Early Film History
Where were the first American film companies mainly located?
New York and New Jersey
Which studio, having lost out to Warner Bros. on signing big-name theatrical talent, exploited sound technology via newsreels?
Fox
Editing that breaks down a single space into separate areas, often cutting closer to the action.
What is Georges Méliès known for?
In the earliest days of cinema, what were the four most common genres/subjects?
Scenics, actualities, fictional films, and topicals.
What were common characteristics of mise-en-scene in German Expressionist films?
Exaggeration and repetition in backdrops, distorted buildings, exaggerated acting styles
What is the Kuleshov effect?
A series of shots where a scene's establishing shot is left out, which leads the spectator to infer spatial and temporal continuity from the shots of separate elements.
How does Sergei Eisenstein manipulate the temporality of an action or scene using Soviet Montage editing techniques in Battleship Potemkin?
He uses overlapping editing in the plate smashing scene in order Act One of Battleship Potemkin and elliptical cutting when the woman on the stairs is being beaten.
What is block booking?
When the licensing for the exhibition of motion-picture films are unified as a block or group, which makes the licensee take an entire group of films or none.
What was the star system and when did it begin?
The star system was when producers began to sign actors into longer contracts so that certain acting talent were associated with certain production companies. It began in 1909.
Which national film industries actually benefited from World War One?
United States and Germany
Explain what each light of the three point lighting system does.
Key light: brightest light, primary light source for exposure.
Fill Light: Cancels out the shadows of the keylights on the actor's figure/face. Often slightly weaker than the key light to keep some dimension to the figure.
Backlight: Lights the figure from the back, usually used to separate the actor from blending into the background
What was Oscar Micheaux known for?
He was the most famous and successful Black producer-director of race films during the silent period.
What national styles constituted the international style of "Film Europe?"
French Impressionism, German Expressionism, and Soviet Montage
What were the 4 preconditions that needed to happen before motion pictures could emerge as a viable medium?
1. The scientific dicovery that the human eye perceives motion if a series of slightly different images is placed in rapid succession.
2. capacity to project a rapid series of images on a surface.
3. a photographic base flexible enough to pass through camera rapidly
4. Film stock that needed shorter exposure times
How did the concept of Constructivism influence the Soviet understanding of cinema?
Art (like cinema) must have a social function, as well as aesthetic beauty. Artwork was often compared to a machine - which emphasizes the putting-together of disparate parts (which inspires the fundamental structure of a montage).
What are the three basic ways in which the continuity system joins shots together?
Cross-cutting, analytical editing, and contiguity editing.
Who was responsible for the first showings of projected motion pictures in many countries?
The Lumiere Brothers
What innovations in the animation system happened within the 10s and 20s?
Pixilation, Cel animation, slash system, rotoscoping.
What were strategies that Edison and the Motion Pictures Patent Company used in order to challenge their competitors?
-patented motion picture cameras, projectors, and film stock, so some companies had to pay Edison a licensing fee in order to continue producing films.
-strictly limited the number of foreign films that could join and import films into the US market
What encouraged the emergence of "Film Europe?"
-Postwar animosities faded between France, Britain, and Germany.
-European producers recognized that American competition was too great for any one country to counter.
What editing techniques characterized the French Impressionist method of filmmaking?
rhythmic editing, PoV shots, superimpositions, filters, and triptychs,
Who is Margaret J. Winkler Mintz?
She was a successful independent distributor of this era and was responsible for the successful financing and releasing of some of the most popular animated series in the 1920s: Out of the Inkwell, Mutt and Jeff, Walt Disney's production, and Felix the Cat.
Warner Bros. initially considered converting to sound production as a way to:
Create a cost-cutting substitute for live entertainment on film programs.