Chapters 1-6

Question 1

What were the old cameras called?

Answer 1

Camera Obscura

Question 2

16th century scientist who invented:

1. camera obscura
2. simple convex glass lens
3. mirror projection of the image

Answer 2

Giovanni Battista della Porta

Question 3

17th Century astronomer and physicist who:

1. Was the first to apply the name “Camera Obscura”
2. Developed sophisticated lenses

Answer 3

Johannes Kepler

Question 4

Made sequential photographs that showed that a running horse has all four hooves off the ground at once

Answer 4

Eadward Muybridge

Question 5

Refers to the mind’s retention of an image for a tenth of a second after it disappears from the view.

Answer 5

Persistence of Vision

Question 6

Refers to humans’ inclination to believe the basis for both cinematic propaganda and art.

Answer 6

Cinematic Reality

Question 7

Invented the “photogun” which is the first multiple exposure camera that captured the same kind of motion photography that Muybridge did with multiple cameras

Answer 7

Etienne Jules Marey

Question 8

Assigned a young assistant named William Dickson the task of making the first motion picture camera and projection system.

Answer 8

Thomas Edison

Question 9

The founder of the Kodak company, invented the first successful flexible motion picture film. It was made of celluloid.

Answer 9

George Eastman

Question 10

Thomas Edison’s first patented system for showing motion pictures

Answer 10

Kinetoscope

Question 11

What did the workers at Edison’s motion picture production unit nickname his studio?

Answer 11

The Black Maria

Question 12

Invented the first effective motion picture projector

Answer 12

Thomas Armat

Question 13

Nickelodeon businessman

Answer 13

Norman Raff

Question 14

Who convinced Thomas Edison to join them in a new company “Vitascope” which they misleadingly called “Edison’s new invention” as a marking tool?

Answer 14

Thomas Armat & Norman Raff

Question 15

Where was the first Vitascope projected movie shown at?

Answer 15

In the US at Koster and Bial’s Vaudeville Theater in New York in 1896, a year after the Lumiere Brothers started showing projected actualities in Paris using their own system, the “Cinematographe”

Question 16

Early movie shorts were shown at the end of live Vaudeville acts as ____ to clear the theaters

Answer 16

Chasers

Question 17

The first successful “Nickelodeon” theater dedicated to “one reel” movies (10 mins)…

Answer 17

was a converted store front in McKeesport, PA..

Question 18

What were the Nickelodeon films considered as in the early 20th century?

Answer 18

Lower class entertainment

Question 19

French film pioneer who created and/or advanced the art of imaginative special effects in motion pictures

Answer 19

Georges Melies

Question 20

Used conventional theatrical stage effects such as pointed backdrops, heavy makeup, exaggerated staging and acting, and static wide shot presentations in their films.

Answer 20

Melies and many of his contemporaries

Question 21

Where was “The Great Train Robbery,” film shot at? Edwin S. Porter’s landmark Edison produced film made in 1903 and which developed narrative film style.

Answer 21

NEW JERSEY, Not “Wild West”

Question 22

Who was the most important American film maker during the first 10 years of the American industry’s development?

Answer 22

Edwin Porter

Question 23

To protect his patent rights and his income, who organized the Motion Picture Patents Company, sometimes called “The Edison Trust,” and tried to monopolize film production, distribution and exhibition?

Answer 23

Thomas Edison

Question 24

Who founded IMP (the Independent Motion Picture Company) to fight the “Edison Trust?”

Answer 24

Carl Laemmle (Uncle Carl) - His six year legal battle ended in the US Justice Department declaring the “Edison Trust” an illegal monopoly.

Question 25

Who Founded Universal Pictures?

Answer 25

Carl Laemmle (Uncle Carl)

Question 26

Imported longer, four reel French films starring well known stage actors and went on to found “Famous Players,” an American company that produced similar films.

Answer 26

Adolf Zukor

Question 27

This was the largest producer of Motion Pictures in the world before World War I

Answer 27

The Pathe’ Frere (Pathe Brothers) film company, based in Paris

Question 28

This was one of the most important early American film companies, all of whom had a policy of not listing their actors’ names on screen

Answer 28

Biograph

Question 29

Was founded by the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA) in an attempt to blunt unionization efforts in Hollywood.

Answer 29

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS)

Question 30

Established and operated the Hayes Office in a successful effort to stave off governmental censorship.

Answer 30

Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA)

Question 31

Film producers moved to Hollywood in California during the “teens” and the “twenties” to do what?

Answer 31

take advantage of the climate and variety of landscapes.

Question 32

Revolutionized the film business because it utilized and integrated all the major story telling techniques of film and was the most expensive and financially successful film to that date. Unfortunately, it also, like many films of its period, presented a racist view of Southern Reconstruction and the beginning of the KKK. The last action sequence of the first half of the film shows the assassination of President Lincoln.

Answer 32

“The Birth of a Nation,” made in 1915 by D. W. Griffith

Question 33

D. W. Griffith followed up the stunning success of “Birth of a Nation” with what?

Answer 33

The even longer and more expensive “Intolerance” which incorporated four intertwining stories and met with limited audience acceptance.

Question 34

What was one of Griffith’s great contributions to the art of film?

Answer 34

His use of “naturalistic acting” as opposed to the exaggerated stage acting technique prevalent in most films of his time.

Question 35

Who is credited with being an early adopter of the “Star System” in which his studio, Fox Films, developed unknown actors into stars?

Answer 35

William Fox, another business pioneer in the film industry

Question 36

Who was one of his first “manufactured” stars of William Fox?

Answer 36

Theda Bara (an acronym for Arab Death) who created the “Vamp” character known for her predatory sexual power over men.

Question 37

Who was the most important producer of American silent comedies during the “teens” and early “twenties” who’s company Keystone Pictures became synonymous with “slapstick,” rapid action comedies.

Answer 37

Mack Sennett

Question 38

Most early comedies were…

Answer 38

Subversive (disruptive) of authority, especially the police, and embraced chaos and vulgarity.

Question 39

what does the Hollywood “Studio System” refer to?

Answer 39

A business model that included the “vertical integration” of story creation, film production, film distribution and film exhibition within a number of well financed companies including Paramount, Warner Brothers, MGM, Universal, RKO and United Artists.

Question 40

Who formed this last company, United Artists, so they could reap more of the profits from their work and enjoy more creative freedom?

Answer 40

D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and her husband Douglas Fairbanks.

Question 41

Who was the most famous and popular “Latin Lover” of the silent era?

Answer 41

Rudolf Valentino, whose career was defined by his role in “The Sheik.”

Question 42

After the devastation of World War I (“WW I”) European film in the 1920’s and early 1930’s presented a bleak picture of human existence. In France, life was shown to be incomprehensible and meaningless. In Germany, a new style of nightmarish lighting, camera work and set design emerged that emphasized extreme emotions and impressions. This style of film came to be called “German Expressionism” and was particularly useful in the making of Horror films like “Nosferatu” by F. W. Murnau and “Metropolis” by Fritz Lang. In “Metropolis,” the final action takes place in and in front of a cathedral as the appropriate setting in which to sum up the film’s Christian message of compassion and cooperation.

Answer 42

NO ANSWER

Question 43

Migrated to Hollywood, once the Nazis rose to power in Germany in the mid “thirties,” where he continued his creative and influential career, as did many other talented and ambitious European writers, directors, producers, cameramen and actors

Answer 43

Fritz Lang

Question 44

One of the Russian filmmakers, who emphasized along with other Russian directors, the importance of editing as the essential advance of motion pictures over other forms of storytelling.

Answer 44

Lev Kuleshev

Question 45

During the twenties in the US, who defended itself from public and political calls for censorship by establishing the Hayes Office which was supposed to impose self-censorship on the film industry’s output. The most famous incident that forced this action was the murder case brought against comic Fatty Arbuckle who was finally acquitted after three trials but whose career was destroyed in the process.

Answer 45

MPPDA

Question 46

The “silent era,” which had begun in 1891 with Edison’s introduction of the Kinetoscope, ended in 1927 when…

Answer 46

Warner Brothers released the first successful “talking picture,” that is, a film with recorded sound synchronized to the action and lip movements in the picture. The name of film was “The Jazz Singer” and it made Al Jolson the biggest star in Hollywood.