New Media Culture- A Brief History of Film

Question 1

Thomas Edison develops the first motion picture camera

Answer 1

1888

Question 2

Birth of a Nation is the first feature film in?

Answer 2

1915

Question 3

The Jazz Singer is the first “Talkie”

Answer 3

1927

Question 4

Peak of North American Box Office attendance- 90 million/week.

Answer 4

1946

Question 5

Television competes, major studios have to divest their theatre chains in?

Answer 5

1948

Question 6

movie ratings are introduced in?

Answer 6

1968

Question 7

Jaws becomes the first modern blockbuster in?

Answer 7

1975

Question 8

Star Wars revolutionizes special effects and film merchandizing in?

Answer 8

1977

Question 9

Toy Story released, first major 100% Computer Animated feature film in?

Answer 9

1995

Question 10

DVDs were introduced in?

Answer 10

1997

Question 11

Netflix streams films over Internet in?

Answer 11

2007

Question 12

The first partially successful photograph of a camera image was made in? And by whom

Answer 12

1816 approx by Joseph Niépce

Question 13

The ______________ Method was developed in 1836 was the first practical photography method.

Answer 13

Daguerreotype

Question 14

the Kinetograph/Kinetoscope was First described in conceptual terms by who and in what year?

Answer 14

Thomas Edison, 1888

Question 15

The first U.S. copyright for an identifiable motion picture was given to Edison for? And when?

Answer 15

Fred Ott’s Sneeze in 1894

Question 16

Why did Edison abandon film in 1914?

Answer 16

a fire destroyed his research and development labs

Question 17

the cinematograph was made by which 2 french siblings and in what year?

Answer 17

August and Louis Lumière in 1894

Question 18

When did the Lumière brothers start making films?

Answer 18

1892

Question 19

The cinématographe itself was patented on?

Answer 19

13 February, 1895

Question 20

on March 19, 1895, what was the first footage filmed?

Answer 20

Workers leaving the Lumière factory

Question 21

The First Horror Film was

Answer 21

“The devil’s castle” by Georges Méliès in 1896

Question 22

Méliès also produced the first science fiction movie, what was it called amd when was it made?

Answer 22

Le Voyage dans la lune (Voyage to the Moon) in 1902

Question 23

The (American) Golden Age of Silent film ran from?

Answer 23

1903- 1927

Question 24

The First Major Movie Star of North American cinema was?

Answer 24

Canadian, Mary Pickford (aka Gladys Marie Smith)

Question 25

The Movie Industry restarted itself in Hollywood because?

Answer 25

it was far away from Edison and his men, and because it was close to the border so they could escape to Mexico if needed

Question 26

The First Feature Film was?

Answer 26

D.W Griffith’s Birth of a Nation in 1915

Question 27

Birth of a Nation was also important because it featured the first:

Answer 27

Outdoor battle scenes.

Close-ups

Cuts between simultaneous sequences of action

Question 28

Many states banned the film because?

Answer 28

for fear it would incite violence, and it was one of the first cases of American film censorship

Question 29

was established when and what did it do?

Answer 29

1930 and forbade scenes that protrayed “crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin” in a positive light

Question 30

in the post-War years, only the United States was really in a position to produce films at a large scale anymore because of what event?

Answer 30

WWII, everyone else was decimated by the war (England, France, Brazil, Japan, China and India)

Question 31

A “B Movie” is what? And where did the term come from?

Answer 31

the old theatre days when the theatres were always rotating two films- An “A Movie” and “B Movie”. The “A Movie” would be the one with the big stars and production values. The “B Movie” would be a cheap genre film (mystery, suspense, romance, comedy, action, Western, etc) with semi-unknown stars and a quality level much lower than that of the “A Movie”.

Question 32

In 1946, what happened in America (Film wise)

Answer 32

American movie-going reaching a peak of 90 million audience members a week

Question 33

What did The Great Depression of the 1930’s do to most of the smaller movie producers and over 5000 independent movie theatres?

Answer 33

Killed them off

Question 34

Many of them were bought by the Big Five which are:

Answer 34

Paramount

Loews/MGM

Warner Brothers

20th Century Fox

RKO