Marines in Aliens are in fact modified Steadicam rigs.

Cut: A transition between one shot and the next. Cuts happen instantly between frames of film, and unless you're actively looking for them, you probably don't even notice cuts when they happen. The exception to this might be if there's a jump cut (where a scene is "broken" by not matching up the images or narrative) or if a director is using a billion cuts per minute in an attempt to give you a headache (see: Michael Bay).

L Cut: Cut is a word that looks weirder the more we type it. Anyway, you've probably noticed L Cuts, even if you've never known their name — an L Cut is a scene transition where the audio doesn't transition with the picture. For instance, the audio for the upcoming scene might kick in early (you start hearing voices for a couple seconds and then the picture cuts to who is talking) or the picture might cut while the audio from the previous scene continues for a beat or two. Flashback fades back to "reality" often use L Cuts.

Wipe: A scene transition technique where it literally looks like someone is "wiping" away the old screen — usually with a blurred moving line — to bring in the new one. It's very notiable, and not used often in films, except for Lucas' obsession with it in the Star Wars films. Another noticable transition technique is a dissolve, where one scene fades in to overlap and replace another (usually with a common image, like an eye or sky, to connect the two scenes).

Establishing Shot: You see these a ton in both movies and TV — establishing shots are quick bits that exist to just show you where the following scene will take place. Without them, scene transitions might become jarring (where are we? how'd we get here? why am I not wearing any clothes?).

Cutaway: A brief snippet (the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Snip) of film that's edited into a longer scene, often to break up how dull the scene is. You don't just want to be staring at two talking heads forever, you know. Sometimes the cutaway will be a brief flashback or other piece of visual information (such as in the end of The Usual Suspects, where the cop is figuring out the mystery and there are multiple cutaways to the clues sprinkled into the film).

Slow Motion: Obviously, a scene where the action seems to slow down, usually used for important action or drama sequences (marching down the street all important-like). This is usually accomplished by overcranking the camera; that is, filming at a faster rate than will be projected. If you film a scene at 40 fps but only show it at the normal 24 fps, the audience will see the action at a much slower rate. Slow-mo can also be accomplished via digital technology and rubber bands. High Speed is the opposite — filming a scene at less than 24 fps but showing it at 24 fps to create the illusion of everything going faster.

Tracking Shot: Where the camera is in motion (usually being pushed on a dolly on tracks) while it's filming something. Extended tracking shots are something film critics usually wet their diapers over, because of the difficulty of keeping one continuious scene going without a cut or transition. To date, the longest continuous shot is the entire 90-minute film Russian Ark (2002), which was shot with a Steadicam.

Dolly Zoom: (aka "Vertigo Effect" or push/pull) An unsettling camera technique where the camera moves away or towards a subject while adjusting the lens simultaneously to change the angle of view. This will usually have the visual effect of "lengthening" the background behind the character, a technique that Hitchcock used in Vertigo to represent falling into the abyss.