Looking at Movies Chapter 8: Film Sound – Study Guide, Review Questions, and
Answers
Editing - correct answer ✔✔selecting, arranging, assembling of visuals, sounds, special effects //
The joining together of discrete shots gives movies the power to choose what the viewer sees
and how that viewer sees it at any given moment.
Cutting - correct answer ✔✔(splicing) The actual joining together of two shots. The editor must
first cut (or splice) each shot from its respective roll of film before gluing or taping all the shots
together.
Flashback - correct answer ✔✔the interruption of chronological plot time with a shot or series
of shots showing an even that has happened earlier in the story
Flashforward - correct answer ✔✔the interruption of present action by a shot or series of shots
that show images from the plot's future
Ellipsis - correct answer ✔✔omission of time—the time that separates one shot from another—
to create dramatic or comedic impact.
Montage - correct answer ✔✔1. In France, the word for editing, from the verb monter, "to
assemble or put together."
2. In the former Soviet Union in the 1920s, the various forms of editing that expressed ideas
developed by theorists and filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein.
3. In Hollywood, beginning in the 1930s, a sequence of shots, often with superimpositions and
optical effects, showing a condensed series of events.
Duration - correct answer ✔✔A quantity of time. In any movie, we can identify three specific
kinds of duration:
, - STORY duration: the time that the entire narrative are-whether explicitly presented on-screen
or not-is implied to have take.
- PLOT duration: the time that the events explicitly shown on-screen are implied to have taken.
- SCREEN duration: the actual time that has elapsed to present the movie's plot, i.e. the movie's
running time.
Content curve - correct answer ✔✔arc that measures information in a shot; at the curve's peak,
the viewer has absorbed the information from a shot and is ready to move on to the next shot.
Continuity editing - correct answer ✔✔A style of editing (now dominant throughout the world)
that seeks to achieve logic, smoothness, sequential flow, and the temporal and spatial
orientation of viewers to what they see on the screen. Continuity editing ensures the flow from
shot to shot; creates a rhythm based on the relationship between cinematic space and
cinematic time; creates filmic unity (beginning, middle, and end); and establishes and resolves a
problem. In short, continuity editing tells a story as clearly and coherently as possible.
Discontinuity editing - correct answer ✔✔seeking to achieve transitions between shots that are
not smooth, continuous, or coherent, permits a filmmaker to make abrupt shifts between shots,
calls attention to itself as an element of cinematic form
Coverage - correct answer ✔✔scene is photographed with a variety of individual shots, running
from the general to the specific, taken from various distances and angles
Master shot - correct answer ✔✔single scene with a long shot that covers the characters and
action in one continuous take
Screen direction - correct answer ✔✔The direction that a figure or object moves on the screen
180-degree system/axis of action - correct answer ✔✔(imaginary line, line of action, axis of
action or 180-degree rule). // imaginary horizontal line between the main characters being
photographed, determines where the camera should be placed to maintain continuity//
Answers
Editing - correct answer ✔✔selecting, arranging, assembling of visuals, sounds, special effects //
The joining together of discrete shots gives movies the power to choose what the viewer sees
and how that viewer sees it at any given moment.
Cutting - correct answer ✔✔(splicing) The actual joining together of two shots. The editor must
first cut (or splice) each shot from its respective roll of film before gluing or taping all the shots
together.
Flashback - correct answer ✔✔the interruption of chronological plot time with a shot or series
of shots showing an even that has happened earlier in the story
Flashforward - correct answer ✔✔the interruption of present action by a shot or series of shots
that show images from the plot's future
Ellipsis - correct answer ✔✔omission of time—the time that separates one shot from another—
to create dramatic or comedic impact.
Montage - correct answer ✔✔1. In France, the word for editing, from the verb monter, "to
assemble or put together."
2. In the former Soviet Union in the 1920s, the various forms of editing that expressed ideas
developed by theorists and filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein.
3. In Hollywood, beginning in the 1930s, a sequence of shots, often with superimpositions and
optical effects, showing a condensed series of events.
Duration - correct answer ✔✔A quantity of time. In any movie, we can identify three specific
kinds of duration:
, - STORY duration: the time that the entire narrative are-whether explicitly presented on-screen
or not-is implied to have take.
- PLOT duration: the time that the events explicitly shown on-screen are implied to have taken.
- SCREEN duration: the actual time that has elapsed to present the movie's plot, i.e. the movie's
running time.
Content curve - correct answer ✔✔arc that measures information in a shot; at the curve's peak,
the viewer has absorbed the information from a shot and is ready to move on to the next shot.
Continuity editing - correct answer ✔✔A style of editing (now dominant throughout the world)
that seeks to achieve logic, smoothness, sequential flow, and the temporal and spatial
orientation of viewers to what they see on the screen. Continuity editing ensures the flow from
shot to shot; creates a rhythm based on the relationship between cinematic space and
cinematic time; creates filmic unity (beginning, middle, and end); and establishes and resolves a
problem. In short, continuity editing tells a story as clearly and coherently as possible.
Discontinuity editing - correct answer ✔✔seeking to achieve transitions between shots that are
not smooth, continuous, or coherent, permits a filmmaker to make abrupt shifts between shots,
calls attention to itself as an element of cinematic form
Coverage - correct answer ✔✔scene is photographed with a variety of individual shots, running
from the general to the specific, taken from various distances and angles
Master shot - correct answer ✔✔single scene with a long shot that covers the characters and
action in one continuous take
Screen direction - correct answer ✔✔The direction that a figure or object moves on the screen
180-degree system/axis of action - correct answer ✔✔(imaginary line, line of action, axis of
action or 180-degree rule). // imaginary horizontal line between the main characters being
photographed, determines where the camera should be placed to maintain continuity//
