Sandstorm Insights: Understanding Jargon

Back in 2013 (when I was client side), I was on set in Scotland about to shoot a commercial when the director approached me; storyboard in-hand and a slightly stern look on his face.

He told me that the company logo situated in the background of each shot couldn’t always be in focus. Thinking this was a creative choice I stood my ground, to which he responded (politely enough) “but the shots have a narrow depth of field…” Not fully understanding what a ‘narrow depth of field’ was, I said if they can’t make it work on set, they will need to fix it in the edit suite.

Weeks, later not only was the logo clear… my mistake was on screen for all to see. We now had a crystal clear logo on an otherwise blurry background. And so I learned (to the cost of additional days in post-production and budget) what ‘a narrow depth of field’ was and more importantly to ask questions when they arise.

We operate in a world where industry-specific abbreviations and terminology (or jargon) are used to elevate the individual rather than educate the person they are attempting to communicate with. They are an invaluable resource in the openly collaborative and fast-paced world of content production (which consists of a range of people across the spectrum of experience) because they instantly showcase insider knowledge that promotes trust between strangers.

Industry terminology is invaluable in this respect. However, it has the knock-on effect of alienating people outside of this vocabulary.

As I learnt first-hand, pride and fear are barriers to creating truly great content because great content needs collaboration and insight from all the those involved. When it comes to creating content in today's fast-paced industry we are all partners, so we should feel confident to learn from one another.

With that in mind, this month’s insight film, presented by our strategy director, Ayo Hughes and managing director, Tom Ward, guides you around some of the common pitfalls clients face when working directly with production companies.

And if you want to really dig a little deeper, we have published a Jargon Buster white paper for over 10 years now, which you can download here.

Jason Dollery is creative director at Sandstorm