Key Terms
A short, recurring musical phrase which is associated with a character, place, or idea
What is a Leitmotif?
An American sound technician who, in the early 30's, developed a method of synchronizing sound effects with film visuals which is still commonly used in film post-production.
Who is Jack Foley?
By the mid-20th century, more women worked in this essential role than any other major role in film production, often forming long-term collaborative relationships with certain directors
What is editing?
Costume designer Ruth Carter drew from various regional African art styles and the Afrofuturist movement to create the visual language of this 2018 film
What is Black Panther?
In a film’s lighting design, this is the main and brightest source of light for a scene
What is a key light?
A style of film lighting which emphasizes high contrast between light and shadow to create depth and complexity within the shot
What is Chiaroscuro?
A prolific film editor AND sound editor known for his work on films like The Godfather (1972) and Apocalypse Now (1979), as well as his theory for film editing called “The Rule of Six”.
Who is Walter Murch?
In the early 30’s, genres like gangster films, horror films, and movie musicals all exploded in popularity due to their flashy utilization of this brand-new technological element
What is sound?
This 1927 film, widely known as the first “talking picture” or “Talkie”, was so financially successful that it completely reshaped the American film industry, effectively ending the silent film era
What is The Jazz Singer?
This process, which involved soaking film in a colored dye to stain the entire picture a certain color, was used often by filmmakers in the “silent era” of films to convey certain a certain mood or time of day
What is tinting?
A type of sound which occurs within the world of the film and can be heard by its characters
What is diegetic sound?
An American film composer whose iconic work on films like Jaws (1975), Star Wars (1977), and Jurassic Park (1994) has been credited with reintroducing audiences the orchestral film score
Who is John Williams?
A sophisticated sound-on-disc system, first introduced in 1926 by then-fledgling film studio Warner Bros.
What is Vitaphone?
The combination of George Tomasini’s visceral edits and Bernard Hermann’s piercing score convinced audiences they saw more onscreen violence than they actually did in this 1960 thriller
What is Psycho?
In Jaws (1975), director Stephen Spielberg and D.P. Bill Butler employ this specific camera technique to emphasize the moment that Chief Brody sees the shark attack for the first time
What is a "Dolly zoom"?
Borrowed from the stage, this French film term refers to everything which is in front of the camera, including set design, lighting, props and actors
What is mise en scène?
A Soviet filmmaker who was a pioneer of Soviet montage theory, which held that editing and “collision” of shots could be used to evoke strong emotions and create metaphors
Who is Sergei Eisenstein?
This company’s name became synonymous with their series of custom imaging systems used in film production, which culminated in the “3-strip” process
What is Technicolor?
This 1920 horror film; notable for its dramatic lighting, surrealist set design, and dreamlike atmosphere; is an exemplar of the “German Expressionist” film movement
What is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari?
She was widely considered to be the first female film editor, beginning her Hollywood career in 1915 when the position was simply known as “cutter”
Who is Viola Lawrence?
A theory of combining contrasting images in different combinations to create different emotional or intellectual messages, named for Soviet filmmaker and professor
What is the Kuleshov effect?
An American film editor who currently hold a record 9 nominations and 3 wins for her frequent collaborations with Martin Scorsese
Who is Thelma Schoonmaker?
This process, which involved printing a film’s image and sound on separate pieces of film to allow them to be edited independently, had become industry-standard by the late 30’s
What is postsynchronization?
The famous “Odessa Steps” sequence from this 1925 Soviet film is often cited as a prime example of Soviet montage theory of editing
What is Battleship Potempkin?
This Italian film composer defined the sound of the entire Western genre with his dramatic score for films such as The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)
Who is Ennio Morricone?