Deck 7: Movies and the Impact of Images

Question 1

The Motion Picture Patents Company was established in 1908 to share film technology with independent filmmakers.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

The existence of the Motion Picture Patents Company led some independent producers to make their pictures in faraway Hollywood.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

The movie industry responded to the success of television by producing more films for children.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

The major film studios were able to dominate movie exhibition in the United States by acquiring all the country's drive-in theaters.

Question 5

An oligopoly exists when a few companies control an industry.

Question 6

The first sound movie, The Jazz Singer, was basically a silent film with a few spoken words.

Question 7

Early silent films flourished in part because they transcended language.

Question 8

The first public showing of Edison's kinetoscope projector system was in a Paris café in December 1895.

Question 9

The first motion pictures were watched by only one person at a time.

Question 10

Hollywood was the international center of early cinema.

Question 11

The government's 1948 order forcing the major studios to sell their theaters effectively ended their control of the movie industry.

Question 12

The first movie theaters were called nickelodeons, a name that indicated the cost of admission.

Question 13

The Motion Picture Production Code was established in the 1960s to rate movies for age-appropriate content.

Question 14

Thomas Edison was the first person who theorized about the possibility of motion pictures.

Question 15

Georges Méliès made the first western, The Great Train Robbery.

Question 16

American studios were able to gain control of the world film industry during World War I.

Question 17

The Singing Fool disappointed silent-film fans across the nation.

Question 18

Movie palaces looked beautiful on the outside, but were often very shabby on the inside.

Question 19

The Paramount decision ended the dominance of the major studios over the commercial film industry.

Question 20

Birth of a Nation (1915)was the first feature-length film produced in the United States.

Question 21

The film industry makes much more money today from first-run releases in movie theaters than from home DVD/video releases.

Question 22

Movie studios in the United States still practice block booking and require that theaters accept lesser films so as to get blockbuster movies.

Question 23

American audiences refuse to watch foreign films.

Question 24

Cinema verité is a style of documentary filmmaking that closely resembles a big-budget, high-gloss Hollywood feature.

Question 25

International box-office gross revenues are almost double the U.S.and Canadian box-office receipts.

Question 26

Examples of genres include comedy, drama, romance, and action/adventure.

Question 27

Despite the popularity of DVDs, theme parks, and soundtrack CDs, the movie business still gets 80 percent of its revenue from box-office receipts.

Question 28

Film studios have generally resisted making product placement deals for creative reasons.

Question 29

Documentaries generally avoid controversial or unpopular subject matter.

Question 30

All commercial movies made in the world are now produced and shot in Hollywood.

Question 31

Grouping films by genre allows the movie industry to achieve both product standardization and differentiation.

Question 32

Movie theaters are still the largest single source of revenue for a typical feature film.

Question 33

Film noir movies are notable for their bright lighting, lush sets, and upbeat story lines.

Question 34

In scriptwriting terminology, the "discourse" is how the story is told.

Question 35

Six studios dominate the U.S.film business.

Question 36

Because of high equipment and operating costs, digital technology is not expected to benefit independent filmmakers for many years.

Question 37

Film is generally considered to be a director's medium.

Question 38

A thriving black cinema existed in New York's Harlem district during the 1930s and 1940s.

Question 39

Hollywood's primary "authors" are scriptwriters.

Question 40

A "consensus narrative" is a type of movie that seeks a small, select niche audience.

Question 41

Adolph Zukor formed the Famous Players Company in 1912 to

A)Give young actors a start in movies
B)Exert control over movie production
C)Serve as an agent for established actors
D)Make exceptional movies with the best directors available

Question 42

To gain access to popular movies, early theater owners and exhibitors had to agree to rent untested or marginal films with unknown actors.This distribution technique was called

A)International distribution
B)Block booking
C)Option time
D)Zukor's law

Question 43

Through the 1940s, more than 80 percent of all film revenue was generated by

A)Small neighborhood theaters
B)Downtown first-run theaters
C)Multiplexes in shopping malls
D)Home video rentals

Question 44

Today, the world's largest film industry is in India, out of the so-called Bombaywood.

Question 45

__________________ demonstrated the Justice Department's attempts at breaking up monopolies within the film industry.

A)Fin-syn
B)The Paramount decision
C)The Telecommunications Act of 1996
D)HUAC
E)No option is correct

Question 46

Who launched United Artists?

A)Mary Pickford
B)Douglas Fairbanks
C)Charlie Chaplin
D)All options are correct

Question 47

Which of the following is not an element of vertical integration in the movie industry?

A)Production
B)Syndication
C)Distribution
D)Exhibition
E)All options are correct

Question 48

Block booking was

A)A studio production technique that doubled up on scripts
B)A studio distribution technique that "bundled" films together
C)A studio exhibition technique that used B-roll schedules to limit lengths of films
D)A studio business ploy that "doctored" the accounting books

Question 49

Which of the following did not have an effect on Hollywood in the postwar era (late 1940s, 1950s)?

A)The rise of nickelodeons
B)The Paramount decision
C)The mass egress to the suburbs
D)Television

Question 50

Who opened the first public movie theater in France in 1896?

A)Auguste Lumière
B)Adolph Zukor
C)Georges Méliès
D)Louis Lumière

Question 51

Under the studio system

A)Actors were independent contractors who could work for any studio
B)Movies were made on an assembly-line basis
C)The studios had no control over the private lives of their creative talent
D)Producers were hired to direct the pictures

Question 52

In an effort to compete with television in the 1950s, the movie studios began making

A)Big-budget family films
B)Documentaries
C)-rated adult movies
D)Films that dealt with such social problems as alcoholism, drug abuse, and racism

Question 53

American filmmaker Edwin S.Porter (maker of The Life of an American Fireman)

A)Shot narrative scenes out of order
B)Made what is considered America's first narrative film
C)Used the first close-up in U.S.narrative film history
D)All options are correct

Question 54

After Edison, Adolph Zukor of Paramount tried to monopolize the film industry by controlling

A)Production
B)Distribution
C)Exhibition
D)All options are correct

Question 55

Nickelodeons were

A)Turn-of-the-twentieth-century theaters dedicated to screening children's films
B)The first fancy downtown movie palaces, located mainly in business centers
C)The original movie theaters, located mainly in working-class neighborhoods
D)No option is correct

Question 56

How did Hollywood adapt to the development of home entertainment?

A)By developing small-budget films better suited to TV
B)By investing in home entertainment technology
C)By urging government to restrict DVD distribution
D)By developing a new market for renting and selling movies

Question 57

Which of the following was not one of the original five major studios that once dominated the film business?

A)MGM
B)Warner Brothers
C)Disney
D)Paramount

Question 58

The sharp drop in movie attendance that occurred after World War II can be attributed to

A)Competition from radio
B)The population shift to the suburbs
C)The Paramount decision
D)All options are correct

Question 59

Which film was the first successful talking motion picture?

A)The Great Train Robbery
B)Snow White
C)Birth of a Nation
D)The Jazz Singer

Question 60

In an early attempt to monopolize the film industry, inventor Thomas Edison formed

A)The Motion Picture Monopoly of America
B)The Edison Oligopoly Company
C)Paramount Studios
D)The Motion Picture Patents Company

Question 61

U.S.film viewing decreased during the 1950s because

A)Television cornered the family market
B)Innovations like Technicolor were not enough to lure people downtown
C)Americans chose to spend their money on material goods rather than movie tickets
D)All options are correct

Question 62

The greatest source of revenue for a movie is

A)DVD sales and rentals
B)Pay-per-view and premium cable
C)Distribution in international markets
D)Box-office revenue product placements Fill in the Blank