Chapter 1 Film as Art: Creativity, Technology, and Business

Question 1

Fact# 1

Answer 1

Films are designed to create experiences for viewers.

Question 2

Important Director Question

Answer 2

If I do this, as opposed to that, how will viewers react?

Question 3

Throughout this book, we focus on the two basic areas of choice and control in the art of film:

Answer 3

Form and Style

Question 4

Form

Answer 4

Is the overall patterning of a film, the ways it’s parts work together to create specific effects.

Question 5

Style

Answer 5

Involves the film’s use of cinematic techniques.

Question 6

Those style techniques fall into four categories:

Answer 6

: Mise-en-scene
: Cinematography
: Editing
: Sound

Question 7

Mise-en-scene

Answer 7

Or the arrangement of people, places, and objects to be filmed.

Question 8

Cinematography

Answer 8

The use of cameras and other machines to record images and sounds.

Question 9

Editing

Answer 9

The piecing together of individual shots.

Question 10

Sound

Answer 10

The voices, effects, and music that blend on a film’s audio track.

Question 11

Fact# 2

Answer 11

A film consists of a series of frames, or still pictures.

Question 12

Fact# 3

Answer 12

If you flash a light faster and faster and faster, at a certain point (around 50 flashes per second), you see not a pulsating light but a continuous beam.

Question 13

Fact# 4

Answer 13

A film is usually shot and projected at 24 still frames per second.

Question 14

Fact# 5

Answer 14

The projector shutter breaks the light beam once as a new image is slid into place and once while it is held in place. Thus each frame is actually projected on the screen twice.

Question 15

Fact# 6

Answer 15

This means that the number of frames is still 24 but the number of flashes is doubled to 48. This is the threshold of what is called Critical Flicker Fusion.

Question 16

Fact# 7

Answer 16

Early silent films were shot at a lower rate (often 16 or 20 images per second), and projectors broke the beam only once per image.

Question 17

Fact# 8

Answer 17

The picture had a pronounced flicker - hence an early slang term for movies, “flickers,” which survives today when people call a film a “flick.”

Question 18

Apparent motion

Answer 18

Is a second factor in creating cinema’s illusion. If a visual display is changed rapidly enough, our eye can be fooled into seeing movement.