You should be familiar with the plots of all the films we watched in class. You should also be familiar with the main ideas from The Cutting Edge documentary. Moreover, anything discussed in class in the lectures could be on exam. You will have to answer 50 multiple choice items.
Review
Chapter 1: Looking at Movies
Cinematic Language: The accepted systems, methods, or customs by which movies communicate. Cinematic conventions are flexible; they are not “rules”.
Difference between movie, film, cinema: Film is applied to a motion picture that is considered by critics and scholars to be more serious or challenging. Movies entertain the masses at the multiplex. Cinemas are considered to be works of art
Shot: One uninterrupted run of the camera.
Editing: The process by which the editor combines and coordinates individual shots into a cinematic whole; the basic creative force of cinema.
Cut: A direct change from one shot to another.
Close-up: A shot that often shows a part of the body filling the frame---traditionally a face, but possibly a hand, eye, or mouth.
Define: Fadeout/fade in, when is it used? Transitional devices in which a shot fades in from a black field on black-and-white film or from a color field on color film, or fades out to a black field. These are used to convey a passage of time between scenes.
Define: Low-angle shot, when is it used? A shot that is made with the camera below the action and that typically places the observer in a position of inferiority.
Why is cutting on action important? Cutting on action is important because it hides the instantaneous and potentially jarring shift from one camera viewpoint to another.
What is cultural invisibility? Is it always calculated? Cultural Invisibility is used by a filmmaker to make the movie more appealing by implying certain shared beliefs with the viewers without them knowing.
What is the difference between implicit and explicit meaning? Implicit meaning: