What the words mean
The terms a production uses when it orders environment work, and what each one actually describes once the frame has to ship.
Productions describe environment work with words that are older than the work itself. Matte painting began as paint on glass placed in front of a lens, and the name lasted forty years after the glass was gone. Set extension, invisible effects, digital environment: each describes a job that has changed at least once since its naming, and the price and the schedule track the job rather than the word. Most confusion when a shot is ordered comes from that gap. When a producer asks for one thing, intends another, and receives a third, no one involved has been careless. This section's pages explain how the terms are used now, on the shows currently in post, and make plain what each one excludes. The audience is the person who has to sign for the work, not the person who will do it, and the measure throughout is whether a definition helps you write a better purchase order.
