Chapter 1
Multiple Choice
1. Who wrote an entry in his/ her 1666 diary concerning “a lantern with pictures in glass to make
strange things to appear on a wall”?
a. Samuel Johnson
b. Queen Elizabeth
c. Walter Raleigh
d. Samuel Pepys
2. Who set about converting the Muybridge sequence of photographs into a series of silhouettes for a
projecting Zoetrope?
a. Thomas Edison
b. Alfred Lord Tennyson
c. Jean Louis Mesissonier
d. Edwin Porter
3. Edison decided to make a projection machine called a “kinetoscope” which
a. allowed only one person at a time to watch a brief loop of film.
b. he copyrighted for an additional $15.
c. William Dickson actually invented.
d. became his primary engineering focus over such things as the electric storage battery
and talking doll.
4. The great realization of Norman Raff was that
a. Edison was shortsighted.
b. a machine that threw pictures on a wall was a logical step.
c. California would be the land of movie.
d. he should charge at least 50 cents to patrons who wanted to enter his Kinetoscope parlor.
5. Thomas Armat realized that
a. color was the key to successful movies.
b. music needed to be added to movies.
c. what the camera did to hold the film stationary while shooting images could be repeated
when projecting the images.
d. cardboard could be used to record images instead of film.
6. Which of the following early machines is basically the prototype of modern theatre projectors?
a. the Vitascope
b. the Mutoscopethe
c. Kinetoscope
d. none of the above
7. Which of the following is true about the Lumière brothers?
a. They made brief movies of realistic events like three old men playing cards
b. They used light, hand-cranked projectors
c. They made the best equipment of the day
d. all of the above
8. What startled viewers of the early film “The Arrival of a Train” was
a. the size of the train.
b. the train appeared to be coming right at them.
c. the single-take action of the train arriving.
d. the use of color in the film.
9. In “The Kiss” (1896), what two things startled audiences?
a. The closeness of the subjects and the lasciviousness of the kiss
b. The film technique and the beauty of the subjects
c. The fact that the woman’s eyes are open, and she appears to be talking
d. none of the above
10. Identify the melodramatic movie that used wooden planks as sight lines to keep actors in frame.
a. Max Takes Quinine
b. The Count of Monte Cristo
c. The Great Train Robbery
d. Queen Elizabeth
11. What did films need in addition to “white magic”?
a. More money
b. Better casts
c. Storytelling
d. Bigger audiences
12. George Méliès, who understudied Robert Houdini, made movies which he
a. Wrote
b. Directed
c. Designed scenery
d. All of the above
13. All of the following is true Edwin Porter’s The Great Train Robbery except
a. it uses pans.
b. it has hand tinted color.
c. it uses a matte shot.
d. none of the above.
14. Movies like Pipe Dreams and The Dream of a Rarebit Fiend
a. show the power of realism in movies.
b. introduce surrealism into movies as early as 1903.
c. were written by Thomas Edison.
d. made stars of the actors.
15. The primary strength of Edwin Porter’s The Great Train Robbery is that Porter
a. told the story visually.
b. told the story in 14 scenes.
c. used realist painted backdrops.
d. mixed violence and romance.
16. The evidence is clear that movies were invented by
a. Thomas Edison.
b. Georges Méliès.
c. many people .
d. unknown.
True/False
(Place a T or an F in the line following the sentence.)
2. The Arrival of a Train from 1895 wowed views with its changing camera angles and multiple
scenes.
3. The Kinetoscope was a simple and foolproof device which projected film on a crude,
4. Initially, commercially available films only lasted about 30 seconds because the fierce jerking
movement of the feed mechanism tended to break filmstrips when they were more than fifty
to one hundred feet.
5. Albert Smith argued persuasively that early movie spectators were intrigued principally by
movie-making technology.
6. The Vitascope, in all essential respects, proved to be the prototype for the modern movie
projector.
7. Many of George Méliès’ special effect techniques were the result of careful study and design,
not fortunate accidents.
8. Around 1910, films were becoming more dramatically complicated, and films like Méliès’
fantasies seemed increasingly passé.
9. Edwin Porter’s The Great Train Robbery (1903) took more steps in the developing grammar
of film.
10. Nickelodeons failed to provide a good place for the classically democratic phenomenon that
was (and still is) the movies.
Matching:
1) Da Vinci ___
a. a machine that passed a continuous loop of film of a series
of rollers and in front of a prefocused lens
2) William Dickson ___
b. uses images on cardboard which are mounted consecutively
on a wheel: a flip-card device
3) Kinetoscope ___
c. shot and edited him movies as he did because it seemed
the best way to tell a story
4) The Lathams ___
d. kept movies alive and evolving, but enslaved and cheapened
them: movies were then called “chasers”
5) Mutoscope ___
e. developed a machine that worked visually with Edison’s phonographf.
Used
fade outs, dissolves, double exposures, etc. in his tableaux fantastiques
6) Vitascope ___
g. solved the problem of film breaking by leaving slack in the film at the
top
and bottom of the film gate
7) Vaudeville ___
h. a surreal production from the Edison studio using hand-held
shots and double exposures, etc.
8) George Méliès ___
i. Armat’s and Raff’s prototype for the modern movie projector
9) Edwin S. Porter ___
j. desired a painting to be a living thing
10) The Dream of a Rarebit Fiend ___
ANS:
Short Answer
1. What is the definition of “persistence of vision” ?
2. What were the two problems Norman Raff and others had to solve to project films “on a wall”
successfully?
3. Why is George Méliès considered the father of special effects?
4. What were some of the ways that Edwin Porter contributed to the development of film
“grammar” ?
Essay Questions
1. In what ways did or did not the Lumière brothers of France create narratives in their “30–
second” movies?
2. In what ways did vaudeville/ music halls support the development of movies?
3. Why would George Méliès feel right at home today at Pixar, Disney, or Dreamworks?
4. What qualities do Charles Chaplin’s Little Tramp movies possess that make them successful as
stories and films?