A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects. The process of filmmaking has developed into an art form and industry.
Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them. Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment and a powerful method for educating – or indoctrinating –
citizens. The visual elements of cinema give motion pictures a
universal power of communication. Some films have become popular
worldwide attractions by using dubbing or subtitles that translate the dialogue into the language of the viewer.
Films are made up of a series of individual images called frames.
When these images are shown rapidly in succession, a viewer has the
illusion that motion is occurring. The viewer cannot see the flickering
between frames due to an effect known as persistence of vision,
whereby the eye retains a visual image for a fraction of a second after
the source has been removed. Viewers perceive motion due to a
psychological effect called beta movement.
The origin of the name "film" comes from the fact that photographic film (also called film stock) has historically been the primary medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for an individual motion picture, including picture, picture show, moving picture, photo-play and flick. A common name for film in the United States is movie, while in Europe the term film is preferred. Additional terms for the field in general include the big screen, the silver screen, the cinema and the movies.
History
Preceding film in origin by thousands of years, early
plays and
dances had elements common to film:
scripts,
sets,
costumes,
production,
direction,
actors,
audiences,
storyboards, and
scores. Much terminology later used in film theory and criticism apply, such as
mise en scene
(roughly, the entire visual picture at any one time). Owing to an
absence of technology for doing so, moving visual and aural images were
not recorded for replaying as in film.
In the 1860s, mechanisms for producing two-dimensional drawings in motion were demonstrated with devices such as the
zoetrope,
mutoscope and
praxinoscope. These machines were outgrowths of simple optical devices (such as
magic lanterns)
and would display sequences of still pictures at sufficient speed for
the images on the pictures to appear to be moving, a phenomenon called
persistence of vision.
Naturally the images needed to be carefully designed to achieve the
desired effect, and the underlying principle became the basis for the
development of film
animation.
With the development of
celluloid film for still
photography, it became possible to directly capture objects in motion in real time. An 1878 experiment by English photographer
Eadweard Muybridge
in the United States using 24 cameras produced a series of stereoscopic
images of a galloping horse, is arguably the first "motion picture",
though it was not called by this name.
[1]
This technology required a person to look into a viewing machine to see
the pictures which were separate paper prints attached to a drum turned
by a handcrank. The pictures were shown at a variable speed of about 5
to 10 pictures per second, depending on how rapidly the crank was
turned. Commercial versions of these machines were coin operated.
By the 1880s the development of the
motion picture camera allowed the individual component images to be captured and stored on a single
reel, and led quickly to the development of a
motion picture projector
to shine light through the processed and printed film and magnify these
"moving picture shows" onto a screen for an entire audience. These
reels, so exhibited, came to be known as "motion pictures". Early motion
pictures were static
shots that showed an event or action with no
editing or other cinematic techniques. The first public exhibition of projected motion pictures in America was shown at
Koster and Bial's Music Hall in
New York City on the 23rd of April 1896.
Ignoring
W. K. L. Dickson's early sound experiments (1894), commercial motion pictures were purely
visual art through the late 19th century, but these innovative
silent films
had gained a hold on the public imagination. Around the turn of the
20th century, films began developing a narrative structure by stringing
scenes
together to tell a story. The scenes were later broken up into multiple
shots of varying sizes and angles. Other techniques such as camera
movement were realized as effective ways to portray a story on film.
Rather than leave the audience with noise of early cinema projectors,
theater owners would hire a
pianist or
organist or a full
orchestra
to play music that would cover noises of projector. Eventually,
musicians would start to fit the mood of the film at any given moment.
By the early 1920s, most films came with a prepared list of sheet music
for this purpose, with complete
film scores being composed for major productions.
The rise of European cinema was interrupted by the outbreak of
World War I when the film industry in United States flourished with the rise of
Hollywood, typified most prominently by the great innovative work of
D. W. Griffith in
The Birth of a Nation (1914) and
Intolerance (1916). However in the 1920s, European filmmakers such as
Sergei Eisenstein,
F. W. Murnau, and
Fritz Lang, in many ways inspired by the meteoric war-time progress of film through Griffith, along with the contributions of
Charles Chaplin,
Buster Keaton
and others, quickly caught up with American film-making and continued
to further advance the medium. In the 1920s, new technology allowed
filmmakers to attach to each film a
soundtrack of speech, music and
sound effects synchronized with the action on the screen. These
sound films were initially distinguished by calling them "talking pictures", or
talkies.
The next major step in the development of cinema was the introduction of so-called "natural
color",
which meant color that was photographically recorded from nature rather
than being added to black-and-white prints by hand-coloring,
stencil-coloring or other arbitrary procedures, although the earliest
processes typically yielded colors which were far from "natural" in
appearance. While the addition of
sound
quickly eclipsed silent film and theater musicians, color replaced
black-and-white much more gradually. The pivotal innovation was the
introduction of the three-strip version of the
Technicolor process, which was first used for short subjects and for isolated sequences in a few
feature films released in 1934, then for an entire feature film,
Becky Sharp,
in 1935. The expense of the process was daunting, but continued
favorable public response and enhanced box-office receipts increasingly
justified the added cost. The number of films made in color slowly
increased year after year.
In the early 1950s, as the proliferation of black-and-white
television started seriously depressing theater attendance in the US,
the use of color was seen as one way of winning back audiences. It soon
became the rule rather than the exception. Some important mainstream
Hollywood films were still being made in black-and-white as late as the
mid-1960s, but they marked the end of an era. Color television receivers
had been available in the US since the mid-1950s, but at first they
were very expensive and few broadcasts were in color. During the 1960s,
prices gradually came down, color broadcasts became common, and the sale
of color television sets boomed. The strong preference of the general
public for color was obvious. After the final flurry of black-and-white
film releases in mid-decade, all major Hollywood studio film production
was exclusively in color, with rare exceptions reluctantly made only at
the insistence of "star" directors such as
Peter Bogdanovich and
Martin Scorsese.
Since the decline of the
studio system
in the 1960s, the succeeding decades saw changes in the production and
style of film. Various New Wave movements (including the
French New Wave,
Indian New Wave,
Japanese New Wave and
New Hollywood)
and the rise of film school educated independent filmmakers were all
part of the changes the medium experienced in the latter half of the
20th century. Digital technology has been the driving force in change
throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s. 3D technology increased in
usage and has become more popular since the early 2010s.
Theory
Film theory seeks to develop concise and systematic concepts that apply to the study of film as
art. It was started by
Ricciotto Canudo's
The Birth of the Sixth Art. Formalist film theory, led by
Rudolf Arnheim,
Béla Balázs, and
Siegfried Kracauer, emphasized how film differed from reality, and thus could be considered a valid fine art.
André Bazin
reacted against this theory by arguing that film's artistic essence lay
in its ability to mechanically reproduce reality not in its differences
from reality, and this gave rise to realist theory. More recent
analysis spurred by
Jacques Lacan's psychoanalysis and
Ferdinand de Saussure's
semiotics among other things has given rise to
psychoanalytical film theory,
structuralist film theory,
feminist film theory and others. On the other hand, critics from the
analytical philosophy tradition, influenced by
Wittgenstein, try to clarify misconceptions used in theoretical studies and produce analysis of a film's vocabulary and its link to a
form of life.
Language
Film is considered to have its own
language.
James Monaco wrote a classic text on film theory titled "How to
Read a Film". Director
Ingmar Bergman famously said, "[Andrei]
Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [director], the one who invented a
new language,
true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life
as a dream." Examples of the language are a sequence of back and forth
images of one actor's left profile speaking, followed by another actor's
right profile speaking, then a repetition of this, which is a language
understood by the audience to indicate a conversation. Another example
is zooming in on the forehead of an actor with an expression of silent
reflection, then changing to a scene of a younger actor who vaguely
resembles the first actor, indicating the first actor is having a memory
of their own past.
Montage
Parallels to musical counterpoint have been developed into a theory
of montage, extended from the complex superimposition of images in early
silent film
[citation needed] to even more complex incorporation of musical counterpoint together with visual counterpoint through
mise en scene and
editing, as in a
ballet or
opera; e.g., as illustrated in the gang fight scene of director
Francis Ford Coppola’s film,
Rumble Fish.
Criticism
Main article:
Film criticism
Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films. In general,
these works can be divided into two categories: academic criticism by
film scholars and journalistic film criticism that appears regularly in
newspapers and other media.
Film critics working for newspapers,
magazines, and
broadcast media
mainly review new releases. Normally they only see any given film once
and have only a day or two to formulate opinions. Despite this, critics
have an important impact on films, especially those of certain
genres. Mass marketed
action,
horror, and
comedy films
tend not to be greatly affected by a critic's overall judgment of a
film. The plot summary and description of a film that makes up the
majority of any film review can still have an important impact on
whether people decide to see a film. For prestige films such as most
dramas, the influence of reviews is extremely important. Poor reviews will often doom a film to obscurity and financial loss.
The impact of a reviewer on a given film's
box office performance is a matter of debate. Some claim that
movie marketing
is now so intense and well financed that reviewers cannot make an
impact against it. However, the cataclysmic failure of some heavily
promoted movies which were harshly reviewed, as well as the unexpected
success of critically praised independent movies indicates that extreme
critical reactions can have considerable influence. Others note that
positive film reviews have been shown to spark interest in little-known
films. Conversely, there have been several films in which film companies
have so little confidence that they refuse to give reviewers an
advanced viewing to avoid widespread panning of the film. However, this
usually backfires as reviewers are wise to the tactic and warn the
public that the film may not be worth seeing and the films often do
poorly as a result.
It is argued that journalist film critics should only be known as
film reviewers, and true film critics are those who take a more academic
approach to films. This line of work is more often known as
film theory or
film studies.
These film critics attempt to come to understand how film and filming
techniques work, and what effect they have on people. Rather than having
their works published in newspapers or appear on television, their
articles are published in scholarly journals, or sometimes in up-market
magazines. They also tend to be affiliated with colleges or
universities.
Industry
Main article:
Film industry
The making and showing of motion pictures became a source of profit
almost as soon as the process was invented. Upon seeing how successful
their new invention, and its product, was in their native France, the
Lumières
quickly set about touring the Continent to exhibit the first films
privately to royalty and publicly to the masses. In each country, they
would normally add new, local scenes to their catalogue and, quickly
enough, found local entrepreneurs in the various countries of Europe to
buy their equipment and photograph, export, import and screen additional
product commercially. The
Oberammergau Passion Play of 1898
[citation needed]
was the first commercial motion picture ever produced. Other pictures
soon followed, and motion pictures became a separate industry that
overshadowed the vaudeville world. Dedicated
theaters and companies formed specifically to produce and distribute films, while motion picture actors became major
celebrities and commanded huge fees for their performances. By 1917
Charlie Chaplin had a contract that called for an annual salary of one million dollars.
From 1931 to 1956, film was also the only image storage and playback system for
television programming until the introduction of
videotape recorders.
In the United States today, much of the film industry is centered around
Hollywood. Other regional centers exist in many parts of the world, such as
Mumbai-centered
Bollywood, the
Indian film industry's Hindi cinema which produces the largest number of films in the world.
[2] Whether the ten thousand-plus feature length films a year produced by the
Valley pornographic film industry should qualify for this title is the source of some debate.
[citation needed] Though the expense involved in making movies has led cinema production to concentrate under the auspices of
movie studios, recent advances in affordable film making equipment have allowed independent film productions to flourish.
Profit is a key force in the industry, due to the costly and risky nature of filmmaking; many films have large
cost overruns, a notorious example being Kevin Costner's
Waterworld. Yet many filmmakers strive to create works of lasting social significance. The
Academy Awards (also known as "the Oscars") are the most prominent film awards in the
United States, providing recognition each year to films, ostensibly based on their artistic merits.
There is also a large industry for educational and instructional films made in lieu of or in addition to lectures and texts.
Associated fields
Derivative academic Fields of study may both interact with and develop independently of filmmaking, as in
film theory and analysis. Fields of academic study have been created that are derivative or dependent on the existence of film, such as
film criticism,
film history, divisions of film
propaganda
in authoritarian governments, or psychological on subliminal effects of
a flashing soda can during a screening. These fields may further create
derivative fields, such as a
movie review
section in a newspaper or a television guide. Sub-industries can spin
off from film, such as popcorn makers, and toys. Sub- industries of
pre-existing industries may deal specifically with film, such as
product placement in
advertising.
Terminology used
Although the words "film" and "movie" are sometimes used interchangeably, "film" is more often used when considering
artistic,
theoretical, or
technical aspects, as studies in a university class and "movies" more often refers to
entertainment or
commercial
aspects, as where to go for fun on a date. For example, a book titled
"How to Read a Film" would be about the aesthetics or theory of film,
while "Lets Go to the Movies" would be about the history of entertaining
movies. "
Motion pictures" or "Moving pictures" are films and movies. A "
DVD" is a digital format which may be used to reproduce an analog film, while "
videotape" ("
video")
was for many decades a solely analog medium onto which moving images
could be recorded and electronically (rather than optically) reproduced.
Strictly speaking, "Film" refers to the media onto which a visual image
is shot, and to this end it may seem improper for work in other "moving
image" media to be referred to as a "film" and the action of shooting
as "filming", though these terms are still in general use. "
Silent films" need not be silent, but are films and movies without an audible dialogue, though they may have a musical soundtrack. "
Talkies" refers to early movies or films having
audible dialogue or analog sound, not just a musical accompaniment. "
Cinema"
either broadly encompasses both films and movies, or is roughly
synonymous with "Film", both capitalized when referring to a category of
art. The "
silver screen" refers to classic black-and-white films before color, not to contemporary films without color.
The expression "
Sight and Sound", as in the film journal of the same name, means "film". The following icons mean film: a "candle and bell", as in the films
Tarkovsky, of a segment of
film stock, or a two faced
Janus image, and an image of a movie camera in profile.
"
Widescreen" and "
Cinemascope" refers to a larger width to height in the
frame, compared to an earlier historic
aspect ratios.
[3] A "feature length film", or "
feature film",
is of a conventional full length, usually 60 minutes or more, and can
commercially stand by itself without other films in a ticketed
screening.
[4] A "
short"
is a film that is not as long as a feature length film, usually
screened with other shorts, or preceding a feature length film. An "
independent" is a film made outside of the conventional film industry.
A "
screening" or "
projection" is the projection of a film or video on a
screen at a public or private
theater, usually but not always of a film, but of a video or DVD when of sufficient projection quality. A "
double feature" is a screening of two independent, stand-alone, feature films. A "
viewing" is a watching of a film. A "showing" is a screening or
viewing on an electronic
monitor. "
Sales" refers to tickets sold at a theater, or more currently, rights sold for individual showings. A "
release" is the distribution and often simultaneous screening of a film. A "
preview" is a screening in advance of the main release.
"
Hollywood"
may be used either as a pejorative adjective, shorthand for asserting
an overly commercial rather than artistic intent or outcome, as in "too
Hollywood", or as a descriptive adjective to refer to a film originating
with people who ordinarily work near
Los Angeles.
Expressions for
Genres of film are sometimes used interchangeably for "film" in a specific context, such as a "
porn" for a film with explicit sexual content, or "
cheese" for films that are light, entertaining and not
highbrow.
Any film may also have a "
sequel", which portrays events following those in the film.
Bride of Frankenstein is an early example. When there are a number of films with the same characters, we have a "series", such as the
James Bond
series. A film which portrays events that occur earlier than those in
another film, but is released after that film, is sometimes called a "
prequel", an example being
Butch and Sundance: The Early Days.
Credits is a list of the people involved in making the film.
Before the 1970s, credits were usually at the beginning of a film. Since
then, the credits roll at the end of most films.
A
Post-credits scene is a scene shown after the end of the credits.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off has a post-credit scene in which Ferris tells the audience that the movie is over and they should go home.
Preview
Main article:
Test screening
A preview performance refers to a showing of a movie to a select
audience, usually for the purposes of corporate promotions, before the
public film premiere itself. Previews are sometimes used to judge
audience reaction, which if unexpectedly negative, may result in
recutting or even refilming certain sections (
Audience response).
Trailer
Main article:
Film trailer
Trailers or previews are film advertisements for films that will be
exhibited in the future at a cinema, on whose screen they are shown. The
term "trailer" comes from their having originally been shown at the end
of a film programme. That practice did not last long, because patrons
tended to leave the theater after the films ended, but the name has
stuck. Trailers are now shown before the film (or the A movie in a
double feature program) begins.
Film, or other art form?
Film may be combined with
performance art
and still be considered or referred to as a "film", for instance, when
there is a live musical accompaniment to a silent film. Another example
is audience participation films, as at a
midnight movies screening of
The Rocky Horror Picture Show, where the audience dresses up in costume from the film and loudly does a
karaoke-like
reenactment along with the film. Performance art where film is
incorporated as a component is usually not called film, but a film,
which could stand-alone but is accompanied by a performance may still be
referred to as a film.
The act of making a film can, in and of itself, be considered a work
of art, on a different level from the film itself, as in the films of
Werner Herzog.
Similarly, the playing of a film can be considered to fall within the realm of political
protest art, as in the subtleties within the films of
Tarkovsky. A "road movie" can refer to a film put together from footage from a long road trip or vacation.
Education and propaganda
Main articles:
Education and
Propaganda
Film is used for education and propaganda. When the purpose is
primarily educational, a film is called an "educational film". Examples
are recordings of lectures and experiments, or more marginally, a film
based on a classic novel.
Film may be
propaganda, in whole or in part, such as the films made by
Leni Riefenstahl in Nazi Germany, US war film trailers during World War II, or artistic films made under Stalin by
Eisenstein. They may also be works of political protest, as in the films of
Wajda, or more subtly, the films of
Andrei Tarkovsky.
The same film may be considered educational by some, and propaganda by others, such as some of the films of
Michael Moore.
Production
At its core, the means to produce a film depend on the content the
filmmaker wishes to show, and the apparatus for displaying it: the
zoetrope
merely requires a series of images on a strip of paper. Film production
can therefore take as little as one person with a camera (or without
it, such as
Stan Brakhage's 1963 film
Mothlight), or thousands of actors, extras and crewmembers for a live-action, feature-length epic.
The necessary steps for almost any film can be boiled down to
conception, planning, execution, revision, and distribution. The more
involved the production, the more significant each of the steps becomes.
In a typical
production cycle of a Hollywood-style film, these main stages are defined as:
- Development
- Pre-production
- Production
- Post-production
- Distribution
This production cycle usually takes three years. The first year is taken up with
development. The second year comprises
preproduction and
production. The third year,
post-production and
distribution.
The bigger the production, the more resources it takes, and the more important
financing becomes; most feature films are not only artistic works, but for-profit business entities.
Crew
A film crew is a group of people hired by a film company, employed
during the "production" or "photography" phase, for the purpose of
producing a film or motion picture.
Crew are distinguished from
cast, the
actors who appear in front of the
camera or provide voices for characters in the film. The
crew interacts with but is also distinct from the
production staff,
consisting of producers, managers, company representatives, their
assistants, and those whose primary responsibility falls in
pre-production or post-production phases, such as writers and editors.
Communication between
production and
crew generally passes
through the director and his/her staff of assistants. Medium-to-large
crews are generally divided into departments with well defined
hierarchies and standards for interaction and cooperation between the
departments. Other than acting, the crew handles everything in the
photography phase: props and costumes, shooting, sound, electrics (i.e.,
lights), sets, and production special effects. Caterers (known in the
film industry as "craft services") are usually not considered part of
the crew.
Technology
Film stock consists of transparent
celluloid,
acetate, or
polyester base
coated with an emulsion containing light-sensitive chemicals. Cellulose
nitrate was the first type of film base used to record motion pictures,
but due to its flammability was eventually replaced by safer materials.
Stock widths and the
film format
for images on the reel have had a rich history, though most large
commercial films are still shot on (and distributed to theaters) as
35 mm prints.
Originally moving picture film was shot and projected at various speeds using hand-cranked
cameras and
projectors;
though 1000 frames per minute (16⅔ frame/s) is generally cited as a
standard silent speed, research indicates most films were shot between
16 frame/s and 23 frame/s and projected from 18 frame/s on up (often
reels included instructions on how fast each scene should be shown).
[5] When
sound film
was introduced in the late 1920s, a constant speed was required for the
sound head. 24 frames per second was chosen because it was the slowest
(and thus cheapest) speed which allowed for sufficient sound quality.
Improvements since the late 19th century include the mechanization of
cameras – allowing them to record at a consistent speed, quiet camera
design – allowing sound recorded on-set to be usable without requiring
large "blimps" to encase the camera, the invention of more sophisticated
filmstocks and
lenses, allowing
directors
to film in increasingly dim conditions, and the development of
synchronized sound, allowing sound to be recorded at exactly the same
speed as its corresponding action. The soundtrack can be recorded
separately from shooting the film, but for live-action pictures many
parts of the soundtrack are usually recorded simultaneously.
As a medium, film is not limited to motion pictures, since the technology developed as the basis for
photography.
It can be used to present a progressive sequence of still images in the
form of a slideshow. Film has also been incorporated into
multimedia
presentations, and often has importance as primary historical
documentation. However, historic films have problems in terms of
preservation and storage, and the motion picture industry is exploring
many alternatives. Most movies on cellulose nitrate base have been
copied onto modern safety films. Some studios save color films through
the use of
separation masters: three B&W negatives each exposed through red, green, or blue filters (essentially a reverse of the
Technicolor
process). Digital methods have also been used to restore films,
although their continued obsolescence cycle makes them (as of 2006) a
poor choice for long-term preservation.
Film preservation
of decaying film stock is a matter of concern to both film historians
and archivists, and to companies interested in preserving their existing
products in order to make them available to future generations (and
thereby increase revenue). Preservation is generally a higher concern
for nitrate and single-strip color films, due to their high decay rates;
black-and-white films on safety bases and color films preserved on
Technicolor imbibition prints tend to keep up much better, assuming
proper handling and storage.
Some films in recent decades have been recorded using
analog video technology similar to that used in
television production. Modern
digital video cameras and
digital projectors are gaining ground as well. These approaches are preferred by some moviemakers, especially because footage shot with
digital cinema can be evaluated and edited with
non-linear editing systems
(NLE) without waiting for the film stock to be processed. Yet the
migration is gradual, and as of 2005 most major motion pictures are
still shot on film.
Independent
Independent filmmaking often takes place outside of Hollywood, or other major
studio systems. An independent film (or indie film) is a film initially produced without financing or distribution from a
major movie studio.
Creative, business, and technological reasons have all contributed to
the growth of the indie film scene in the late 20th and early 21st
century.
On the business side, the costs of big-budget studio films also leads
to conservative choices in cast and crew. There is a trend in Hollywood
towards co-financing (over two-thirds of the films put out by
Warner Bros. in 2000 were joint ventures, up from 10% in 1987).
[6]
A hopeful director is almost never given the opportunity to get a job
on a big-budget studio film unless he or she has significant industry
experience in film or television. Also, the studios rarely produce films
with unknown actors, particularly in lead roles.
Before the advent of
digital
alternatives, the cost of professional film equipment and stock was
also a hurdle to being able to produce, direct, or star in a traditional
studio film.
But the advent of consumer
camcorders in 1985, and more importantly, the arrival of high-resolution
digital video
in the early 1990s, have lowered the technology barrier to movie
production significantly. Both production and post-production costs have
been significantly lowered; today, the hardware and software for
post-production can be installed in a commodity-based
personal computer. Technologies such as
DVDs,
FireWire connections and
non-linear editing system pro-level software like
Adobe Premiere Pro,
Sony Vegas and Apple's
Final Cut Pro, and consumer level software such as Apple's
Final Cut Express and
iMovie, and Microsoft's
Windows Movie Maker make movie-making relatively inexpensive.
Since the introduction of
DV
technology, the means of production have become more democratized.
Filmmakers can conceivably shoot and edit a movie, create and edit the
sound and music, and mix the final cut on a home computer. However,
while the means of production may be democratized, financing,
distribution, and marketing remain difficult to accomplish outside the
traditional system. Most independent filmmakers rely on
film festivals to get their films noticed and sold for distribution. The arrival of internet-based video outlets such as
YouTube and
Veoh has further changed the film making landscape in ways that are still to be determined.
Open content film
An open content film is much like an independent film, but it is
produced through open collaborations; its source material is available
under a
license which is permissive enough to allow other parties to create
fan fiction
or derivative works, than a traditional copyright. Like independent
filmmaking, open source filmmaking takes place outside of Hollywood, or
other major
studio systems.
Fan film
A fan film is a film or video inspired by a film,
television program,
comic book or a similar source, created by
fans rather than by the source's copyright holders or creators. Fan filmmakers have traditionally been
amateurs,
but some of the more notable films have actually been produced by
professional filmmakers as film school class projects or as
demonstration reels. Fan films vary tremendously in length, from short
faux-teaser trailers for non-existent motion pictures to rarer
full-length motion pictures.
Distribution
When it is initially produced, a feature film is often shown to audiences in a
movie theater
or cinema. The identity of the first theater designed specifically for
cinema is a matter of debate; candidates include Tally's Electric
Theatre, established 1902 in Los Angeles,
[7] and Pittsburgh's Nickelodeon, established 1905.
[8] Thousands of such theaters were built or converted from existing facilities within a few years.
[9] In the
United States, these theaters came to be known as
nickelodeons, because admission typically cost a nickel (five cents).
Typically, one film is the featured presentation (or
feature film).
Before the 1970s, there were "double features"; typically, a high
quality "A picture" rented by an independent theater for a lump sum, and
a "B picture" of lower quality rented for a percentage of the gross
receipts. Today, the bulk of the material shown before the feature film
consists of previews for upcoming movies and paid advertisements (also
known as
trailers or "
The Twenty").
Historically, all mass marketed feature films were made to be shown in movie theaters. The development of
television has allowed films to be broadcast to larger audiences, usually after the film is no longer being shown in theaters.
[citation needed] In 1967,
videocassettes of movies became available to consumers to watch in their own homes.
[10] Recording technology has since enabled consumers to rent or buy copies of films on
VHS or
DVD (and the older formats of
laserdisc,
VCD and
SelectaVision – see also
videodisc), and
Internet downloads
may be available and have started to become revenue sources for the
film companies. Some films are now made specifically for these other
venues, being released as a
television movie or
direct-to-video
movies. The production values on these films are often considered to be
of inferior quality compared to theatrical releases in similar genres,
and indeed, some films that are rejected by their own
movie studios upon completion are distributed through these markets.
The movie theater pays an average of about 50-55% of its ticket sales to the
movie studio, as film rental fees.
[11]
The actual percentage starts with a number higher than that, and
decreases as the duration of a film's showing continues, as an incentive
to theaters to keep movies in the theater longer. However, today's
barrage of highly marketed movies ensures that most movies are shown in
first-run theaters for less than 8 weeks. There are a few movies every
year that defy this rule, often limited-release movies that start in
only a few theaters and actually grow their theater count through good
word-of-mouth and reviews. According to a 2000 study by
ABN AMRO, about 26% of Hollywood movie studios' worldwide income came from box office ticket sales; 46% came from
VHS and
DVD sales to consumers; and 28% came from television (broadcast, cable, and pay-per-view).
[11]
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This section requires expansion with:
optical disc distribution. |
Animation
Animation is the technique in which each frame of a film is produced
individually, whether generated as a computer graphic, or by
photographing a drawn image, or by repeatedly making small changes to a
model unit (see
claymation and
stop motion), and then photographing the result with a special
animation camera.
When the frames are strung together and the resulting film is viewed at
a speed of 16 or more frames per second, there is an illusion of
continuous movement (due to the
persistence of vision). Generating such a film is very labor intensive and tedious, though the development of
computer animation has greatly sped up the process.
Because animation is very time-consuming and often very expensive to produce, the majority of animation for
TV and movies comes from professional animation studios. However, the field of
independent animation
has existed at least since the 1950s, with animation being produced by
independent studios (and sometimes by a single person). Several
independent animation producers have gone on to enter the professional
animation industry.
Limited animation
is a way of increasing production and decreasing costs of animation by
using "short cuts" in the animation process. This method was pioneered
by
UPA and popularized by
Hanna-Barbera, and adapted by other studios as cartoons moved from
movie theaters to
television.
[12]
Although most animation studios are now using digital technologies in
their productions, there is a specific style of animation that depends
on film. Cameraless animation, made famous by moviemakers like
Norman McLaren,
Len Lye and
Stan Brakhage, is painted and drawn directly onto pieces of film, and then run through a projector.
Future state
While motion picture films have been around for more than a century, film is still a relative newcomer in the pantheon
[clarification needed] of
fine arts. In the 1950s, when television became widely available, industry analysts
[who?] predicted the demise of local movie theaters.
[citation needed] Despite competition from television's increasing technological sophistication over the 1960s and 1970s
[citation needed]
such as the development of color television and large screens, motion
picture cinemas continued. In fact with the rise of television's
predominance, film began to become more respected as an artistic medium
by contrast due the low general opinion of the quality of average
television content.
[citation needed]
In the 1980s, when the widespread availability of inexpensive
videocassette recorders enabled people to select films for home viewing,
industry analysts again wrongly predicted the death of the local
cinemas.
[citation needed]
In the 1990s and 2000s, the development of
DVD
players, home theater amplification systems with surround sound and
subwoofers, and large LCD or plasma screens enabled people to select and
view films at home with greatly improved audio and visual reproduction.
[citation needed]
These new technologies provided audio and visual that in the past only
local cinemas had been able to provide: a large, clear widescreen
presentation of a film with a full-range, high-quality multi-speaker
sound system. Once again industry analysts predicted the demise of the
local cinema. Local cinemas will be changing in the 21st century and
moving towards digital screens, a new approach which will allow for
easier and quicker distribution of films (via satellite or hard disks), a
development which may give local theaters a reprieve from their
predicted demise.
[citation needed] The cinema now faces a new challenge from home video by the likes of a new
high definition (HD) format,
Blu-ray, which can provide full HD
1080p video playback at near cinema quality.
[citation needed]
Video formats are gradually catching up with the resolutions and
quality that film offers; 1080p in Blu-ray offers a pixel resolution of
1920×1080, a leap from the DVD offering of 720×480 and the 330×480
offered by the first home video standard,
VHS.
[citation needed] Ultra HD,
a future digital video format, will offer a resolution of 7680×4320.
However, the nature and structure of film prevents an apples-to-apples
comparison with regard to resolution.
[13]
The resolving power of film, and its ability to capture an image which
can later be scanned to a digital format, will ensure that film remains a
viable medium for some time to come.
[citation needed]
Currently the super-16 format is seeing use as a capture medium, with
digital scanning and post-production providing good results.
[14][15]
Despite advances in digital capture, film still offers unsurpassed
ability to capture fine detail beyond what is possible with digital
image sensors.
A 35 mm film frame, with proper exposure and processing, still offers
an equivalent resolution in the range of 500 mega pixels.
[13]
Despite the rise of all-new technologies, the development of the home
video market and a surge of online copyright infringement, 2007 was a
record year in film that showed the highest ever box-office grosses.
Many
[who?]
expected film to suffer as a result of the effects listed above but it
has flourished, strengthening film studio expectations for the future.
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