Glossary
Movie Projectionist Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential movie projectionist terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key movie projectionist vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in movie projectionist training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Aspect ratio
- Image shape.
- Booth
- Projection room.
- Changeover
- Switching reels.
- Content server
- Stores movies.
- DCP
- Digital cinema package.
- Focus
- Sharpness.
- Ingest
- Loading content.
- KDM
- Key that unlocks a movie.
- Lamp hours
- Bulb life.
- Lumens
- Brightness.
- Masking
- Screen framing.
- Platter
- Film reel system.
- Playlist
- Show sequence.
- Surround sound
- Multi-channel audio.
- TMS
- Theater management system.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Movie Projectionist practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Movie Projectionist training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.