Media Literacy: Film And Television

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monomyth

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according to Joseph Campbell, the story of the "hero's journey"

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genres

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film types

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cross-genre films

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films that all into more than one category

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hybrid films

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films that mix stylistic components often rooted in other media

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cross-cutting

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an editing technique that established action taking place in multiple locations

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nickelodeons

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theaters that charged 5 cents for admission

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Motion picture Patents Company (MMPC)

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the brainchild of Thomas Edison, a cooperative group that allowed companies to pool resources and demand licensing fees from film producers, distributors, and exhibitors outside their group.

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Big Five

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the five major film studios (Paramounts, Lowe's/MGM, Fox Film Corporation, Warner Bros., and RKO) that dominated Hollywood during its Golden Age.

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Golden Age

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a period in which Hollywood film-making was dominated by the Big Five movie studios and that gave birth to talkies.

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talkies

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films with sound tracks that mixed location sounds (real or constructed) with dialogue and background music.

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Sound-on-film technology

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Developed by Lee De Forest, a technology that imprinted sound into light waves that could be recorded as visual images onto the same continuous filmstrip.

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star system

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promotion of the image, rather than the acting, of notable film stars.

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trade showing

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viewing of a film before it is purchased or rented.

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financing-distribution model

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a film production business model that relies on outside financing to create a film.

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talent agents

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is an individual or firm that represents actors, television and film writers, directors, and producers, photographers and models, authors, designers and professional athletes, to all areas of the entertainment industry.

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exhibition license

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a license that specifies when and where theaters will show a film

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film distributors

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members of the film industry that focus on getting as many movies shown on a as many screens in as many theaters as possible.

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blockbusters

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spectacular, huge-budget film productions.

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feature filmmaking

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a type of film production in which films are made for theatrical distribution.

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German expressionist

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film genre focusing on the dark side of the human experience, revolving around themes of madness, insanity, and betrayal.

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film noir

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"black film"

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French New Wave

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film genre created by young independent directors who drew their inspiration from art, literature and documentary films. The resulting films focused on complex character relationships, sexual passions, and religious turmoil.

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Italian neorealism

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film style characterized by nonprofessional actors in storylines about the poor and working class.

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Spaghetti Westerns

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low-budget films shot in southern Italy so as to visually mimic the American Southwest.

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kaiju

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Japanese monster films.

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Samurai cinema

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Japanese warrior films.

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anime

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Japanese film genre based on animation.

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Rashomon effect

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the effect of the subjectivity of perception on our memories and accounts for why different observers of the same event often report strikingly different and equally plausible accounts.

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Bollywood

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Indian film industry based in Mumbai, which produces more than 1,000 films each year. The Indian equivalent of the Hollywood movie industry.

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Hays Code

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the strict and censorious film ratings system established in the United States in 1922 by William H. Hays.

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Motion Pictures Ratings System of 1968

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a film-rating system established in the United States that allowed studios to test the waters with more controversial content.

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art house theaters

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film theaters that specialize in showing foreign and lower-budget independent films

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special effects

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simulations of events in film

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motion control

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a filming process in which cameras move along specially constructed tracks and that allows for repeated shooting of scenes from various angles.

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sell-through products

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units that are directly sold to the public.

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direct-to-home distribution

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a film distribution system in which film catalogs are offered by services such as Netflix that are streamed over the internet.

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Episodic television dramas

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a dramatic television series consisting of 13 hours spread across 13 weeks.

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ensemble casts

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a cast that include many lead characters.

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Nielsen Ratings

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a measurement system that identifies television audience size and composition and provides programmers with daily and hourly snapshots of the viewing audience.

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sketch comedies

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short comedy scenes or vignettes.

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situation comedies

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sitcoms

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dramas

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television programs that generally hold the prime-time slots

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soap operas

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serial fiction television programs, so named for the household detergent manufacturers that sponsored them

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serial fiction

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a type of television program that cleverly unifies story elements, day after day, for thousands of episodes, into plots that continuously unfold and are never full resolved.

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reality television

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low-budget television productions built around real people placed in unusual situations.