Filmmaking
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
50 free Filmmaking trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Every film is the work of hundreds of specialists, and the business has built up a private language to go with them. Credits roll past full of job titles that sound like nicknames, and a set runs on shorthand that outsiders rarely hear explained. This quiz covers the whole process, from planning and shooting to editing and sound. You will meet the people behind the camera, the techniques directors use to steer what an audience feels, the editing tricks that hold a story together, and the practical illusions that stand in for danger, weather and things that never existed. It is written for film students revising terminology, for teachers who want a ready-made class quiz, and for movie fans who like knowing how the trick was done. Each answer comes with a short explanation, so you can play it straight through or print it for a group.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which sweet topping stood in for blood in the black-and-white shower scene of Hitchcock's Psycho?
Chocolate syrup
Chocolate syrup played the blood, and Hitchcock chose black and white partly to keep the scene from being too gory. The brand usually named is Bosco.
Q 02Which breakfast cereal was Hollywood's usual fake snow until It's a Wonderful Life found a quieter mix?
Cornflakes
Cornflakes, used untoasted, crunched so loudly underfoot that dialogue had to be re-recorded afterwards. RKO's effects team replaced them with a quiet mix of water, soap flakes and foamite.
Q 03Which cinema advertisements got their name because they first ran after the main feature, not before it?
Trailers
Trailers at first trailed the feature, but audiences often ignored them and left as soon as the film ended. Cinemas moved them ahead of the feature, and the old name stuck.
Q 04Which planning tool, a sequence of sketches pinned up in order, was developed at Walt Disney's studio?
Storyboard
Storyboard drawings were first made for a complete film on Disney's 1933 short Three Little Pigs. Walt Disney credited animator Webb Smith with the idea of pinning sketches to a board in sequence.
Q 05Which word do directors call out when filming ends, traditionally followed by a party for cast and crew?
Wrap
Wrap most likely comes from the everyday phrase about wrapping things up. It is sometimes said to stand for 'wind, reel and print', and directors may also announce one for each actor who finishes.
Q 06Which hinged device is snapped shut before each take so editors can line up the picture with the sound?
Clapperboard
Clapperboard sticks snap shut with a sharp clap that is easy to find on the audio track and to match with the frame where they meet. Their black and white stripes help the camera record that moment clearly.
Q 07Which non-speaking performers fill crowd scenes, with some 300,000 used for the funeral in Gandhi?
Extras
Extras in that funeral scene numbered over 300,000, a record for any film. On set they are more often called background actors, or simply background.
Q 08When a film wins the Academy Award for Best Picture, who actually receives the Oscar statuettes?
The producers
The producers collect the award, not the director or the studio. A cap of three per film was introduced in 1999, after five people accepted for Shakespeare in Love.
Q 09Which kitchen ingredient is heated with water to make the brittle breakaway glass used in screen fights?
Sugar
Sugar glass has stood in for the real thing in movies, plays and professional wrestling. It soaks up moisture from the air, so it has to be used soon after it is made or it softens.
Q 10Which body-worn camera stabilizer, invented by Garrett Brown, followed Rocky Balboa up the museum steps?
Steadicam
Steadicam was only on its third feature when it shot the jogging scenes and the run up the stairs in Rocky. Stanley Kubrick later had one adapted to film from barely above the floor in The Shining.
Q 11Which film crew title, used on sets since the 1920s, belongs to the head electrician who runs the lighting?
Gaffer
Gaffer tape, the strong cloth tape that holds down cables on sets, is thought to be named after the job. The gaffer carries out the lighting plan under the director of photography.
Q 12Which oddly named film credit goes to the chief assistant who runs the lighting or rigging crew day to day?
Best boy
Best boy is the foreman of the department, and a woman doing the job may be called best girl. Nobody is sure how the title arose, and theories about apprentices and ships' crews lack evidence.
Q 13Which senior crew member leads the riggers who build camera supports such as cranes and tracks on a film set?
Key grip
Q 21Which term names a view that opens a scene by showing where it happens, often using a famous landmark?
Establishing shot
The establishing shot was more common in classical Hollywood than it is today. Modern filmmakers often skip it to keep a scene moving, or simply name the place in on-screen text, as Law & Order does.
Q 22Which tilted camera shot, a hallmark of German expressionist cinema, is used to make viewers feel uneasy?
Dutch angle
The Dutch angle may owe its name to a corruption of Deutsch, the German word for German. Alfred Hitchcock, who worked at Germany's UFA studios early in his career, used it in Strangers on a Train.
Q 23A low-angle shot, with the camera below eye level looking up at someone, usually makes that person seem what?
The key grip supervises the set-up of both cameras and lights on American sets, yet union rules stop the team from touching the lamps. In the UK the role works solely with cameras.
Q 14Which sound specialist recreates everyday noises like footsteps, using props such as coconut shells for hooves?
Foley artist
The Foley artist is named after Jack Foley, who helped turn Universal's silent musical Show Boat into a sound film. He kept creating effects for films until his death in 1967.
Q 15Which crew member, often credited as the DP, is the chief of both the camera and lighting crews on a film?
Cinematographer
The cinematographer, or director of photography, creates the visual atmosphere of a production, and several have gone on to direct. Jan de Bont shot Die Hard before directing Speed and Twister.
Q 16Which crew member, the editor's representative on set, makes sure props, costumes and dialogue match between takes?
Script supervisor
The script supervisor is a department head and acts as a right-hand aide to the director. Their watch on continuity lets the film be compiled smoothly in the editing room.
Q 17Which sound crew member holds a microphone on a long pole just outside the frame, a rig nicknamed a fishpole?
Boom operator
The boom operator's craft dates to early talkies, when director Dorothy Arzner had a microphone rigged onto a fishing rod so that Clara Bow could move freely on the set.
Q 18Which title is also given to the first assistant camera, a job said to be noticed only when it goes wrong?
Focus puller
The focus puller keeps the lens sharp as actors move, measuring the distance from the camera to each actor's mark before a take. A great performance may never be repeated, so there is no room for error.
Q 19Which film crew member trains and handles animals on set, and may also teach actors to ride horses?
Wrangler
A wrangler's horses are often just background, so they must stay calm around lights, activity and cameras. The same title goes to crew who find and handle special items such as custom cars.
Q 20Which performer replaces an actor in dangerous scenes, sometimes because a contract bars the star from risks?
Stunt double
A stunt double is often in less danger than the scene suggests, because harnesses and wires can be digitally removed from the final film. An actor's age or physical condition can also call for one.
Powerful
Powerful is the image Christopher Nolan wanted when he filmed the Joker from extremely low angles in The Dark Knight. In Citizen Kane, a whole confrontation after the lost election is shot from below.
Q 24Which camera technique shows events through a character's eyes, as the 1947 film Lady in the Lake did throughout?
POV shot
A POV shot sustained for a whole film was the gimmick of Lady in the Lake, which tried to copy the first-person voice of Raymond Chandler's novel. The technique is also called the subjective camera.
Q 25Which basic camera move swivels the camera horizontally from a fixed spot, like a head turning to scan a view?
Pan
A pan keeps the camera in one place and swivels it sideways, while the same swivel up or down is a tilt. Done so fast that the picture blurs into streaks, it becomes a whip pan.
Q 26Which visual effect, popularized by The Matrix, uses a rig of still cameras to swing around slowed-down action?
Bullet time
Bullet time in The Matrix was created by John Gaeta and Manex Visual Effects. The idea of firing a row of still cameras goes back to Eadweard Muybridge's photographs of a galloping horse.
Q 27Which camera effect, devised for Hitchcock's Vertigo, keeps an actor the same size while the background stretches?
Dolly zoom
A dolly zoom rolls the camera toward or away from an actor while zooming the opposite way. Steven Spielberg used it in Jaws for Chief Brody's realization that there is a shark at the beach.
Q 28Which term describes the proportion of an image's width to its height, such as 2.39:1 for widescreen cinema?
Aspect ratio
Aspect ratio in old Hollywood films was the squarer Academy shape of 1.375:1, fixed after room was made on the film strip for an optical soundtrack.
Q 29Which optical artifact did J. J. Abrams add on purpose to Star Trek by aiming off-camera lights into the camera?
Lens flare
Lens flare streaks fill Star Trek and Super 8 because Abrams wanted a look that felt unique, though he later conceded it was overdone in places. In Easy Rider, by contrast, the flares were accidental.
Q 30Filming at a faster frame rate than playback, once done by overcranking a hand-turned camera, creates which effect?
Slow motion
Slow motion was invented by the Austrian priest August Musger in the early 20th century. Cranking a camera slower than normal does the opposite and speeds the action up.