Test 1 Study Guide
Why is conflict a central element in movies?
Why are directors more important than movie stars?
Be familiar with the three phases of filmmaking:
Preproduction
Production
Postproduction
Know the definition of the following filmmaking terms:
Cut,
scene, close-up, medium shot, long shot, panning, tracking, point of
view shot, cross-cutting, MTV editing, montage, dissolve, final cut.
Understand the American style of film editing and the art of the invisible cut.
Know the contributions of the following directors: Alfred Hitchcock, D.W. Griffith, Orson Welles.
How do directors master the art of visual storytelling?
The business side of movies.
How much movie money comes from outside of the U.S. and why are American movies so popular worldwide?
Why do movies cost so much to make and market? Why do kid movies make the most money?
Know the differences between movie franchises, good movies, bad movies and independent movies.
What role do studios play in the filmmaking process.
What are the primary sources of revenues for studios?
What's happening to the DVD and how is home viewing of movies changing?
Test 2 Study Guide
Comedies, Stereotyping, Movie censorship
Be
familiar with the different types of comedies including slapstick,
romantic comedy, satire, dark comedy, screwball comedy and raunchy guy
and raunchy girl comedy.
Why are slapstick comedies so popular and profitable?
Know
the contributions of Charlie Chaplin, Mel Brooks, the Farrelly
Brothers, the Wayans Brothers, the Coen Brothers and Woody Allen.
Know
the impact and evolution of the Production Code, the MPAA ratings and
movie sanitizing on movies. How are Catholics and Mormons involved in
movie censorship?
Why is the MPAA ratings controversial and how do directors feel about the system?
What financial impact do ratings have on movies? Know the differences between the ratings: G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17.
Be familiar with the contributions of Sidney Poitier, Step 'N Fetchit, Hattie McDaniel and Bill Robinson.
How has stereotyping impacted movies? What key events has impacted movie stereotyping over the years such as World War II?
Test 3 Study Guide
McCarthyism and the Studio System.
Be familiar with the studios during Hollywood's Golden Age, the men who ran them and the studios we have today.
What were some of the differences between studios in the golden age, such as the movie star was king, and studios today?
What were the characteristics of the studio bosses?
Why was MGM the richest, most important studio during the Golden Age? What was characteristic about the other studios?
How long was the studio system in operation and why did it end with the Paramount Case of 1948?
Why was the studio system a monopoly? What was good and bad about the studio system?
What is McCarthyism and how did it hurt the movie industry?
Be familiar with the terms: HUAC, the Hollywood 10, the Blacklist, naming names, friendly and unfriendly witnesses.
Why did the studio bosses create the blacklist?
How did the studio bosses testify and what happened to those who were uncooperative with HUAC?
Test 4 Study Guide
Hollywood in the 1950s and 1960s:
What happened to the moviegoing audiences in the 1950s?
Be familiar with the reasons for the 80 percent decline in the moviegoing audience from 1946 to 1960.
What impact did McCarthyism, the Paramount Case, TV and baby boomers have on movies during the 1950s?
Why did the studios dismiss TV as a fad?
Know how Walt Disney reacted to the advent of TV.
How
did the studios fight back with new technology in Cinerama and
CinemaScope. Be familiar with theater gimmicks such as smell-a-vision,
coward's corner, the tingler and 3-D.
Know
the top genres of the 1950s such as toga and sandal movies, musicals,
westerns, pirate movies and science fiction. How did the science fiction
movies of the 1950s differ from other eras.
Why
were drive-in movies such a big part of the 1950s? What contributions
did drive-ins make in the history of movies? Why are drive-in movies on
the decline?
How did the movie studios lose touch with their audience during the 1960s?
Which studios faced bankruptcy in the 1960s?
How
did the cultural revolution of the 1960s with hippies, civil rights,
women's movement and the Vietnam War impact the movie studios?
How did the directors assert control in the 1960s?
Why
did directors focus on social issues in movies such as abortion,
racism, nuclear war, political assassinations, drugs and alcoholism
during the 1960s?
Be
familiar with some of the important movies of the decade including The
Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, Bonnie and Clyde and In the Heat of the
Night.
Understand how the end of the production code made movies more violent and more sexual.
Test 5 Study Guide
The 1970s and beyond:
The CGI revolution begins and Hollywood is reborn.
Studios
discover the secret to prosperity: turn out dozens of mind-numbing
sequels (also called popcorn movies--small on plot, big on action) full
of CGI that kids love.
Be familiar with key movies in the CGI revolution including Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Forest Gump and The Terminator.
Know the following terms: CGI, analog vs. digital, matte painting, storyboarding and previsualization.
Be familiar with the career of the film-school generation directors:
Steven Spielberg
George Lucas
Francis Ford Coppola
Martin Scorsese
What
key movies did these directors make and how did they impact the movie
industry? Why are they given some of the credit for revitalizing and
saving the movie industry?
How did George Lucas and Star Wars create the template for the franchise?
Why did Lucas create his company ILM and what impact did ILM have on the CGI revolution?
How did Pixar spin off from ILM and what has Pixar done over the last 20 plus years?
Be familiar with the Spielberg--Lucas collaboration and how did it move the CGI revolution forward?
How did Scorsese and Coppola move the gangster genre forward?
How did Spielberg's success with JAWS create the template for today's blockbuster?
What happened to key studios during the 1970s and beyond including MGM, Disney and Universal?
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