MISC.
What is the difference between film theory and film analysis?
What constitutes the preproduction stage in filmmaking?
Doing everything in preparation for the actual production and distribution of a movie. It is when funds are raised, crews are assembled, scripts are written, and more.
How would you go about showing the audience that time has passed between two scenes?
Fade out/Fade in, dissolve, or wipes.
What's the difference between history and historiography?
Historiography refers to the study of how to study history (methodologies, frameworks, etc.). History is the actual study of temporally situated events.
What is the naturalistic and theatrical traditions of mise en scene?
naturalistic: arrangement of mise en scene that follows assumed laws of nature and society and consistently have a logical relation to each other (place looks the way its supposed to look).
Theatrical: fantastical elements that display and exult in their artificial and constructed nature. Can take on an independent life of its own that may confront or challenge characters (think Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)
What is continuity editing?
A highly standardized system of editing, now virtually universal in commercial film and television but originally associated with Hollywood cinema, that matches spatial and temporal relations from shot to shot in order to maintain continuous and clear narrative action. Generally speaking, the continuity system aims to present a scene so that the editing is "invisible" (not consciously noticed by the viewer) and the viewer is never distracted by awkward jumps between shots or by any confusion about the spatial lay-out of the scene.
Releasing a film in as many locations as possible as soon as possible is called:
saturation booking
What is the difference between a scene and a sequence?
scene: composed of one or more shots that depict a continuous space and time.
sequence: any number of shots that are unified as a coherent action or an identifiable motif, regardless of changes in time and space.
What characterized the aesthetic and ideology of German expressionist cinema?
represented a character's interiority and subjectivity through lighting, sets and costume design. Generally turned away from realist representations.
What are the four defined attributes of a shot?
Framing, depth of field, color, and movement.
How is feminist film theory and queer theory put into tension with one another?
Feminist film theory tends to automatically assume the heterosexist positionality of man's desire for the female figure Queer theory allows for more flexible ways beyond this binary opposites, such as Judith Butler's concept of gender as performativity. Feminist theory tends to uphold structuralist views on gender whereas queer theory tends to lean towards poststructuralism.
Give me an example of an above the line expense.
Director, administration, DP, actors, etc.
What are the two primary functions of film editing (according to the textbook)?
1. to generate emotions and ideas through the construction of patterns of seeing
2 to move beyond normal temporal and spatial limitations
What was HUAC (House UnAmerican Activities Committee) responsible for doing?
They made sure to investigate industry workers and citizens who may have had ties with the communities party. They were responsible for the "Red Scare" in Hollywood in the late 40s and 50s where presumed communist industry workers were blacklisted.
What is 3 point lighting and name what each light does in this set up.
3 point lighting is a common lighting technique that uses three sources.
key light - main illumination source
fill light - generally put on the opposite side of the keylight in order to minimize harsh shadows.
fill light: used to pop acting talent out from the background.
What is the difference between classical and contemporary film theory?
Classical film theory was more interested in questions about the nature of cinema and its status as an art form. Contemporary film theory was more interested in questions of how audiences receive meaning, how film represents reality, and the politics therein.
What is a treatment?
a short description about the major events and characters of a film.
Who is most strongly associated with the use of crosscutting/parallel editing?
D.W Griffith
In the 1950s, this technology encouraged audiences to watch films, even as the popularity of television was on the rise.
IMAX and other large screen technologies (ie. cinemascope).
How do focal lengths correspond with depth of field?
What were the two methods of putting sound into film in the mid to late 1920s?
Sound on disc (ie Warner Bros Vitaphone) and Sound on film (ie Fox's movietone)
Due to media convergence, what kind of marketing technique has emerged as a strong approach to getting audiences exposed to a particular film?
viral marketing
Tell me the relationship between disjunctive editing and distanciation.
Disjunctive edits like jump cuts encourages viewers to feel intellectual distance between themselves and the work, encouraging them to think critically about the messages that they are being given through the film and the various issues that it raises as a work of art.
What was the role of the Hays Code in Hollywood?
What is the difference between image as presence and image as textuality?
As presence: encourages close identification with the image's pov, an emotional and experiential response to the image.
As textuality: encourages intellectual difference and critical engagement with the content