Hanson, Mass Communication, 7e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
Chapter 8: Movies: Mass Producing Entertainment
Test Bank
Multiple Choice
1. The 2018 movie Black Panther had a huge opening weekend at the box office in part
because ______.
A. there were large numbers of church and school groups going to see it
B. the movie had Hollywood’s hottest young star in it
C. the movie was directed by Star Wars legend George Lucas
D. all of these
2. The 2015 summer hit movie Mad Max: Fury Road was successful in part because
______.
A. it was part of the long-running Mad Max franchise
B. it featured a strong cast with lots of interesting roles for women
C. it featured lots of practical effects that gave it a feeling of reality
D. all of these
3. Which of the following was the first major movie with multiple scenes and a plot?
A. The Jazz Singer
B. Gone with the Wind
C. The Great Train Robbery
D. E.T.
4. Who developed the earliest portable movie cameras?
A. Thomas Edison
B. Auguste Marie and Louis Jean Lumière
C. Étienne-Jules Marey
D. Eadweard Muybridge
5. Who was the director of The Birth of a Nation, the controversial silent film about the
Civil War?
A. Cecil B. DeMille
B. Edwin Armstrong
C. Charlie Chaplin
D. D. W. Griffith
6. Among the earliest movie stars in the United States was which of the following?
A. Harry Warner
B. Humphrey Bogart
C. Florence Lawrence
D. Natalie Portman
7. In the 1930s and 1940s, the studios required theaters to schedule a large number of
lesser movies in order to get one or two major films. This practice was known as which
of the following?
A. block booking
B. right of first refusal
C. pickup
D. sliding scale
8. Movie attendance peaked in which year?
A. 1926
B. 1946
C. 1966
D. 1996
9. The large number of smaller theaters grouped together that replaced the large Art
Deco movie palaces is known as which of the following?
A. multiplexes
B. Cineramas
C. blockbusters
D. Hollywood Tens
10. The film that created the idea of the summer blockbuster was which of the
following?
A. Gone with the Wind
B. Jaws
C. Star Wars
D. Superman Returns
11. Which of the following was the movie that sold the most tickets of all time?
A. Titanic
B. Gone with the Wind
C. Star Wars
D. Avatar
Hanson, Mass Communication, 7e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
12. By 2012, ______ was the most popular way to watch movies at home.
A. VHS tapes
B. DVDs
C. blu-ray discs
D. streaming video services
13. Reissuing of movies in black and white has become popular recently in part
because ______.
A. black-and-white prints are popular with color-blind movie fans
B. there is a massive audience for black-and-white films
C. it costs very little to deliver digital “prints” to theaters compared to the cost of
delivering film prints in the past
D. You’re nuts. Studios don’t ever reissue movies in black-and-white.
14. Ancillary markets for movies include which of the following?
A. international distribution rights
B. home video
C. toys and clothing
D. all of these
15. Eadweard Muybridge and Étienne-Jules Marey are famous for which of the
following?
A. They conducted early experiments on depicting motion with photos.
B. They cochaired the House Subcommittee on Un-American Activities
C. They called television “a vast wasteland.”
D. They were the founding members of the first disco group to have a record on the
Billboard Hot 100.
16. Which of the following movies proved the value of Internet promotion?
A. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
B. The Blair Witch Project
C. Get Out
D. The Post
17. Movies are often produced for the IMAX format so that ______.
A. they are guaranteed to be shown in close to 1,000 theaters
B. they can get premium ticket prices from fans
C. the directors can have a larger format to present their movie with
D. all of these
18. Which of the following was one of the earliest rebellions against the controls of the
studio system?
A. the creation of talking pictures
B. the growth of block booking
C. the establishment of United Artists
D. the growth of color movies
19. Once it was introduced, almost every movie made used which of the following
technologies?
A. color
B. sound
C. 3-D
D. Cinerama
20. The blacklist of the 1940s and 1950s was driven by which of the following?
A. a desire to increase movie profits
B. a fear of communism
C. a fear of terrorism
D. none of these
21. Hollywood’s response to the rise of television was to do which of the following?
A. start making larger-than-life movies
B. start controlling costs by making lower budget movies
C. making more musicals
D. start basing movies on highbrow plays and novels
22. Movies such as Dial M for Murder, The Ten Commandments, and Spartacus were a
response to which of the following?
A. the rising size of television audiences
B. the production code
C. the Hollywood Blacklist
D. the growth of talking pictures
23. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was a significant movie for which of the
following reasons?
A. It was the first major American movie to be filmed with all digital sets and
backgrounds.
B. It was the top grossing movie of 2004.
C. It was the most positively reviewed movie of 2004.
D. all of these
24. The surprise movie hit 300 was a success in part for which of the following reasons?
A. It was based on a dramatic graphic novel.
B. It controlled costs through the use of digital sets and backgrounds.
C. It had an audience-pleasing story.
D. all of these
25. Movie profitability is determined by which of the following?
A. box office receipts
B. home video sales
C. the budget for making the film
D. all of these
26. The movie The Fault in Our Stars was a profitable hit because ______.
A. it had a big name cast of stars and a big budget
Hanson, Mass Communication, 7e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
B. it had a small budget and a built-in fan base from the young adult novel it was based
on
C. it was released in 3-D, which allowed theaters to charge more for tickets
D. You can’t fool me; The Fault in Our Stars was a box office flop.
27. If the 1970s and 1980s were the blockbuster movie era, the 2000s could be
considered the ______ era.
A. practical effects
B. box office
C. studio
D. franchise
28. Why did the movie industry under the president of the Motion Picture Producers and
Distributors of America Will H. Hays begin to censor films?
A. Because Hollywood wanted to be responsible and not produce films that would lead
to criminal or immoral behavior.
B. Because many states and communities were threatening to set up local censorship
boards that might have inconsistent standards of what they would or would not accept.
C. Because actors and actresses had protested having to do nude scenes in films.
D. Because talking films seemed much more explicit to audiences than did silent films.
1. In the studio system, an actor, writer, or director could work only for the studio that
had his or her contract.
2. Both the number of movie tickets being sold and the dollar value of all movie tickets
being sold are headed steadily up.
3. Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo wrote screenplays under an assumed name while he
was blacklisted in Hollywood for being a communist.
4. After World War II, movie attendance declined due to competition from television.
5. Steven Spielberg’s movies The Post and Ready Player One had very different box
office totals, but both managed to make a modest return on investment.
6. As of 2018, the movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens had the largest domestic box
office of all time.
7. Young people who own lots of “devices” such as tablets, smartphones, and gaming
consoles are unlikely to go to theaters to see movies.
8. The United States produces more movies every year than any other country.
9. The Bechdel Test for Women in Film is designed to see how much violence is
directed against women in movies.
10. The Production Code started in the 1930s to encourage “lustful kissing” as a way of
attracting women to the movies.
11. Major movie studios like to release NC-17 rated movies because they know that
they will attract large audiences at mall theaters.
12. Director James Mangold says he wanted an R-rating for the final Wolverine movie
Logan so that he could make it as violent and sexy as he wanted to.
13. The movies with the biggest box offices are generally rated G or PG because
parents feel safe about bringing their children to see them.
14. The faith-based movie I Can Only Imagine was a financial success in part because
it appealed to people who were interested in a father–son redemption story, not just
those who wanted a faith-based story.
15. Big-budget movies can earn as much from ancillary rights as they do from the
domestic box office.
16. The movie The Blair Witch Project demonstrated that any movie, no matter how
bad, could become a success if you spent millions of dollars promoting it.
17. In 2007, for the first time, movie fans could see the Oscar-nominated short films as
digital downloads from Apple’s iTunes store.
18. Long-tail movie sources such as Netflix and iTunes allow people in rural areas to
see obscure movies that would never play their local theaters.
18. According to movie scholar Todd Boyd, the solution for promoting diversity in
movies is to get more diversity in movie studio management.
19. Roger Ebert’s movie review website gets most of its traffic from a small number of
reviews of major blockbuster films.
20. Disney “princess films” such as The Little Mermaid and Pocahontas feature dialogue
primarily between girls and women.
21. The financial success of movies like Black Panther means that Hollywood no longer
needs to worry about diversity in the film industry.
22. “Whitewashing” is the process of getting rid of ugly details about the lives of historic
figures when movies are made about them.
23. Directors are unwilling to make movies with diverse casts featuring women and non–
White actors because such movies rarely see box office success.
Essay
1. List two of the many problems filmmakers faced when they went from silent to talking
films.
2. Who was the head of the 1947 House Un-American Activities Committee?
3. What movie technological innovation do Dial M for Murder, Avatar, and Gravity all
have in common?
4. What are the three questions in the Bechdel Test for Women in Film?
5. Jaws ushered in what era?
6. What major movie research project did Herbert Blumer work on?
7. India’s movie industry in Mumbai is popularly known as what?
8. How did the producers of The Blair Witch Project promote their film?
Hanson, Mass Communication, 7e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
9. Early Edison “peepshow” projectors in nickelodeons were known as what?
10. Which movie established the basic rules for cinematic storytelling that are still used
today?
11. The movie and recording industries have faced numerous new technologies such as
the VCR, the digital video recorder, and MP3 players. How have these industries
reacted to these new technologies? Have they welcomed or rejected them? Why?
Which of the Seven Secrets apply to this answer?
12. What makes a movie profitable? In a brief essay, discuss the major elements that
decide whether a movie will be a financial success.
13. In a brief essay, discuss why we have the movie rating system we have today, and
where it came from. What are the major complaints about the system? How does
Hollywood defend itself against these complaints?
14. In a brief essay, explain why writer/director James Mangold wanted to have Logan,
the final Wolverine movie from the X-Men series, to be rated R.
15. In a brief essay, explain how the movie viewing experience has been changed by
the arrival of new technology.
16. Some critics claim that movies with more practical effects look more real, or
somehow better, than those with primarily digital special effects. Support or attack this
argument using material from your reading.