View a FREE sample

This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In what area did Mamet have greater experience in when writing the book?
(a) Screenwriting.
(b) Film criticism.
(c) Stage directing.
(d) Acting.

2. The purpose of technique is to free the what?
(a) Dream life.
(b) Creativity.
(c) Conscious mind.
(d) Unconscious.

3. What is a progression toward the simplest, most ordered state, according to Mamet in Chapter 2?
(a) Streamlining.
(b) Examination.
(c) Entropy.
(d) Delineation.

4. According to Mamet, most movie scripts are written for an audience of what?
(a) Studio executives.
(b) Directors.
(c) Cinematographers.
(d) Actors.

5. Where was Mamet teaching in the fall of 1987?
(a) Yale.
(b) Rutgers University.
(c) NYU.
(d) Columbia.

6. Screenwriting is a craft based on what?
(a) Science.
(b) Narration.
(c) Exposition.
(d) Logic.

7. Eisenstein claimed that the best image is a what image?
(a) Inflected.
(b) Unattached.
(c) Uninflected.
(d) Articulate.

8. According to Mamet, the storyteller did NOT need something in Chapter 2. What was it?
(a) Back-story.
(b) Alliteration.
(c) Characterization.
(d) Entropy.

9. All the audience cares about is the what, according to Mamet?
(a) Protagonist.
(b) Objective.
(c) Narration.
(d) Thrust of the scene.

10. According to Mamet in Chapter 3, the film business is caught in a spiral of degeneracy because it is run by people who have no what?
(a) Craft.
(b) Map.
(c) Structure.
(d) Compass.

11. Chair makers, until the turn of the century, made their chairs without what?
(a) Crossbars.
(b) Beams.
(c) Nails.
(d) Glue.

12. According to Mamet, you can't rely on the ________ to tell the story. Which of these is the correct answer?
(a) Acting.
(b) Direction.
(c) Beats.
(d) Shots.

13. Who said of American films that they were all "pictures of people talking"?
(a) Alfred Hitchcock.
(b) Herzog.
(c) Eisenstein.
(d) Frank Capra.

14. Who told Alice it didn't matter which road she took, as cited by Mamet in Chapter 2?
(a) The Mad Hatter.
(b) The Cheshire Cat.
(c) The Rabbit.
(d) The Caterpillar.

15. What does Mamet say happens when the problem posited by the scene is over?
(a) The next scene begins.
(b) The film is over.
(c) The scene is over.
(d) The objective is attained.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who said that the point is what happens to he hero, not what happens to the writer?

2. Chapter 1 deals with what element of the process of directing?

3. Mamet says in Chapter 1 that if the film follows the protagonist around, what he does had better be what?

4. A film is basically what, according to Mamet?

5. What does Mamet say most modern art is based around?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 379 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample