Implicit Meaning
Refers to the Deeper meaning that lies below the surface of a film's plot
There are 3
fundamentals of film form
The crafted interplay between motion-picture and shadow is defined as
lighting
An object, document, or secret within a story that is of vital importance to the characters and motivates their actions, but later turns out to be less significant to the overall narrative than we might have first thought
MacGuffin
Content
is defined as the subject of an artwork
The process by which the human brain retains an image for a fraction of a second longer than the eye records it
Persistence of Vision
Which of the following would not be considered part of a film's form?
Theme
A low angle shot can convey a sense of power
This was seen in Citizen Kane
An interest or concern for the actual or real is called
realism
Occurs when a single light flickers on and off with such speed that the individual pulses of light fuse together to give the illusion of continuous light
Critical Flicker Fusion
Cinematic language
is composed, not of words, but of a myriad of integrated techniques and concepts that connect the viewer to the story while intentionally concealing the means by which it does so.
Which is not a fundamental of film form?
Movies provide an illusion of 3D space
Unbroken spans of action captured by the uninterrupted run of motion-picture camera are called
shots
Form
is defined as the means by which the subject of a film is expressed
The more patterns meet or go against our expectations, the more likely we are to enjoy a film
true
The process by which an agent, structure, or other formal element, whether human or technological, transfers something from one place to another
Mediation
The illusion of movement created by events that succeed each other rapidly
Phi Phenomenon
The Jazz Singer (1927) is historically significant because it featured several scenes with
Synchronous Dialogue
Although a commercial and groundbreaking success, why did The Birth of a Nation (1915) spark nationwide controversy upon its release?
Its content was overtly racist
German expressionist film reflected an atmosphere of
cynicism, alienation, and disillusionment in postwar Germany
In order to entertain and not provoke its customers, the film industry usually favors stories and themes that
tap into and reinforce their most fundamental desires and beliefs
The classical Hollywood style is built upon the principle of
invisibility
The development of series photography
served as the bridge between still photography and cinematography
The films of French magician and filmmaker Georges Melies are best known for their innovative use of
special effects
Four traditional approaches to film history are
aesthetic, technological, economic, and social
The joining together of discrete shots is called
editing
The manner in which movies from various countries and societies present their narratives is often profoundly affected by
cultural tradition
The most important and stylistically influential director during the early years of Hollywood filmmaking was
D.W. Griffith
The power of montage, as expressed by Soviet filmmakers of the 1920s lies in its ability to
manipulate the viewer's perception and understanding
The social approach to film history attempts to establish a link between motion pictures and
government, religion, and labor
The Kinetograph
was the first motion picture camera
What does a low-angle shot usually convey when used in a narrative film?
The dominance or empowered position of a character
Which film by Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein is considered his most influential and important?
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Which Soviet filmmaker is considered as important and innovative as D.W. Griffith?
Sergei Eisenstein
Who is credited with advancing the development of the narrative film and the production of the first "Western?"
Edwin S. Porter
William Henry Fox Talbot's greatest contribution to photography was
Fixing an image on transparent material
A device that projects an exterior image onto one side of a darkened room is called a
Camera Obscura
Cinematographer Greg Toland achieved a high degree of cinematic realism in Citizen Kane (1941) through the use of lighting, deep-space composition, and
Deep Focus Cinematography
How did the Italian government influence the decline of Italian neorealism?
Subsidized domestic films that promoted postwar Italy's prosperity.
In 1934, Joseph Breen became the head of the Production Code Administration
which was created in 1934 by the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America MPPDA to self-regulate movie content.
Lev Kuleshov
was known for a short film that used the juxtaposition of a shot of an expressionless actor against three different unrelated shots The audiences interpretation of the actors state of mind was different for each of the shots
Not only could the cinematographe operate as a motion picture camera and film printer, it also served as a
projector
Which first time filmmaker created a masterpiece that broke many of the cinematic conventions of Hollywood's golden age?
Orson Welles
Which popular film genre was most directly influenced by German expressionism?
Horror
Thomas Edison is credited with creating the first motion picture studio. It was called the Black Death due to the massive heat levels inside
False
The basic lighting set up includes
3 lights
In film noir, actors were often
lit from the back and sides
A property of a lens that permits the cinematographer to decide what planes or areas of the image will be in focus
Depth of Field
Hard and Soft are terms used to describe the
quality of light
The smaller the lighting source
the harder the light
The luminous energy responsible for the image on the screen
light
An intense or dramatic film would benefit from the use of
Upstage Lighting
A lighting set up where you have a high level of key light with a very low level of fill (if any) is known as
low key lighting
The main visual components of mine en scene are
Design and Composition
What does a low-angle shot usually convey when used in a narrative film?
The dominance or empowered position of a character
Which of the following lenses would be best for a head shot of an actor?
135 mm
A long lens tends to expand the space from the front to the back of the frame
false
Lighting ratio refers to the balance of the key light and the back light
false
Generally speaking, a production designer would use more diagonal lines if he or she were going for a more visually intense feel
true
A film stock's speed refers to its
sensitivity to light
A shot
is the basic building block of a movie
Adjusting the aperture of a camera lens changes the
amount of light that passes through the lens
One camera position and everything associated with it is called
a set up
Since 1968, almost all Hollywood feature films have used
color film stock
The compositional principle that divides the frame horizontally and vertically in order to visualize the height, width, and depth of cinematic space is called
The rule of thirds
The four basic properties of lighting are
source, quality, direction, and style
The wide-angle lens
tends to exaggerate the perceived spatial relationship between the subject and the camera
To imply that the onscreen world is somehow out of balance filmmakers may photograph a subject with a dutch angle shot
which tilts the camera from it normal horizontal and vertical position
In film analysis, the term mise-en-scene refers to
everything the audience sees, hears, and experiences while viewing a movie
Of the various elements of composition, which one directly implies a point of view?
Framing
The colors and textures of interiors, furniture, draperies, and curtains are aspects of
decor
The open frame is generally used in
verisimilar films
The organization, distribution, balance and general relationship of actors and objects within the space of each shot is called
composition
What are, arguably, the only two fundamental styles of film design?
Realistic and Fantastic
When a character in a movie handles a tennis racket, a glass of beer, or a shovel, the object is known as a
prop
Expressionism
was an art movement of the early 20th century which sought to manifest subjective human feelings and emotions through a combination of objective design elements.
Identify which of the following is NOT a function of a close-up
it establishes the setting
How does a split screen differ from parallel editing?
By telling multiple stories within the same frame
What is an iris-out
When the film image closes in on an image with a gradually tightening circle
The Stanislavsky system of acting trained students to
understand their characters' background and psychology
What was the central discovery of Lev Kuleshov
That two shots need not have any actual relationship to one another to affect the viewer
When actors are repeatedly given particular kinds of roles based on their looks rather than their talent or experience, they are
typecast
Which of the following is NOT considered to be a component of improvisational acting?
Strict adherence to the screenplay
What is a jump-cut?
A cut creating a disorienting ellipsis between two shots caused by the absence of a portion of film that would have provided continuity
American screen actor Joan Crawford's statement "A movie star paints with the tiniest brush" suggests that
The camera captures an actor's most subtle facial expressions
What are the fundamental building blocks of continuity editing?
Master shots and the 180-degree system
Why did the first screen actors use exaggerated gestures, emphatic expressions, and the mouthing of words to bring their characters to life?
They were adapting the acting style of 19th century theater
Charlie Chaplin created his Tramp character
starting with the costume
Which of the following constitutes a flashback?
An interruption of the chronological progression of an action movie to show a tranquil moment from the protagonist's childhood
What is "montage" in Hollywood sense of the word?
A sequence of shots, often with superimpositions and optical effects, which shows a condensed series of events
What does transparency mean when used to describe an actor's performance
The character is so clearly recognizable that the actor becomes invisible
At one moment in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), a cut causes an abrupt transition between a shot of a bone thrown in the air by a primitive pre-human and a shot of a spaceship. This cut is shocking and unusual because
it implies an immense period of elapsed time
Who has the most control over sculpting an actor's performance?
The editor
How does a film editor typically fulfill his or her responsibilities for the spatial relationships between shots
By placing shots together so that the sense of the overall space suggested on screen shifts and expands
Which of the following constitutes a cinematic ellipsis?
A cut between a shot of a woman contemplating diving off the high-dive board and a shot of her emerging from the water
Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) illustrates the power of
The close-up
Why are establishing shots particularly important for continuity editing?
Because they orient the viewer in preparation for the shots that follow
The Method (or Method acting) did not make a major impact on Hollywood until the 1950s because
The studios were reliant on the star system and were not interested in the process of acting
What is parallel editing?
The cutting together of two or more lines of action that occur simultaneously at different locations
Which of the following is NOT something the master shot can provide the viewer?
The next plot point of the film
Analysis is defined as
The act of taking something apart to figure out what it is made of and how it fits together
A shot is best described as
an unbroken span of action captured by an uninterrupted run of a motion-picture camera
A term synonymous with the aesthetic approach to film history is the
Masterpiece approach
Alternative approaches to film analysis search beneath a movie's form and content in order to expose
implicit and hidden meanings that inform our understanding of cinema's function within popular culture
Cuts on Action
help hide the potentially jarring transition from one shot to another. It is an invaluable tool in editing as it helps maintain visual continuity
Implicit meaning is best defined as a deep-level association, connection or inference
Explicit meaning is best defined as meaning available on the surface of the movie
the four traditional approaches to film history are
aesthetic, technological, economic, and social
Three act structure must be followed in order have a good script
False
Which is not absolutely necessary for a good story?
A midpoint climax
A character's subconscious desire is referred to as their
need
Age, IQ, Sex and Sexuality, career, and education are all examples of true character
False
Formal analysis is the analytical approach primarily concerned with
the means by which a subject is expressed
Of all the arts, cinema seems to rely most heavily on
technology
One of the most common editing techniques designed to hide the instantaneous and potentially jarring shift from one camera viewpoint to another is
cutting on action
What does a fade-out/fade-in usually convey when used in a narrative film
A passage of time in between scenes
If you have multiple protagonists, it is important for them to share similar goals
true
The "bad guy" in a film is commonly referred to as the
antagonist
When we relate to characters on an emotional level and begin to care about them, the screenwriter created what is referred to as
empathy
The gradual or sudden change in a character spurred by the pursuit of a goal in the face of conflict is called character
arc
What the characters wants in a story is most often associated with the "A" story while what they need is more related to the "B, C, or D" stories
true
which of the following is not one of the three type of conflict discussed in the story notes handout?
Subtextual
An early device that was used by early Christians to tell visual stories by projecting images on monastery walls was called
The Magic Lantern
Shot in 1912 From the Manger to the Cros
was one of America's first feature films and was actually shot on location in Egypt
Many early European Christian films were different than American Christian films in that European films often had elaborate sets and super star casts
False
Cecil B. DeMille
is still regarded as one of the most commercially successful directors of all time having made over 70 feature films. He is also responsible for making some of America's most famous Christian films
O Brother Where Art Thou was written and directed by
Joel and Ethan Coen
The Great Train Robbery helped establish that the shot was the basic unit of a movie and was directed by
Edwin S. Porter
Eadweard Muybridge
is credited with creating the first series of photographs of continuous motion called "Horse in Motion."
Which of the following is not associated with the silent period and classical Hollywood style?
The Birth of the Production Code and the "Hayes Office"
Filmmaking is both a spatial and a temporal art form
true
