Asian Film and Animation Mid-Term Exam

When was Cinema invented?

1895

Who invented Cinema?

The Lumiere Brothers

Who was first to create stop motion?

Edward Muybridge

Who was Edward Muybridge

English photographer, innovator, and businessman

Wh

What film was the first to have no sound and sound effects?

A Trip To The Moon (1902)

What film was the first to have a scripted narrative?

The Cabbage Patch Fairy (1896)

What is a Pan Shot?

A horizontal movement where the camera turns from a fixed position, either left-to-right or right-to-left

What is a Tracking Shot?

A movement where the camera follows the movement of an object or a person through a scene

What is a Tilt Shot?

A movement where the camera turns up or down on a vertical plane to show how tall and tall an object or person

What is a Mise-en Scène?

Placement of actors and scenery on a stage for a theatrical, film or television production

What is a Diegesis?

The focus on elements that aren’t explicitly shown on screen, involves constructing a believable world that the audience can imagin

What is a Non-diegesis?

A sound or elements that are outside of the story’s world are only for the audience (narration)

What is a Jump Cut?

An abrupt transition between 2 shots of the same subject that are similar in angle but have a significant difference in their position or framing

What is another term for a Jump Shot?

30° Degree Rule

What is the 180° Degree Rule?

A turn of the camera showing the relationship of characters

What is a Close-Up Shot?

A camera shot that tightly frames a subjects face, or a specific object, to emphasize emotional depth

What is a Medium Shot?

A camera framing that typically shows a subject from thighs up, balancing intimacy with a view of their background

What is a Long Shot?

A camera shot that shows a subject from a distance typically from head to toe, while also providing context by including their surroundings

What is an Extreme Long Shot?

A camera shot that shows the subject from a great distance, focusing on its surroundings rather than the subject itself

What is an Extreme Close-Up Shot?

A camera shot that shows a subject very tightly, showing only a specific details

What is a Deep Focus Shot?

A camera technique where everything in the foreground, mid-ground, and background is all in focus

What is a Shallow Focus Shot?

A camera technique where a narrow depth of field to keep only the main subject in shar focus, while the foreground and background are blurred

What is a Rack Focus Shot?

A camera technique where the focus of the lens is changed during a single, continuous shot to shift the audience’s attention from one subject to another

What is a J-Cut?

An audio technique where the audio from the next scene begins to play before the visual cut

What is a L-Cut?

An audio technique where the audio from the previous scene continues to play over the visuals of the next scene

What is a Graphic Match Cut?

An editing technique where two shots are linked by similar visual elements, shape, color, or composition

What is a Match-on-Action Cut?

An editing technique where an editor cuts between two shots during a continuous actions, a character’s action

What is a Sound Bridge?

An editing technique where the audio from one scene continues over the visuals of the previous scene, creating a seamless transition

What is an Establishing Shot?

A camera shot that sets the context for a scene in a film by providing a broad view of the location, time, and mood

When was China’s first film premiere?

1896-1929

What was it like in China during 1896?

A year in which the crisis-ridden film industry struggled to restucture itself and the premiere of American talkies in a major Shanghai venue signaled the impending techonological change

When did a French showman introduced ‘Western Shadowplays’?

August 11, 1896

What did the French showman introduced ‘Western Shadowplays’ do for China?

Created an entertainment complex in Shanghai, marking cinema’s first entrance in China

When was the first Chinese movie theatre created?

1907 in Beijing

Who established the first production company in China?

A foreigner Benjamin Bordsky, who produced shorts in Shanghai and Hong Kong

What was the May Fourth Movement of 1919?

A Chinese cultural and anti-imperialist political movement which grew out of student protests in Beijing

When was Spring In A Small Town created?

1948

What is symbolic about Spring In A Small Town?

• The sister symbolizes old traditional values

• The wife goes back to her sick husband → going back to the traditional values

• The doctor, love interest, symbolizes the modernized values of the West Side

What is symbolic about The Goddess?

• Stereotypes of women in film → sex worker

• Maternal melodrama

• Nationalistic government’s ideal of a wife and a mother

When was the first moving picture screened in India?

1896 in The Watson Hotel

What is symbolic about Shree 420

• A man searching for a new city/opportunity 

• Defines the offense of cheating and dishonestly inducting the delivery of property

• Wealthy vs. Unwealthy

What is Rensageki ('chain drama')?

A popular Japanese entertainment format from around 100 years ago that blened live stage performance with film

When was the Meiji Era?

October 1868 - July 1912

When was the Kanto Earthquake

1923

What was Japanese impact on rebuilding the cinema industry

Further modernization in studios that were rebuilt after the earthquake, emergenced samurai films

What was Japans up bringing in cinema?

Became second only to Hollywood as a mass-production, vertically integrated studio system

What is symbolic about Tokyo Story

• Generational divide in post-war Japan

• Representing the conflict between traditional family values 

• Modernization of society

• Different generations of extended family being brought together by the death of the grandmother

Why was Ozu so important?

His films reflected traditional Japanese values, respect for family and importantce of social harmony 

What was Ozu’s film technique?

Used of a low-angle that mimics the eye level of someone sitting on a traditional Japanese floor mat

What is Ozu’s technique called?

Tatami shot 

What is a Tatami Shot?

A film technique created by Ozu, that shots a low-angle that places the camera at a height similar to that of someone sitting on a Japanese mat

When was Korea’s first public screening?

1903

When was the first silent feature in Korea?

1923, Plighted Love Under The Moon

What happened in 1910-45?

Japanese occupation of Korea, devastation of Korean film industry and strict censorship/surveillance

When was the First Golden Era?

1955-1961

What is a Chaebol?

A role in cinema and shaping Korean film industry, pure business model and box-office oriented film industry, little creative freedom for filmmakers and writers 

What is a Melodrama?

A dramatic work in which the plot typically sensationalized and for a very strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization

What does a Melodrama represent?

Its high emotions and dramatic rhetoric: Victory and repression

How was women portrayed in Korean melodrama?

• Women’s issue as themes

• Domestic/conjugal/marital relationships

• Targeted audience: increase of women in work force, participation in public space, increase in number of women audience in film theaters 

How is the film The Housemaid constructed as a metaphor?

The house: space for conflict, newly constructed

What is symbolic about The Housemaid?

• Central symbol is the house itself

• The rat poison, domestic discord → moral corruption festering beneath “perfect family”

When was Taiwan emerged as a sovereign country?

After 1945, colonized by Japan 1895-1945

When was the beginning of Taiwan’s film history?

~1901 five years after China and Japan

What did scholars believe in the introduction of Taiwan film?

That Japanese colonial government introduced film and used as a tool for colonial propaganda and for enslaving locals

What was film like during colonial rule in during the rain of Japanese colonial government?

Severely controlled and censored by the government, fear of anti-colonial rebellion

Who is Takamatsi Toyojiro?

• Imported films from Japan and Europe

• Built a touring film exhibition business

• Constructed eight film theaters 

• Commissioned by the colonial government, made the first documentary in 1907

What was Taiwan as a Japanese colony?

World War II and defeat of Japan in 1945, film begins with a radio announcement of the transfer of power

What was Taiwan’s change in the White Terror set in 1945-1949?

Taiwan’s transition from a Japanese colony to a country ruled by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) displaced the Chinese Communist Party in mainland China

What is Kuomintang (KMT)

A major political party in the Republic of China, the sole rulling party of the country during its rule from 1927 to 1949 in Mainland China until its relocation to Taiwan, ruled under martial law until 1987

What was the 228 Incident?

An anti-government uprising in Taiwan in 1947, suppressed by the Kuomintang-led Nationalist government

When was 228 Incident?

February 28, 1947

What is symbolic about A City of Sadness?

• Multiple events take place in a non-linear manner

• Opening scene: transfer of power and a birth of a child

• Two different versions of History: 𝐻𝒾𝓈𝓉𝑜𝓇𝓎 → HISTORY

How does a divided audience doesn’t represent historical violance?

Loved by international, Western, critics and audience, not so much by the domestic audience, curious approach history and violance

What was the film techniques used in the film A City of Sadness?

A master of long takes and complex framing, the characteristic of Hou’s style that ciritics consistency single out is the long take, consists of 222 shots

What is symbolic about the photography or the photographer in the film A City of Sadness?

To capture the historical and emotional trauma of Taiwan under KMT rule, how different families take the emotional trauma.

What is symbolic about the film Deewar?

• The “wall” that springs up between the two brothers

• Drawn apart by fate and circumstances in a time of socio-political turmoil

• Stereotypes of the big brother being the “bad boy” instead of the little brother 

• A bleak view of morality and corruption.

• Example of the “angry young man”