Intro to Film Studies Review

The standardized number of frames shot and projected per second is 24fps, but what frame rate did Peter Jackson experiment with in the Hobbit trilogy in an effort to produce sharper images and a more precise reproduction of movement?

48fps

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

How has the transition from studio production to independent production affected actors' careers?

With the decrease of major movies produced each year, actors have had to supplement their film work

Which of the following performances in an example of method acting?

James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

In the 2016 Harris Poll of America's favorite movie stars, who is the only actor in the top ten who made films starting in the 1920's?

John Wayne

The _____________ was the first motion picture camera

Kinetograph

The power of montage, as expressed by Soviet filmmakers of the 1920s, lies in its ability to ________.

Manipulate the viewer's perception and understanding

Darren Aronofsky's stylized and allegorical horror film Mother! (2017) is, by design, __________ film

a closed

Although facial painting and prosthetics were used for the face of the Joker in The Dark Night (2008), the transformation of Harvey Dent into Two-Face was created by ________.

a process involving digital makeup

Which of the following describes a typical contract agreement between a studio and its stable of actors?

a studio could choose to fire or rehire an actor under contract every six months

Until the 1960s, why were actors in almost every film, whether period or contemporary, required to wear wigs?

an actors real hair could be a source of continuity error

When an extreme long shot is used to provide a spatial context at the beginning of a scene, it is also known as

an establishing shot

A video produced by sequencing storyboard images and adding sound to help editors envision how planned shots will work in the edit is known as a

animatic

What usually determines the selection and design of costumes used in a film?

authenticity for a story's time period and setting

In Lars von Trier's Dogville (2003) actor Paul Bettany frequently

breaks the fourth wall

Which of the following generally characterize the quality of hard light?

bright illumination and dark shadows

Charlie Chaplin created his Tramp character

by building it "brick by brick"

What is often the most important factor in determining a film's financial success?

casting

Director Sidney Lumet believed that great performances depended on:

the ability of actors to reveal themselves on-screen

The combination of lighting, color, the movement of actors, and other visual elements contained by the ________ contribute to the meaning of a shot

frame

Of the various elements of composition, which one directly implies a point of view?

framing

Which of the following is one of the challenges movie actors generally confront?

getting interrupted by camera, lighting, and sound adjustments

For the costuming in the 1963 historical epic Cleopatra, the Hollywood studio 20th Century Fox was more concerned with __________ than historical accuracy

glamour

In the 1960s, a popular way of moving the camera in the cinema verite style of filmmaking was done by a

handheld camera

What sound innovation did Rouben Mamoulian introduce in Applause (1929)?

he had his sound technicians record overlapping dialogue with multiple microphones

Director/Screenwriter Paul Thomas Anderson enjoys an unusually close collaboration with his actors and is able to elicit exceptional performances because:

he writes parts specifically for the actors he hopes to cast

The visual style of Sleepy Hollow (1999) features many characteristics of what two genres?

horror and gothic

Why is ensemble acting, which emphasizes the collaborative interaction of a group of actors, and not the work of an individual actor used less in the movies?

it requires the provision of rehearsal time that is usually denied to screen actors

What was unique about the production process for the low-budget, independent Blue Valentine (2010)?

it was shot in three stages according to the state of the characters' relationships

Which three sources of light make up the three point lighting system?

key light, fill light, backlight

To create a balanced composition, characters whose lateral screen movement is tracked by a moving camera are almost invariably given

lead room

The ____________ is the person responsible for feeding film stock into magazines that are then loaded onto the camera during production

loader

The sequence shot is a particular kind of which of the following aesthetics?

long take

____________ is a lighting technique often associated with horror and film noir

low-key

Although much attention was paid to the authenticity of historical costumes during the studio era, hairstyles were often based on _____.

modified contemporary looks

The selective use of a __________ lens during the filming of a scene from Sunset Boulevard (1950) captured images that relate our da to day experience of depth and perception

normal

The middle-focal-length lens (from 35mm to 50mm) is also known as a

normal lens

Which of the following describes what a movie star is?

the ability to make viewers "know" what they are thinking when a camera comes up close

In Edward Scissorhands (1990), the unusual costume and makeup of the title character emphasizes his

outsider status

When used in continuity editing, shots in a shot/reverse shot sequence are often framed in what way?

over the character's shoulders

Diagrams of sets that include actor and camera positions are known as

overheads

What do you call the fragments of image information that a digital camera captures with its electronic sensor?

pixels

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

During production, the crew most closely associated with the camera consists of

the camera operator and the first and second assistant camerapersons (ACs)

Some of the more striking cinematic moments in Moonlight are accomplished with alternating ___________ shots involving the direct gaze of each character into the camera

point of view

When framing a shot, cinematographers are limited by the aspect ratio, which is the _____.

ratio of the width of the image to its height

The open frame is generally used in _____ films.

realistic

A film stock's "speed" refers to its

sensitivity to light

The spatial and temporal ___________ of a film is the environment in which the narrative takes place

setting

In addition to the casting of nonprofessional actors, one of the signature practices of the Italian neorealism movement was _____.

shooting on location

Within one shot of The Birth of a Nation (1915), D. W. Griffith moved the camera from a Civil War battle to a mother and children and back in order to ________.

show the relationship between the horror of the battle and the misery it creates for civilians

Sets are often built on a _____, which is a windowless, soundproofed, interior shooting environment.

soundstage

The films of French magician and filmmaker Georges Melies are best known for their innovative use of

special effects

Arrival's alien egg shaped craft, which seems to be made of stone and has interiors that are spare, organic, and enormous, is an example of

subverting established movie expectations

To reveal the inner thoughts of Nicole Kidman's character Anna in Birth (2004), the director combined what two cinematographic tools?

the close-up and the long take

Which of the following falls under the supervision of a movie's production designer?

the costumes, set construction, and hairstyling

Which of the following describes the usual creative role of the film editor?

the creative power who puts his or her talents in the service of the directors vision

Who are Marion Morrison, Issur Danielovitch Demsky, and Archibald Leach?

the original names of movie stars from the studio system era (John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Cary Grant)

What are some aspects of shot composition?

the rule of thirds, deep space, headroom, negative space

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 the 19th century theater

The __________ lens tends to exaggerate the perceived spatial relationship between the subject and the camera

wide-angle

Johnny Depp's acting career is unusual because he has attained star status:

without any fixed persona

Implicit meaning is best defined as ________, while explicit meaning is best defined as ________.

A deep level association, connection, or inference; meaning available on the surface of the movie

How did Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling prepare for the scenes of their marriage falling apart in Blue Valentine (2010)?

They spent a month "living" their roles in the house used for the actual shooting

Why are stand-ins used when shooting a film?

To substitute for stars during the more tedious aspects of the shoot.

What is a film actor's most basic skill?

Understanding how to reveal him-/herself to the camera during a close-up.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is structured like a plot from what Hollywood genre?

War film

In what ways that extend far beyond the multiplex have movies permeated our lives?

We watch movies on cable and satellite channels, online, and on our ipads and cell phones; we buy them at video stores and through the mail; and so on

If you are a cinematographer and the director asks you to photograph just the lips of an actor, what type of shot is she asking for?

extreme close-up

A shot is best defined as:

An unbroken span of action captured by an uninterrupted run of a motion-picture camera

Even as Juno seems to call into question some of contemporary America's attitudes about family, it also:

Appeals to an arguably more fundamental American value of robust individualism

Which film by Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein is considered his most influential and important?

Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Juno adheres to cultural invisibility by:

Championing a protagonist who rejects convention yet ultimately upholds the traditional institutions she seemingly scorns.

In the collaborative art of moviemaking, whose role is basically that of a coordinating lead artist?

Director

The joining together of discrete shots is called:

Editing

The waiting room scene in Juno depends significantly on _____ to function effectively.

Editing patterns

In which of the following films did the directors insist the actors not stray from the script?

Ethan and Joel Coen's Fargo (1996)

In film analysis, the term "mise-en-scene" refers to

Everything the audience sees in every shot

The social approach to film history attempts to establish a link between motion pictures and

Government, religion, and labor

Besides the Star Wars films, which other film series features significant figurative or literal character growth?

Harry Potter

The contrast of light and dark was used in The Night of the Hunter (1955) to reinforce

Harry's dual nature

How did the first on-screen appearance of the great theatrical actor Sarah Bernhardt affect the film industry's development?

Her sterling reputation as a theater actor carried over to make cinema respectable

Beyond breaking down a movie to identify the tools and techniques that comprise it, film analysis is also primarily concerned with:

How the movie can be neatly categorized in terms of genre or style

One of the unique properties of movies that distinguishes it from any other visual medium is its capacity to:

Isolate details and juxtapose within and between shots

What is the impact of Orson Welles's decision to use a long take in the inciting moment of Citizen Kane (1941)?

It encourages ensemble acting that calls attention to acting, not editing between shots

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

The classical Hollywood style is built upon the principle of

Invisibility

As opposed to "film" or "cinema," the term "movies" is applied to:

Motion pictures that entertain the masses at the multiplex

Almost all ubiquitous commercial, feature-length movies share the same basic and important element of:

Narrative

Many films of the 1920s French avant-garde movement emphasized ________, which is based on the idea that a person's fate is determined by heredity and environment.

Naturalism

Techniques such as fade-outs/fade-ins and low-angle shots communicate meaning by

Only working in concordance with preceding and succeeding shots

Which first-time filmmaker created a masterpiece that broke many of the cinematic conventions of Hollywood's golden age?

Orson Welles

In 1934, Joseph Breen became the head of the ______________, which was created in 1934 by the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) to self-regulate movie content

Production Code Administration

Why are movies worthy of serious study, as opposed to being merely an outlet for escape or entertainment?

Seriously studying movies allows people to understand how movies shape the way we view the world

What works are influenced by German Expressionism?

The Third Man (1949), The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Twin Peaks: The Return (2017)

In order to exploit cinema's capacity for transporting audiences into the world of the story, the commercial filmmaking process stresses

The maximization of any distractions that might remind viewers they are watching a movie

Formal analysis is the analytical approach primarily concerned with

The means by which a subject is expressed

What did movie studios hope to gain by building soundstages after the first two decades of filmmaking?

cost savings

Cinematographer Gregg Toland achieved a high degree of cinematic realism in Citizen Kane (1941) through the use of lighting, deep-space composition, and

deep-focus cinematography

Because a screen actor delivers slightly different performances on each take, the ________ has considerable power of shaping it in postproduction

editor