You Too Can Be a Credit Reader Quiz

Answer: The chief electrician

The gaffer is in charge of setting up the lighting for a take. He or she may have one or more assistants, depending on the size of the production.

Answer: the gaffer's main assistant

The best boy is the gaffer's right-hand man or woman, making him or her also a highly competent electrical whiz. Probably a future gaffer. Or future old gaffer. Who can say? What if the best boy is female? Is she a best girl? And if the gaffer is left-handed, would she be his or her left-hand woman? What are the answers to these mysteries that bother us so? (Must lay off the cooking sherry.)

Answer: adds sound effects to the film

If you watched the raw footage before the foley artists do their magic and then watched the finished product, you'd be amazed at the amount and variety of sound these geniuses add. This includes doors opening and closing, lights being turned on and off, crowd noises, and especially footsteps of all kinds of footwear on all kinds of surfaces, all of which have to be convincing and perfectly synchronized with the action. Boom mikes can seldom catch the sound of footsteps clearly while also recording dialogue, so you can imagine how much work the foley artist has to do. According to the studio tour guide at Disney MGM in Florida, this profession was named after a gentleman named Foley who was one of the early practitioners.

Answer: Directors Guild

The aspiring director gets a chance to experience what the job will really be like.

Answer: True

The job of a focus puller is crucial because they often adjust the focus of the lens while a take is being made. Sometimes this job is interchangeable with first assistant camera operator.

Answer: continuity

One very interesting blooper or "film flub" is seen in Brian De Palma's "The Untouchables" in the scene where Kevin Costner is trying to recruit Sean Connery to work for him. Connery's collar alternates between buttoned and unbuttoned several times during the sequence. You probably won't notice the first time you watch the scene, but when you've seen it enough times, you begin to spot this error. Poor continuity.

Answer: stagehand

They don't call them stagehands on a movie set, but the grip and his/her main assistant, the best boy grip, do pretty much the same kind of work stagehands do in the legit theatre.

Answer: second unit director

The purpose of a second unit is to do things like this, especially shots where the actors don't appear, like a sunset, or shots where a double can easily be used, like the one on "Seinfeld" where Kramer has to go to the bathroom and runs out of the NBC offices and around a few Manhattan locations looking for a men's room.

This shot was most likely second unit work because (a) "Seinfeld" was filmed in California, and it would cost a lot of time, trouble, and money to transport Michael Richards and the crew to NYC to get these few shots, and (b) you don't see "Kramer's" face in the shots which are definitely filmed in Manhattan (there is at least one shot of his face but not demonstrably in an NYC location although we're supposed to believe it's Central Park; this is just the magic of editing), and so it would have been easy to use a double.

Answer: sound

ADR stands for automatic dialogue replacement, commonly known as "looping." In post-production, actors often have to re-record some of their dialogue because there was too much background noise, because they need to change the inflection of a line, or even to add dialogue (as long as the face of the actor speaking can't be seen).

This very important aspect of post-production is done for all feature films. (Thanks to imdb.com for this info.)

Answer: supervises the finances of a film production

Executive Producer is a job title you'll see in most credits, usually shared by several people. That's all for now because, if you weren't already a credit reader, you sure are one now! Next time we'll take up some of the odder aspects of credits, like what is a rat wrangler? Source: imdb.com