Film

A film, movie, or motion picture is a work of visual art that shows experiences and shares ideas, stories, feelings, and atmosphere through moving images. Since the 1930s, these images have usually been synchronized with sound. Some films also include things that appeal to the other senses.

Films are made by recording people and objects with cameras. They can also be made by creating images with animation and special effects. A film is made up of many single frames. When these pictures are shown quickly one after another, we see motion. The flicker between frames is not noticeable because of an effect traditionally known as persistence of vision, which is now more specifically called flicker fusion. This means the eye turns a fast series of pictures and gaps into a smooth image.

Films are widely considered an important art form. They entertain, teach, and inspire people. Because the visual parts of film need no translation, films can communicate with people everywhere. Any film can become popular around the world, especially when dubbing or subtitles translate the dialogue. Films are also created by specific cultures. They reflect those cultures and, in turn, affect them.

History

Main articles: History of film technology and History of film

Main article: Precursors of film

Film drew on older arts such as spoken storytelling, literature, theatre, and visual arts. Earlier forms of entertainment had already shown moving or projected pictures, such as shadowgraphy, camera obscura, shadow puppetry, and magic lantern. In 1833, the idea of stroboscopic animation was introduced with the phénakisticope. Later it was used in the zoetrope, the flip book, and the praxinoscope. It became the basic idea behind moving pictures. Jules Duboscq brought phénakisticope projection systems to France in the 1870s.

Photography arrived in 1839, but early photographic emulsions needed such long exposures that photographing moving things seemed impossible. Interest in adding color and motion grew with stereoscopic photography. In 1849, Joseph Plateau suggested combining his phénakisticope with a stereoscope, an idea first proposed by Charles Wheatstone. In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge used a line of cameras to photograph a running horse. He published the pictures as The Horse in Motion on cabinet cards. Étienne-Jules Marey and Ottomar Anschütz also made many chronophotography studies. Muybridge showed his series with his zoopraxiscope. Instantaneous photography was developed in the late 1840s. Anschütz later took quick photographs with shutter speeds as short as 1/1000 of a second. His Electrotachyscope was shown at many events from 1887. Siemens & Halske made coin-operated versions that were sold around the world. Other shows were held in London and at the Chicago World's Fair.

Émile Reynaud showed a praxinoscope projection device at the Société française de photographie in 1880. He later developed the Théâtre Optique, which could show longer sequences. He gave animated shows in Paris from 1892 to 1900. By the late 1880s, celluloid photographic film and motion picture cameras made it possible to store action on a single reel. At first, people watched films one at a time in "peep show" machines like the Kinetoscope and the Mutoscope. The first paid public screenings took place in 1895. Woodville Latham showed films from his Eidoloscope company. Max Skladanowsky also held screenings, and so did Auguste and Louis Lumière, who made L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat. Early films were only a few minutes long. They usually showed one fixed shot with no editing, such as Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory and A Trip Down Market Street. Later, filmmakers joined several scenes together to tell stories. Silent films were accompanied by a pianist, organist, or orchestra. By the early 1920s, many came with prepared music and complete film scores. The growth of European cinema was interrupted by World War I. While this happened, Hollywood grew through the work of D. W. Griffith, who made The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. In the 1920s, European filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein, F. W. Murnau, and Fritz Lang continued to develop the art. Actors like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton did too.

In the late 1920s, electronic sound recording made it possible to add a soundtrack with speech, music, and sound effects. These sound films were called "talkies." By 1931, silent film was almost gone in the U.S. Early systems such as the Vitaphone, used by Warner Bros., were built on phonograph technology. Don Juan (1926) and The Jazz Singer (1927) helped sound become accepted. Europe used the Tobis-Klangfilm and Tri-Ergon systems. As television grew in the 1940s and 1950s, studios developed better sound, such as Cinerama's seven-channel system. In 1966, Dolby Laboratories introduced a noise reduction system. Dolby Stereo followed by 1977. In the 1930s, "natural color" was captured directly from nature. The three-strip Technicolor process was first used in cartoons in 1932. The first feature film made entirely in this process was Becky Sharp in 1935. The Wizard of Oz (1939) was one of the first mainstream films to use color. Color became the rule in the 1950s and 1960s. At that time, widescreen, polarized 3D projection, and stereophonic sound were also introduced to bring audiences back to theaters. After the studio system declined in the 1960s, New Wave movements changed filmmaking. These included the French New Wave, New German Cinema, Indian New Wave, Japanese New Wave, New Hollywood, and Egyptian New Wave. Digital technology has driven change since the 1990s. Films like Avatar (2009) made digital 3D popular. Large-screen formats using 35mm, 70mm film, and the IMAX corporation were also developed. By the mid-2020s, the "immersive" 4DX format was becoming popular. The future of sound in film is still uncertain, and it may be shaped by artificial intelligence.

Film theory

Film theory tries to create simple, organized ideas for studying film as an art. The idea of film as an art form began in 1911 with Ricciotto Canudo's writing The Birth of the Sixth Art. The Moscow Film School, the oldest film school in the world, was founded in 1919 to teach and study film theory. Formalist film theory, led by Rudolf Arnheim, Béla Balázs, and Siegfried Kracauer, focused on how film is different from real life. This showed that film could be seen as a true fine art. André Bazin disagreed. He said film's art comes from how it copies real life, which led to realist theory. Later thinkers were inspired by ideas from Jacques Lacan, Ferdinand de Saussure and his semiotics, and Laura Mulvey and her male gaze idea. These led to psychoanalytic film theory, structuralist film theory, feminist film theory, and more. Critics from the analytical philosophy tradition, influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, try to make confusing ideas clearer. They study the words used to talk about film and how film connects to a form of life.

Film is often said to have its own language. James Monaco wrote a well-known book on film theory, How to Read a Film, which explores this idea. Director Ingmar Bergman said that Andrei Tarkovsky was the greatest director because he created a new language that fits the nature of film. One example is the "shot/reverse shot." Images switch back and forth between a character looking offscreen and another character. Audiences understand this as a conversation. The 180-degree rule is a storytelling tool that helps viewers feel like they are inside a scene. The "Hollywood style" uses this kind of storytelling. Movie studios based in Hollywood, California, often followed this rule during film's classical era. A "flashback" is another example. A shot of an actor looking thoughtful is followed by a younger actor who looks similar. This shows that the character is remembering the past.

Main article: Montage (filmmaking)

Montage is an editing technique. Separate pieces of film are chosen and joined to make a new part of a film. It can tell a story or create a feeling or idea by placing shots side by side. This often shortens time, space, or information. Montage can include flashbacks, parallel action, or visual parts that create symbolic meaning. The idea of montage came about in the 1920s, when Soviet filmmakers Sergei Eisenstein and Lev Kuleshov developed its theory. Eisenstein's film Battleship Potemkin (1925) is an example. It uses strong juxtapositions of images to make a powerful impact on viewers. The French New Wave movement of the late 1950s and 1960s also used montage. Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut made creative films during this time. Today, montage still shapes stories and memorable scenes. Examples include the fast-paced editing in Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream (2000) and Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead (2004). Other films use music-video style sequences, like Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and Baby Driver (2017). Some use training sequences, like Rocky (1976), The Karate Kid (1984), and Million Dollar Baby (2004). Cross-cutting between storylines happening at the same time builds excitement in Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010) and Dunkirk (2017). Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) uses montage to show themes of family, nostalgia, and loss through its motifs.

Film criticism is the study and judging of films. It has traditionally been split into two groups. Film scholars write academic criticism. They publish in journals and books and use film studies to examine how films and filming techniques work and how they affect people. Journalistic critics, sometimes called film reviewers, write for newspapers, magazines, and broadcast media. They mostly review new movies with a focus on what viewers might want to know. Online review aggregators like Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes gather reviews from critics and audiences in one place. A high or low score can encourage or discourage people from going to the cinema, although movie marketing also plays a big part. Word-of-mouth talk and social media posts can also affect how excited people are about a film. Critic Roger Ebert said that a great movie helps us understand people who share our planet. It shows that people share the same dreams and feelings. Experts disagree about whether reviews affect how much money a film makes at the box office. Good reviews can help little-known films get noticed. Big action and comedy films are less affected by critics. Horror and sci-fi fans usually watch films in their favourite genre no matter what the reviews say. In a 2004 survey, TV ads and recommendations from other people had the most influence on going to the movies. About 70% of people said each of these mattered. Professional reviews were mentioned by 33% of people, and online ratings by 28%.

Industry

Making and showing movies began to earn money almost as soon as the process was invented. After the Lumière brothers saw how successful their invention was in France, they traveled across the continent showing their first films to the public. They opened Cinématographe theaters in London, Brussels, and Belgium. April 1896 is considered the start of the American movie theater, when Edison rented the Koster and Bial’s Music Hall for the first public demonstration of his Vitascope.

The Oberammergau Passion Play of 1898 was the first commercial motion picture ever made. Movies soon became their own industry, and it grew bigger than vaudeville. Film actors became famous celebrities who earned large fees. By 1917, Charlie Chaplin had a contract for $1 million a year for eight films. Today, much of the American film industry is based in Hollywood, California. Bollywood, centered in Mumbai, is the Hindi cinema of the Indian film industry and makes the largest number of films in the world. Making films is expensive and risky, so earning money is very important in the industry. Many films have large cost overruns, such as Kevin Costner's Waterworld. Still, many filmmakers want to create works that matter to society for a long time. The Academy Awards, also called "the Oscars," are the most important film awards in the United States.

Associated fields

Some fields of study grow alongside filmmaking, such as film theory and analysis. Other fields exist because films exist. These include film criticism, film history, and film propaganda used by some governments. Some fields study how films affect people. For example, they look at the effects of subliminal images, like a flashing soda can during a showing.

These fields can lead to other fields, such as a movie review section in a newspaper or a television guide. New businesses can also grow out of film, like popcorn makers and toys such as Star Wars figures. Some existing industries also focus on film, such as product placement and other advertising within movies.

Terminology

People in British and American English use different words for movies. In Britain, the medium is called film. The word movie is understood but not used often. The place where movies are shown is often called the pictures. In America, it may be called the movies, but that word is becoming old-fashioned. In other places, it may be called a cinema or a movie theatre. In the United States, movie is the most common word. Film is used more when talking about a work's artistic, theoretical, or technical sides. Movie is used more when talking about its entertainment or commercial sides. Motion pictures are films made for theaters, such as Star Wars. Silent films have no spoken words. Talkies are the first films with audible dialogue. The silver screen is the screen used to show films. It is also a metonym for the whole film industry. A feature film is a full-length film, usually 60 minutes or more. A short is shorter. A film made outside the usual film industry is an independent. A double feature is a showing of two separate feature films. A preview is shown before the main release. A sequel shows events that come after a film, such as Bride of Frankenstein. A prequel shows earlier events, such as Butch and Sundance: The Early Days. Films with the same characters or themes form a series, such as the James Bond series. The credits list the people who made a film. Some films have a post-credits scene after the credits, such as Ferris Bueller's Day Off. A film's cast are its actors. Its crew includes people like directors and editors. Someone who loves films is a cinephile or cineaste. Very strong interest in films is called cinephilia.

Main article: Test screening

Before a film is released, it may be shown to a small audience. This is called a preview performance. If the audience response is unexpectedly negative, the film may be changed or filmed again. For example, test viewers reacted very negatively to the death of the main character, John Rambo, a Vietnam veteran, at the end of First Blood (1982). The company then filmed a new ending in which the character survives. Trailers are advertisements for films coming to cinemas soon. They are now shown before a film begins, and they also appear on DVDs and online. A teaser is a much shorter advertisement, lasting 10 to 30 seconds. It builds excitement for a film coming out in the next six to twelve months.

Culture

Films are cultural artifacts made by specific cultures. This helps people from different cultures talk with each other. Film is an important art form. It entertains people and has historical value. Films often show what a time period was like. Because film is based on pictures, many people can understand it. Dubbing or subtitles can translate the dialog into other languages. Seeing a place in a film can make more tourists want to visit it. This shows how powerful film can be.

Main articles: Educational film and Propaganda film

Films are made for many purposes, including education and propaganda. When the main purpose is to teach, a film is called an "educational film." Examples include recordings of college lectures and experiments, or a film based on a classic book. A film may be propaganda, either fully or partly. Some examples are films made by Leni Riefenstahl in Nazi Germany, US war film trailers from World War II, and artistic films made under Stalin by Sergei Eisenstein. Some films are political protests, like those of Andrzej Wajda. Others are more subtle, like those of Andrei Tarkovsky. People may disagree about what kind of film it is. One person may see a film as educational, while another sees it as propaganda.

Production

Making a film depends on what the filmmaker wants to show and on the device used to show it. A zoetrope only needs a series of images on a strip of paper. One person can make a film with a camera, or even without one, as Stan Brakhage did with his 1963 film Mothlight. Other films need thousands of actors, extras, and crew members. Most films go through several steps: an idea, planning, filming, changes, and sharing with the public. A typical Hollywood-style film follows a production cycle with these stages: development, pre-production, production, post-production, and distribution. This cycle usually takes three years. Bigger productions need more money, so financing becomes more important.

Crew

A film crew is a group of people hired by a film company to make a film during the production stage. The crew is different from the cast, which includes the actors who appear on screen or provide voices. The crew handles props, costumes, filming, sound, lighting, sets, and special effects. Communication usually goes through the director. Caterers, known in the film industry as "craft services," are usually not part of the crew.

Technology

See also: Cinematic techniques

Film stock is a clear base of celluloid, acetate, or polyester, coated with chemicals that react to light. Early films used a material called cellulose nitrate, but it could catch fire easily, so safer materials replaced it. Most large movies are still filmed on, and shown in theaters as, 35 mm prints. Early films were filmed and shown at different speeds using hand-cranked cameras and projectors. When sound film arrived in the late 1920s, a steady speed was needed. The standard of 24 frames per second was set with Warner Bros.'s The Jazz Singer and its Vitaphone system in 1927.

Film can also be used for photography, slideshows, and multimedia presentations, and it is an important historical record. Old films can decay, so people work to protect them. Some films have been recorded with analog video or digital video cameras instead. Many filmmakers like these methods because footage can be edited with non-linear editing systems without waiting for film to be processed. As of 2005, most major movies were still filmed on film.

Independent

Main article: Independent film

Independent filmmaking often happens outside Hollywood or other major studio systems. An independent film is one that was first made without money or distribution from a major film studio. Lower costs have helped indie films grow. Camcorders arrived in 1985, and high-quality digital video in the early 1990s made film production much cheaper. Today, a film can be edited on a personal computer. Still, money and distribution remain difficult to get. Many independent filmmakers rely on film festivals to get noticed, and websites such as YouTube and Veoh let them share their films with the public.

Open content film

Main article: Open content film

An open content film is made through shared teamwork. Its source material is shared under a license that allows others to create fan fiction or other new works, rather than under a traditional copyright. Like independent films, open content films are usually made outside Hollywood and other major studio systems.

Fan film

Main article: Fan film

A fan film is a film or video inspired by a television show, comic book, or similar source, made by fans rather than by the original creators or copyright holders. Fan filmmakers have traditionally been amateurs, though some well-known fan films were made by professionals as school projects or demonstration reels. Fan films vary in length, from short fake trailers to full-length movies.

Film distribution is how a film is made available for people to watch. This is usually the job of a professional film distributor, who decides the marketing plan and how the film will be shown. The distributor may also set the release date and other details.

A film can be shown to the public in a movie theater, which was historically the main way films were shared. It can also be shown on television for personal home viewing, including on DVD-Video or Blu-ray Disc, through video-on-demand, by online downloading, or in television programs shared through broadcast syndication. Other ways to get a film include renting or buying it in different formats, such as VHS tape or DVD, or Internet downloading or streaming on a computer.

Animation

Main article: Animation

Animation is a technique where each frame of a film is made one at a time. Frames can be computer graphics, photos of drawn pictures, or photos taken after small changes to a model (see claymation and stop motion). These are photographed with a special animation camera. When the frames are shown at 16 or more per second, the movement looks smooth because of the phi phenomenon. Making this kind of film takes a lot of time and effort, though computer animation has made the process much faster. Because animation takes so much time and money, most animation for TV and films comes from professional animation studios. However, independent animation has existed since at least the 1950s. It is made by small studios and sometimes by a single person. Several independent producers have gone on to join the professional animation industry.

Limited animation lowers costs and speeds up production by using "shortcuts" in the animation process. UPA pioneered this method, and Hanna-Barbera in the United States and Osamu Tezuka in Japan made it popular. Other studios adapted it as cartoons moved from movie theaters to television. Most animation studios now use digital technology, but one style still depends on film itself. Camera-less animation, made famous by filmmakers like Norman McLaren, Len Lye, and Stan Brakhage, is painted and drawn directly onto pieces of film. The film is then run through a projector.