Home North American English freeze-frame

Definition of freeze-frame in English:

freeze-frame

noun

1A single frame forming a motionless image from a film or videotape.
- ‘Occasional freeze-frames isolate comical poses and expressions while voice-overs by the main characters give witty and concise insights into their thought processes.’
- ‘The narcotic rhythms are punctuated with a series of brief freeze-frames, an initially distracting device which lends a woozy, hung-over perspective to a woozy, perpetually hung-over protagonist.’
- ‘The last freeze-frame will again be Jerry with his hands out in an ‘I don't get it’ gesture, with a scrunched-up look on his face’
- ‘The narrative fabric of the latest cult movie is woven through with jump cuts, freeze-frames, montage, slow motion shots, tracking shots, hand-held camera techniques, and the like.’
- ‘He introduces each of the main characters as each one is caught in a freeze-frame.’
- ‘The freeze-frame, which traps the subject by suspending her forever in that moment, is beautifully explored.’
- ‘Materials Sciences Division researchers have devised a breakthrough process that gives them the ability to image and stop the action of atomic scale events in picosecond freeze-frames.’
- ‘This version of the film ends with a freeze-frame.’
- ‘As many as a dozen freeze-frames portray leading artistes poised at different moments of unique genres of storytelling from mythology.’
- ‘I am looking at a sequence of freeze-frames of the speech-maker.’
- ‘A sword slices through his umbrella and pauses in a freeze-frame, his hand raises and halts.’
- ‘He combines hand-held camera, zoom lenses, freeze-frames, and well-timed cutaways to give the whole thing a perfect sheen.’
- ‘The effect was occasionally heightened by freeze-frames of violence which capture the style of photo-reportage.’
- ‘I love telling a story visually, with plenty of freeze-frames, slow-motion, montage, sound and music.’
- ‘Moore exits the bank, thrusts the rifle into the air like some well-fed Sandinista, and over the freeze-frame says ‘maybe it's not such a good idea to give people a gun in a bank!’’
- ‘If you've been watching media coverage of the Olympics, you've probably seen Stromotion - that software that breaks an athlete's fluid movements into stop-motion-style freeze-frames.’
- ‘More typically, the finale vacillates in every possible direction: our gentleman looks out to sea, then starts to cry, but this turns to laughter, the final shot petrifying into a freeze-frame.’
- ‘The film opens with images of his blossoming youthfulness and closes with the Robert-Capa-like freeze-frame of his death.’
- ‘The only moves that Jordan uses that I didn't love were some freeze-frames at the end of some shots.’
- ‘Then the title is repeated about five times in the same forceful way, while some fuzzed-out goofball guitar lick plays underneath and we're shown freeze-frames and zoom-ins on the film's murder scenes.’
1. 1.1The facility of stopping a film or videotape in order to view a motionless image.
  ‘It's just not the same when you can watch it whenever you want, using slow-mo and freeze-frame at will.’
  ‘Then, however, the prosecution lawyer stands and proves through freeze-frame that the driver wears two differently coloured shirts during the drive, and therefore the trip cannot be continuous.’
  ‘Multiple exposures, jump cuts, slow-motion, negative film sequences, superimposition, freeze-frame and angled cameras are just a few of the cinematic effects utilised by Deren.’
  ‘Bray wears out every stylistic gimmick in his arsenal: slo-mo, fast-mo, quick cuts, freeze-frame.’
  ‘This should look good on TV - and indeed, with judicious use of slow-mo and freeze-frame, it is possible to spot us several times over.’

verb

[WITH OBJECT]

Use a freeze-frame facility on (an image or a recording)
- ‘I guess the network didn't want kids playing with fire because of Pokemon, so it was freeze-framed right after that shot.’
- ‘It used to be that freeze-framing a piece of live action was only possible for high-end sportscasters or artistic stop-action photographers.’
- ‘When I first saw this video I was fascinated and I spent quite some time freeze-framing it.’
- ‘Try freeze-framing the video just after Herbie picks up the flowers.’
- ‘I heard that a few times, but I've not bothered to freeze-frame it myself.’
- ‘Otherwise, it was clear, they could freeze-frame the shots and use them for their own wicked ends.’
- ‘It's a crisp photo taken from ground level, freeze-framing a young woman spinning around.’
- ‘If one freeze-framed every millisecond of this performance, her line would never have been anything other than perfect.’
- ‘There are moments in this film that distill emotion so well they should be freeze-framed and hung on the wall.’
- ‘Review a few minutes of each set and freeze-frame the VHS on a key scene for each one to enable closer observation of all the details.’
- ‘The montage was to get this treatment, too, and so the editors were working to freeze-frame it just as the hat swooped into the air.’
- ‘‘Am I hallucinating,’ your friends will say, snorting and freeze-framing the video, ‘or is that a badminton net he's stringing up?’’
- ‘It sounds like a challenge, but on TV shows, I see security tape feeds being freeze-framed, zoomed in on, and smoothed out so a crisp image is formed.’
- ‘Perhaps the most telling symbolism in the film comes at its end, when the camera freeze-frames on each of the main characters and reveals their future.’
- ‘Green styles this sequence like the opening credits of a 1970s cop show, freeze-framing on Chris as he leaps over a fence and zooming the titles across the screen.’
- ‘I happened to get this on tape, and freeze-framed it.’
- ‘Some possible ways of collecting data include using a video camera to film the moving object against a grid, then freeze-framing through the movie to collect data points.’
- ‘He fast forwards, rewinds and freeze-frames the footage.’
- ‘Sometimes, the tapes were freeze-framed at the completion of the action; other times, the tapes were freeze-framed in the middle.’
- ‘At the end of the sequence, Raimi focuses in Maguire's goofy, Cider House Rules-orphan smile, freeze-framing on his blurred glasses.’