Film Sound
A sound begins in one scene and carries over to the next. This is a _____.
sound bridge
What is the difference between plot and story in film?
The story is the events of the film in chronological order. The plot is the order in which those events happen in the film, as well as the way they happen (film style).
Name the director and one actor in Deep Cover.
Bill Duke; and Laurence Fishburne (or Jeff Goldblum or Charles Martin Smith)
Gap-Toothed Women is an example of what type of documentary form?
categorical form
"I love you, too."
Double Indemnity, dir. Billy Wilder. Walter Neff says this to his boss Keyes twice, including in the final scene as Keyes comforts the wounded man.
What are the three perceptual properties of sound?
Classical Hollywood cinema favors what kind of protagonists?
Goal-oriented (who encounter conflict and experience change)
What are the four basic functions of genre?
Blueprint, formula, label, contract
A Movie is an example of what type of experimental form?
Associational
A model train set
Wallace and Gromit in The Wrong Trousers, dir. Nick Park. A model train runs through W&G's home, delivering G's present in the first scene and the climactic chase toward the end.
What is Mickey Mousing?
Film sound which mimics the rhythm of on-screen movement.
Name three characters in Citizen Kane who motivate flashbacks in the film's plot.
Walter Thatcher, Mr. Bernstein, Jed Leland, Susan Alexander Kane, Raymond the butler
What controversial incident helped to galvanize Black-directed Hollywood films in the early 1990s?
The Rodney King beating
For what major New Deal federal project was The River an effective work of government propaganda?
The Tennessee Valley Authority
A cochlear implant
A Quiet Place, dir. John Krasinski. Regan's jerry-rigged cochlear implant is a source of disagreement with her father, but later its feedback unknowingly saves her from an alien, and at the end she weaponizes it to save her family.
The sound designers of A Quiet Place call it the "sound envelope." What term have we used to describe this subjective sound design?
Point of audition
In Gas Food Lodging, how does Allison Anders use driving as a way of drawing a line between male and female roles in this small town?
When women are behind the wheel, they don't go anywhere; when men are driving, it's less about them taking control and more about them driving away.
What film is often considered the first Western—and why is this not precisely accurate?
At the time of its release, The Great Train Robbery was not seen as a Western (since the genre didn't yet exist), but as part of the "railway" or "violent crime" genres.
What are the animation techniques used in 1) Duck Amuck and 2) Dimensions of Dialogue?
Cel animation and pixillation
A person playing, framed in a window
Citizen Kane, dir. Orson Welles. We see Kane playing outside a distant window as his parents and Thatcher discuss his fate, and later Leland and Bernstein discuss Kane's future in a similar composition.
Describe a real or imaginary example of the fluid line between diegetic and non-diegetic sound.
A car travels down the highway as music plays on the soundtrack. The driver clicks off the radio and the music stops; what we thought was non-diegetic sound has become diegetic.
Regarding the narration in Citizen Kane, what is the key distinction between Bernstein's flashback and the shot of "Rosebud" in flames?
In terms of the range of the narration, Bernstein's flashback is mostly restricted to his perspective of events. The shot of "Rosebud" is unrestricted—only we the viewers see this.
Describe the where, when, and how of the invention of the term film noir.
Following WWII, the embargo on Hollywood films was lifted in France. French film critics saw numerous films all at once, and saw a darkness in several of them that Nino Frank dubbed film noir.
Why is Stan Brakhage's Mothlight unusual among the experimental films we have watched?
Nothing is photographed—bark and leaves and insect pieces were glued to the celluloid.
A mirror, intact and then broken
Meshes of the Afternoon, dirs. Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid. We see several mirrors in the film: as the face of the mysterious robed figure, later reflecting the husband's face. At last we see the woman shatter the mirror-image of her husband, and later mirror shards surround her dead body.