Film Unit 2 Exam Practice

What is an ellipsis?

an omission between one thing and another; relies on the audience to infer a time lapse.

Discontinuity:

Draws attention to itself.

What are the responsibilities of a cinematographer?

Framing the shot, the speed and length of the shot, special effects, film lighting and lenses.

What were the studios that movies were put into?

The majors, minors, B studios, and Independent producers.

Kuleshov experiment:

two or more juxtaposed shots need not have any actual relationship to one another for meaning to occur when they are juxtaposed.

When was the introduction of sound?

1927

What is the depth of field?

A property of each individual lens that determines what's in focus within a given shot.

What was the plot of citizen kane?

A reporter is trying to decipher the last words of Charles Foster Kane, "rosebud".

What was the studio system?

A top-down hierarchy, a system of buying and building theaters. Means of production on lots with all "creatives" under contract.

Screen direction/180 degree rule:

An imaginary line behind which the camera stays to maintain direction. Orients the viewer in time and space.

What is the production designer in charge of?

Art, costume design and construction, hairstyling

What is offscreen space?

Cinematic space that exists outside the frame.

What is the master shot/establishing shot?

Covers the shot in one continuous take. Allows editor to cut in on the action with other shots.

Crosscutting:

Cutting between two or more actions occurring at the same time, usually the same location, but not always.

Parallel editing:

Cutting together two or more actions that occur simultaneously in different locations. Example: the godfather

Intercutting:

Cutting two or more actions occuring at the same time, but the effect is of a single action rather than two distinct actions.

What were the innovations of Citizen Kane?

Deep-focus, cinematography, sound design, complex narrative structure, the long take.

What innovation did the movie "Stagecoach", staring John Ford, have?

Deep-space cinematography.

What are the two major components of mise en scene?

Design and composition.

What was the film that featured the "Odessa Steps" sequence and jump cuts and montage editing?

Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin.

What is a closed frame?

Exaggerated. Not realistic. Characters are acted upon and controlled by outside forces. World is contained. Design elements call attention to themselves.

German cinema used what in their films?

Expressionism

What is known as the process of giving objective expression to subjective human feelings and emotions by using objective elements such as structure, color, or texture?

Expressionism

What are the shot types and sizes?

Extreme Long shot: environment dominates small subject. Long shot: shows subject's full body. Medium-long shot: called American shot. Knees up. Medium shot: waist up. Medium-close up shot: chest up Close up shot: face Extreme close up: focuses on one detail Over the shoulder: a two shot from behind the shoulder of one actor.

What was the German realist film that used an unchained camera and no intertitles?

F.W. Murnaeu's The Last Laugh

What are the three types of lighting in the three-point lighting system?

Fill light, key light, and backlight.

What are the two aspects of composition?

Framing and kinesis.

What are the different camera angles?

High angle, Low angle, Eye-level, Dutch angle, Bird's eye

What was Orson Welle's career prior to CK?

He started the Mercury Theater and eventually The Mercury Theater on the Air. They produced the radio version of The War of The Worlds.

What is the quality of light?

Helps a movie tell its story. Hard, high-contrast lighting is associated with serious or tragic stories. Soft, even lighting is associated with romantic or comic stories.

Temporal relationships between shots:

How time is expressed and ordered or disordered--flashback, flashfoward, ellipsis.

What is cinematography?

It is the process of capturing moving images on film or a digital storage device.

What was the paramount decision in 1948?

It was a United State's Supreme Court case that decided the fate of movie studio's owning their own theaters.

What year was Citizen Kane released? Who directed it?

It was released in 1941 and directed by Orson Welles.

What does open frame mean?

Looks realistic. The characters can move freely in and out of the frame. Characters are more important than the design and set-up. The world can change and evolve.

Eye-line match:

Joins person A looking in direction to person B, the object of the graze.

Who was the teacher influenced by D.W. Griffith's continuity editing and eventually became interested in discontinuity editing?

Lev Kuleshov

In 1968 The Code was abandoned for our current rating system, which is known as what?

MPAA

Graphic match:

Match between similar shapes, colors, textures, forms across shots.

What is kinesis?

Movement within the frame.

What are the two sources of light?

Natural and artificial.

Match cuts:

On action. Continuation of motion through space without showing entire action.

What is the setup?

One camera position and everything associated with it.

What is a shot?

One uninterrupted run of the camera and the recording on film or video resulting from that run.

What are the different camera moves?

Pan, tilt, track/dolly, crane, handheld, steadicam, 360, push/zoom

What were the big five major studios?

Paramount, MGM, 20th century fox, Warner bro's, RKO

What innovations did the movie "It Happened One Night" have?

Predominant style, soft-focus, 3-point lighting system, continuity editing.

What was the classic Hollywood style in the 1920's?

Principal of invisibility, growth and standardization, creation and management of Hollywood "image".

What does framing the shot mean?

Process by which a cinematographer determines what will appear within the boarders of the moving image during a shot. What we see and how we see it.

What was the first great expressionist film that used painted sets to reflect terror and anxiety?

Robert WInen's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

What is onscreen space?

Space visible within the frame of the image.

What are the editor's responsibilities?

Spatial relationships between shots. Temporal relationships between shots. The overall rhythm of the film.

What are qualities?

Stress: imbalance asymmetry, tension, versus harmony: balance symmetry, calm.

Shot/reverse shot:

Switch in shots between characters.

City of God:

Taking place over the course of over two decades, City of God tells the story of Cidade de Deus (Portuguese for City of God), a lower class quarter west of Rio de Janeiro. The film is told from the viewpoint of a boy named Rocket (Busca pé in Portuguese) who grows up there as a fishmonger's son, and demonstrates the desperation and violence inherent in the slums. Based on a real story, the movie depicts drug abuse, violent crime, and a boy's struggle to free himself from the slums' grasp. The movie begins cinematically depicting chickens being prepared for a meal. A chicken escapes and as an armed gang chases after it bumps into Rocket who believes that the gang wants to kill him. The movie then flashes back ten years earlier, to tell the story of how he got himself into that position. Three "hoodlums", "The Tender Trio", one being Rocket's brother, Goose, are terrorizing local businesses with armed holdups. In Robin Hood fashion they split part of the loot with the citizens of City of God and are protected by them. Li'l Dice is a hanger-on who convinces them to hold up a motel and rob its occupants. Li'l Dice ("Dadinho" in Portuguese), serving as lookout, fires a warning shot, then proceeds to slaughter the inhabitants. The massacre brings on the attention of the police forcing the three to quit their criminal ways. Each meets an untimely end, except one who decides to join the church. Goose, Rocket's brother, is slain by Li'l Dice after robbing the younger boy and his friend Benny who have been hiding out and committing crimes themselves. The movie fast forwards a number of years. Li'l Dice now calls himself Li'l Zé ("Zé Pequeno" in Portuguese), and, along with his childhood friend Benny, he establishes a drug empire by eliminating all of the competition except for a drug dealer named Carrot ("Cenoura" in Portuguese). Meanwhile, Rocket has become a part of the "Groovies" a hippie-like group of youth that enjoy smoking pot. He begins his photography career shooting his friends, especially one girl that he is infatuated with, but who is dating another boy. A relative peace has come over City of God under the reign of Li'l Zé who plans to eliminate his last rival, Carrot, against the judgment of his best friend Benny, who is keeping the peace. At one point, his best friend and partner in crime Benny has decided to become a "playboy" and becomes the "coolest guy in City of God". Eventually, along with the girl that he has wooed away from Rocket, he decides to leave the criminal life behind to live on a farm. However, he is gunned down at his going away party by former drug dealer, Blackie, who is actually aiming for Li'l Zé. Benny was the only thing keeping Li'l Ze from taking over Carrot's business, so now Carrot is in danger. Li'l Zé humiliates a peace loving man Knockout Ned at the party and afterwards rapes his girlfriend and kills Ned's uncle and younger brother. Ned turns violent and sides with Carrot. After killing one of Li'l Ze's men, Ned starts a war between the two rival factions that creates a "Vietnam" of City of God. Jealous of Ned's notoriety in the newspapers, Li'l Zé has Rocket take photos of himself and his gang which, unknown to Rocket, are taken by a reporter and published in the daily paper. Rocket then mistakenly fears for his life believing that Li'l Zé will want to kill him for it. In actuality, Li'l Zé is pleased with his newfound fame. Coming full circle, Rocket is startled by Li'l Zé's request that he take a picture of the gang which had been chasing the chicken at the beginning of the film. Before he can, however, a gunfight ensues between the two gangs, but is broken up by the police. Ned is killed by a boy who has infiltrated his gang to avenge his father, who was killed by Ned during a bank robbery. Li'l Zé and Carrot are arrested and Carrot is taken away to be shown to the press. Li'l Zé is shaken down for money, humiliated and finally released, all of which is secretly photographed by Rocket. After the cops leave, the Runts (a gang of young children who robbed and terrorized the local merchants) come upon Li'l Zé and shoot and kill him in retribution for him killing one of their gang earlier in the film. Rocket takes pictures of Li'l Zé's dead body and goes to the newspaper. Rocket is seen in the newspaper office looking at all of his photographs through a magnifying glass, and deciding whether or not to put the pictures of the crooked cops in the newspaper, or the picture of Ze's dead body. The photos of the cops would make him famous but put him in danger, while the photos of Li'l Zé would guarantee him a job at the paper. He decides to take the safe route and gives the paper the picture of Li'l Zé's bullet-ridden body, which runs on the front page. The story ends with the Runts walking around the City of God, making a hit list of the dealers they plan to kill to take over their drug business.

What was the era that focused on standardization of the studio system, conformity, and self-censorship?

The Hollywood Golden Era/Studio System

What was the name of the self-censorship code created?

The Motion Picture Production Code, also known as The Code.

What was the administration that started self-censorship in cinema?

The Production Code Administration, also known as the Hay's Office.

What was the movement between the end of the first world war and the coming of sound that was the high point of cinematic experimentation?

The Soviet Montage Movement

What is rack focus?

The change in point of focus from one subject to another.

What was Inceville?

The first studio.

What is a take?

The number of times a particular shot is taken.

What is composition?

The organization, distribution, balance, and general relationship of actors and objects within the space of each shot. Also part of the pre-production phase.

What is rhythm?

The pace and tempo at which a film moves forward. Deals with emphasis on character, setting, objects.

City of God, opening sequence:

The preparation of the chicken: a montage composed of hundreds of repeated shots. Shows a knife, chicken parts, etc, and then the chickens waiting to be slaughtered. The repetition of the sharpening knife makes us think it's important. Kuleshov experiment: two or more juxtaposed shots need not have any actual relationship to one another for meaning to occur when they are juxtaposed. *side by side, the chicken and knife have no meaning. But together, we know that they relate.

What is design?

The process by which the look of the settings, props, lighting, and actors is determined.

What is editing?

The process of selecting, arranging, and assembling the essential components of a movie--visual, sound, special effects--to tell a story in a unique way. *cutting and splicing.

What was rosebud?

The sled from Kane's childhood.

What is Mise en scene?

The staging or putting on an action or scene.

What were the minor studios?

Universal, Columbia, United Artists.

What is the three-point lighting system?

Used to cast a glamorous light on the studio's most valuable assets. Uses three sources of light, each aimed from a different direction and position.

Cinematographer:

Uses the camera as a maker of meaning.

What is framing?

What we see. Dynamic, potential for movement, POV, camera.

Approaches to editing:

continuity, discontinuity

Continuity:

seamless, not meant to draw attention to itself. Smoothness, flow, clear orientation in time and space.

Spatial relationships between shots:

sense of space in the viewer's mind where they might be little in reality

What are the four types of camera lenses?

wide angle, long angle, normal angle, zoom. wide angle long angle normal angle zoom