History of film

Mechanisms for producing artificially created, two-dimensional images in motion were demonstrated as early as the 1860s, with devices such as the zoetrope and the 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. Early versions of the technology sometimes required the viewer to look into a special device to see the pictures. 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.

A shot from Georges Méliès' Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) (1902), an early narrative film.

Motion pictures were purely visual art up to the late 1920s, 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. Films began stringing scenes together to tell narratives. 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 in silence, theater owners would hire a pianist or organist or a full orchestra to play music fitting 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 purposes, with complete film scores being composed for major productions.

The rise of European cinema was interrupted by the breakout of World War I while the film industry in United States flourished with the rise of Hollywood. However in the 1920s, European filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein and F. W. Murnau continued to 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 color. While the addition of sound quickly eclipsed silent film and theater musicians, color was adopted more gradually. The public was relatively indifferent to color photography as opposed to black-and-white. But as color processes improved and became as affordable as black-and-white film, more and more movies were filmed in color after the end of World War II, as the industry in America came to view color an essential to attracting audiences in its competition with television, which remained a black-and-white medium until the mid-1960s. By the end of the 1960s, color had become the norm for film makers.

The 1950s, 1960s and 1970s saw changes in the production and style of film. New Hollywood, French New Wave 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 21st Century.

Film theory

Film theory seeks to develop concise, systematic concepts that apply to the study of film/cinema as art. Classical film theory provides a structural framework to address classical issues of techniques, narrativity, diegesis, cinematic codes, "the image", genre, subjectivity, and authorship. More recent analysis has given rise to psychoanalytical film theory, structuralist film theory, feminist film theory and others.

Film criticism

Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films. In general this can be divided into 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 of 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 reviewer on a 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 that 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 work is more often known as film theory or film studies. These film critics try to come to understand why film works, how it works, and what effects it has on people. Rather than write for newspaper 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.

The motion picture industry

The making and showing of motion pictures became a source of profit almost as soon 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 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. Already by 1917, Charlie Chaplin had a contract that called for an annual salary of one million dollars.

In the United States today, much of the film industry is centered around Hollywood. Other regional centers exist in many parts of the world, and the Indian film industry (primarily centered around "Bollywood") annually produces the largest number of films in the world. Whether the ten thousand-plus features a year produced by the Valley porn industry should qualify for this title is the source of some debate. 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 nature of filmmaking; 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. Also, film quickly came to be used in education, in lieu of or in addition to lectures and texts.

Stages of filmmaking

The nature of the film determines the size and type of crew required during filmmaking. Many Hollywood adventure films need computer generated imagery (CGI), created by dozens of 3D modellers, animators, rotoscopers and compositors. However, a low-budget, independent film may be made with a skeleton crew, often paid very little. Filmmaking takes place all over the world using different technologies, styles of acting and genre, and is produced in a variety of economic contexts that range from state-sponsored documentary in China to profit-oriented movie making within the American studio system.

A typical Hollywood-style filmmaking Production cycle comprises five main stages:

1. Development
2. Preproduction
3. Production
4. Post-production
5. Distribution

This production cycle typically 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.

Film crew

A film crew is a group of people hired by a film company 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.

Independent filmmaking

Independent filmmaking takes place outside of the 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.

Creatively, it was becoming increasingly difficult to get studio backing for experimental films. Experimental elements in theme and style are inhibitors for the big studios.

On the business side, the costs of big-budget studio films also leads to conservative choices in cast and crew. The problem is exacerbated by the trend towards co-financing (over two-thirds of the films put out by Warner Bros. in 2000 were joint ventures, up from 10% in 1987). An unproven director is almost never given the opportunity to get his or her big break with the studios unless he or she has significant industry experience in film or television. They also rarely produce films with unknown actors, particularly in lead roles.

Until 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. The cost of 35 mm film is outpacing inflation: in 2002 alone, film negative costs were up 23%, according to Variety. Film requires expensive lighting and post-production facilities.

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, IEEE 1394 connections and non-linear editing system pro-level software like Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro, and consumer level software such as Final Cut Express and iMovie 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.

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 labour intensive and tedious, though the development of computer animation has greatly sped up the process.

Graphics file formats like GIF, MNG, SVG and Flash allow animation to be viewed on a computer or over the Internet.

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 (some say exploited) by Hanna-Barbera, and adapted by other studios as cartoons moved from movie theaters to television.

Film venues

When it is initially produced, a film is normally shown to audiences in a movie theater or cinema. The first theater designed exclusively for cinema opened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1905. Thousands of such theaters were built or converted from existing facilities within a few years. 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). 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 (those in theaters) consists of previews for upcoming movies and paid advertisements (also known as trailers or "The Twenty").

Originally, all 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. Recording technology has also enabled consumers to rent or buy copies of films on video tape 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 made-for-TV movies or direct-to-video movies. These are often considered to be of inferior quality compared to theatrical releases. And indeed, some films that are rejected by their own studios upon completion are dumped into these markets.

The movie theater pays an average of about 55% of its ticket sales to the movie studio, as film rental fees. 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).

Development of film technology

Film stock consists of a transparent celluloid, polyester, or acetate 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 16 frames per second is generally cited as a standard silent speed, research indicates most films were shot between 16-23 fps and projected from 18 fps on up (often reels included instructions on how fast each scene should be shown) [1]. 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 extremely beneficial to moviemakers, especially because footage can be evaluated and edited without waiting for the film stock to be processed. Yet the migration is gradual, and as of 2005 most major motion pictures are still recorded on film.

Endurance of films

Films have been around for more than a century, however this is not long when one considers it in relation to other arts like painting and sculpture. Many believe that film will be a long enduring art form because motion pictures appeal to diverse human emotions.

Apart from societal norms and cultural changes, there are still close resemblances between theatrical plays throughout the ages and films of today. Romantic motion pictures about a girl loving a guy but not being able to be together for some reason, movies about a hero who fights against all odds a more powerful fiendish enemy, comedies about everyday life, etc. all involve plots with common threads that existed in books, plays and other venues.

The reason motion pictures endure is because people still want escapism, adventure, inspiration, humor and to be moved emotionally. Civilization develops and changes, at least in surface features, and so calls for a constant renewal of artistic means to channel these desires. Films provide them in an accessible and powerful way.

References

• Paul Read. A Short History of Cinema Film Post-Production (1896 - 2006), in English; in: Joachim Polzer (editor). Zur Geschichte des Filmkopierwerks. (On Film Lab History). Weltwunder der Kinematographie. Beiträge zu einer Kulturgeschichte der Filmtechnik. Volume 8.2006. April 2006. 336 pages. (available through amazon.de) -- ISBN 3-934535-26-7
• Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey (ed.). The Oxford History of World Cinema. Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN 0198742428
• Hagener, Malte, and Töteberg, Michael. Film: An International Bibliography. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2002. ISBN 3-476-01523-8
• Vogel, Amos. Film As a Subversive Art. Weidenfeld & Nichols, 1974.
• The Oxford History of World Cinema, Oxford University Press, 1999; Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, ed.
• Glorious Technicolor: The Movies' Magic Rainbow, Fred E. Basten. AS Barnes & Company, 1980
• Reel Women. Pioneers of the Cinema. 1896 to the Present by Ally Acker, London: B.T.Batsford 1991
• Reel Racism. Confronting Hollywood's Construction of Afro-American Culture, Vincent F. Rocchio, Westview Press 2000
• New Hollywood Cinema: An Introduction, Geoff King . Columbia University Press, 2002.
• Notes on Film Noir Paul Schrader. Film Comment. '84?
• Celluloid Mavericks: A History of American Independent Film by Greg Merritt; Thunder's Mouth Press 2001
• Africa shoots back. Alternative perspectives in sub-saharan francophone african film by Melissa Thackway, Indiana University Press 2003
• Glorious Technicolor; directed by Peter Jones. Based on the book (above); written by Basten & Jones. Documentary, (1998).
• Francesco Casetti, Theories of Cinema, 1945-1990, Paperback Edition, University of Texas Press 1999
• The Oxford Guide to Film Studies, Oxford University Press 1998
• Walters Faber, Helen Walters, Algrant (Ed.), Animation Unlimited: Innovative Short Films Since 1940, HarperCollins Publishers 2004
• Trish Ledoux, Doug Ranney, Fred Patten (Ed.), Complete Anime Guide: Japanese Animation Film Directory and Resource Guide, Tiger Mountain Press 1997
• Steven Spielberg in The making of Jurassic Park

Links

• The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) - Information on current and historical films and cast listings.
• Wikia has a wiki about: The Film Guide
• Open Directory Project: Movies
• Rotten Tomatoes Film reviews
• All Movie Guide - Information on films: actors, directors, biographies, reviews, cast and production credits, box office sales, and other movie data.
• Film Site - Reviews of classic films

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

The American film magazine Premiere, created a list of The 100 Greatest Movie Performances of All Time made up of some of the most memorable performances from films.

1.  Peter O'Toole Lawrence of Arabia T.E. Lawrence 1962
2.  Marlon Brando On the Waterfront Terry Malloy 1954
3.  Meryl Streep Sophie's Choice Sophie Zawistowska 1982
4.  Al Pacino Dog Day Afternoon Sonny Wortzik 1975
5.  Bette Davis All About Eve Margo Channing 1950
6.  James Cagney Yankee Doodle Dandy George M. Cohan 1942
7.  Dustin Hoffman Midnight Cowboy "Ratso" Rizzo 1969
8.  James Stewart It's a Wonderful Life George Bailey 1946
9.  Gene Wilder Young Frankenstein Dr. Frederick Frankenstein 1974
10. Robert De Niro Raging Bull Jake La Motta 1980
11. Daniel Day-Lewis My Left Foot Christy Brown 1989
12. Jack Nicholson The Last Detail "Badass" Buddusky 1973
13. Katharine Hepburn The Lion in Winter Eleanor of Aquitaine 1968
14. Robert Duvall Tender Mercies Mac Sledge 1983
15. Tom Hanks Big Josh Baskin 1988
16. Cary Grant Notorious T.R. Devlin 1946
17. Denzel Washington Malcolm X Malcolm X 1992
18. Emily Watson Breaking the Waves Bess McNeill 1996
19. Paul Newman The Verdict Frank Galvin 1982
20. Al Pacino The Godfather Part II Michael Corleone 1974
21. Giulietta Masina Nights of Cabiria Cabiria 1957
22. Johnny Depp Edward Scissorhands Edward Scissorhands 1990
23. Russell Crowe The Insider Jeffrey Wigand 1999
24. Humphrey Bogart The Treasure of the Sierra Madre Fred C. Dobbs 1948
25. Greta Garbo Ninotchka Ninotchka 1939
26. Maria Falconetti The Passion of Joan of Arc Joan of Arc 1928
27. Marlon Brando Last Tango in Paris Paul 1972
28. Rosalind Russell His Girl Friday Hildy Johnson 1940
29. Peter Sellers Being There Chance the Gardener 1979
30. James Stewart Vertigo John Ferguson 1958
31. Jamie Foxx Ray Ray Charles 2004
32. Audrey Hepburn Breakfast at Tiffany's Holly Golightly 1961
33. Dustin Hoffman Tootsie Michael Dorsey/Dorothy Michaels 1982
34. Buster Keaton The General Johnny Gray 1927
35. Philip Seymour Hoffman Capote Truman Capote 2005
36. Faye Dunaway Chinatown Evelyn Cross Mulwray 1974
37. Gene Hackman The Conversation Harry Caul 1974
38. Carole Lombard To Be or Not to Be Maria Tura 1942
39. Laurence Olivier Richard III Richard III 1955
40. Nicole Kidman To Die For Suzanne Stone Maretto 1995
41. Samuel L. Jackson Pulp Fiction Jules Winnfield 1994
42. Robert De Niro Taxi Driver Travis Bickle 1976
43. James Dean Rebel Without a Cause Jim Stark 1955
44. Charlie Chaplin City Lights A Tramp 1931
45. Reese Witherspoon Election Tracy Flick 1999
46. Tom Hanks Cast Away Chuck Noland 2000
47. Jack Nicholson One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Randle Patrick McMurphy 1975
48. Bill Murray Groundhog Day Phil Connors 1993
49. Liv Ullmann Persona Elisabet Vogler 1966
50. Humphrey Bogart The Maltese Falcon Sam Spade 1941
51. Henry Fonda The Grapes of Wrath Tom Joad 1940
52. Emma Thompson The Remains of the Day Miss Kenton 1993
53. Daniel Day-Lewis Gangs of New York Bill Cutting 2002
54. Katharine Hepburn The Philadelphia Story Tracy Lord 1940
55. Sidney Poitier In the Heat of the Night Virgil Tibbs 1967
56. Jodie Foster The Accused Sarah Tobias 1988
57. Max Von Sydow Pelle the Conqueror Lasse Karlsson 1987
58. Sigourney Weaver Aliens Ellen Ripley 1986
59. Catherine Deneuve Belle de Jour Séverine Sérizy 1967
60. Diane Keaton Annie Hall Annie Hall 1977
61. Ralph Fiennes Schindler's List Amon Goeth 1993
62. Gary Oldman Sid & Nancy Sid Vicious 1986
63. Gena Rowlands A Woman Under the Influence Mabel Longhetti 1974
64. Paul Newman The Hustler Fast Eddie Felson 1961
65. Jack Lemmon Some Like It Hot Jerry/Daphne 1959
66. Holly Hunter Broadcast News Jane Craig 1987
67. Spencer Tracy Inherit the Wind Henry Drummond 1960
68. Cary Grant Bringing Up Baby Dr. David Huxley 1938
69. Gloria Swanson Sunset Boulevard Norma Desmond 1950
70. Anthony Hopkins The Silence of the Lambs Hannibal Lecter 1991
71. Meryl Streep Silkwood Karen Silkwood 19
72. Judy Garland A Star Is Born Esther Blodgett aka Vicki Lester 1954
73. John Travolta Saturday Night Fever Tony Manero 1977
74. Madeline Kahn Blazing Saddles Lili von Shtupp 1974
75. Julie Christie Darling Diana Scott 1965
76. Burt Lancaster Sweet Smell of Success J.J. Hunsecker 1957
77. Morgan Freeman Street Smart Leo Smalls Jr. aka Fast Black 1987
78. Toshiro Mifune Yojimbo Sanjuro Kuwabatake 1961
79. Johnny Depp Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl Captain Jack Sparrow 2003
80. Jeanne Moreau Jules and Jim Catherine 1962
81. Kate Winslet Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Clementine Kruczynski 2004
82. George C. Scott Patton General George S. Patton, Jr. 1970
83. Hilary Swank Boys Don't Cry Brandon Teena 1999
84. Anjelica Huston The Grifters Lilly Dillon 1990
85. Jessica Lange Frances Frances Farmer 1982
86. Robert Walker Strangers on a Train Bruno Anthony 1951
87. John Wayne The Searchers Ethan Edwards 1956
88. Christopher Walken The Deer Hunter Nick Chevotarevich 1978
89. Gong Li Farewell My Concubine Juxian 1993
90. Jeff Bridges The Big Lebowski Jeffrey Lebowski 1998
91. Jane Fonda Klute Bree Daniels 1971
92. Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry Harry Callahan 1971
93. Joan Crawford Mildred Pierce Mildred Pierce Beragon 1945
94. Peter Lorre M Hans Beckert 1931
95. Angela Bassett What's Love Got to Do With It Tina Turner 1993
96. Judy Holliday Born Yesterday Billie Dawn 1950
97. Ben Kingsley Sexy Beast Don Logan 2001
98. Barbara Stanwyck Double Indemnity Phyllis Dietrichson 1944
99. Steve Martin The Jerk Navin Johnson 1979
100.Malcolm McDowell A Clockwork Orange Alex DeLarge 1971

Links

• The 100 Greatest Movie Performances of All Time at Premiere.com (The link is no more available)

Film advertising materials

This animation moves at 10 frames per second.

This animation moves at 2 frames per second. At this rate, the individual frames should be discernible.

12 frames per second is the typical rate for an animated cartoon.

Animation is the optical illusion of motion created by the consecutive display of images of static elements. In film and video production, this refers to techniques by which each frame of a film or movie is produced individually. These frames may be generated by computers, or by photographing a drawn or painted 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, there is an illusion of continuous movement due to the phenomenon known as persistence of vision. Generating such a film tends to be very labour intensive and tedious, though the development of computer animation has greatly sped up the process.

Graphics file formats like GIF, MNG, SVG and Flash (SWF) allow animation to be viewed on a computer or over the Internet.

The bouncing ball animation (at right) consists of these 6 frames.

Reading

• Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, Disney animation: The Illusion Of Life, Abbeville 1981
• Walters Faber, Helen Walters, Algrant (Ed.), Animation Unlimited: Innovative Short Films Since 1940, HarperCollins Publishers 2004
• Trish Ledoux, Doug Ranney, Fred Patten (Ed.), Complete Anime Guide: Japanese Animation Film Directory and Resource Guide, Tiger Mountain Press 1997
• The Animator's Survival Kit, Richard Williams
• Animation Script to Screen, Shamus Culhane
• The Animation Book, Kit Laybourne
• CG101: A Computer Graphics Industry Reference. Terrence Masson Unique and personal histories of early computer animation production, plus a comprehensive foundation of the industry for all reading levels.

Links

• Animation Directory at the Open Directory Project
• Animating Under the Camera
• Experimental Animation Techniques
• Drawn Under-Camera Style Animation
• Keyframe - the Animation Resource
• Animation Nation - a forum for professional American animators
• Chronology of Animation
• Zagreb Film
• Don Markenstein's Toonopedia
• Hints and tips for the animation hobbyist
• Animation World Network
• 28 Principles of Animation
• Animationmeat.com - Notes Model Sheets and Reference material by Professional Animators
• Media & Techniques in Animation
• PowerPoint Heaven - The Power to Animate Contains tutorials on creating animations for PowerPoint Presentations.
• Best Download Cartoons

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

This is a list of groups, organizations and festivals that recognize achievements in cinema, usually by awarding various prizes. The awards sometimes also have popular unofficial names (such as the 'Oscar' for Hollywood's Academy Awards), which are mentioned if applicable. Many awards are simply identified by the name of the group presenting the award.

Awards have been divided into three major categories: critics' awards, voted on (usually annually) by a group of critics; festival awards, awards presented to the best film shown in a particular film festival; and industry awards, which are selected by professionals working in some branch of the movie industry.

Significant Critics' awards

Australia

• Film Critics Circle of Australia (FCCA)

Canada

• Toronto Film Critics Association (TFCA)
• Vancouver Film Critics Circle (VFCC)

France

• French Union of Film Critics
• Louis Delluc Prize

Internet

• Cinemarati Awards
  Online Film Critics Society
  Online Motion Picture Academy
  Skander Halim Memorial Movie Survey
  Italian Online Movie Awards

United Kingdom

• Evening Standard British Film Awards
  London Film Critics Circle

Germany

Fipresci - The international federation of film critics

United States

American Film Institute Awards

(AFI)

• Boston Society of Film Critics (BSFC)
• Broadcast Film Critics Association (BFCA)
• Central Ohio Film Critics Association (COFCA)
• Chicago Film Critics Association (CFCA)
• Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association (DFWFCA)
• Florida Film Critics Circle (FFCC)
• Golden Raspberry Awards (a.k.a. the Razzies)
• Iowa Film Critics (IFC)
• Kansas City Film Critics Circle (KCFCC)
• Las Vegas Film Critics Society (LVFCS)
• Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA)
• National Society of Film Critics (NSFC)
• National Board of Review (NBR)
• New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC)
• Phoenix Film Critics Society (PFCS)
• San Diego Film Critics Society (SDFCS)
• San Francisco Film Critics Circle (SFFCC)
• Santa Fe Film Critics Circle
• Seattle Film Critics (SFC)
• Southeastern Film Critics Association (SEFCA)
• St. Louis Film Critics
• Washington Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA)

Significant Festival awards

(This is not intended to be a complete list of film festivals, but to showcase the distinctively named awards given at some festivals.)

Canada

• Montreal World Film Festival
  • Grand Prix des Ameriques (best picture)

Czech Republic

• Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
  • Crystal Globe (best picture)

France

• Cannes Film Festival
  
  • Palme d'Or (best picture)
  • Grand Prize (best picture runner up)
  • Camera d'Or (best first picture)

Germany

• Berlin International Film Festival
  
  • Golden Bear (best picture)
  • Silver Bear (jury grand prize, director, actor and actress)

Greece

• Thessaloniki International Film Festival
  • Golden Alexander (best picture)

Italy

• Venice International Film Festival
  
  • Golden Lion (best picture)
  • Coppa Volpi (best actor and actress)

Norway

• Norwegian International Film Festival
  • Amanda (various categories)

Russia

• Moscow International Film Festival
  • Saint George Slaying the Dragon

Spain

• San Sebastian Film Festival
  • Golden Shell (best picture)

Sweden

• Stockholm International Film Festival
  • Bronze Horse (best picture)

Switzerland

• Locarno International Film Festival
  
  • Golden Leopard (best picture)
  • Silver Leopard (best picture)
  • Bronze Leopard (best actor and actress)

United Kingdom

• Dinard British Film Festival
  • Golden Hitchcock (best picture)
• London Film Festival
  • British Film Institute Sutherland Trophy (best picture)

United States

• Chicago International Film Festival
  
  • Gold Hugo (best picture)
  • Silver Hugo (picture runner-up, actor, actress, director and cinematography)
• Sundance Film Festival
  
  • Grand Jury Prize
  • Audience Award
• Hawaii International Film Festival
  • Golden Maile (best picture)
• Seattle International Film Festival
  • Golden Space Needle (best picture)

Industry awards

Australia

• Australian Film Institute Awards

Canada

• Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television
  
  • Genie Awards
    Gemini Awards
    Prix Gemeaux

Europe

• European Film Academy
  • European Film Awards (formerly the Felix)

France

• Cesar Awards
• Lumieres de Paris Awards

Germany

• German Film Awards
• German Screen Awards

Hong Kong

• Hong Kong Film Awards
  Golden Bauhinia Awards

International

• International Documentary Association Awards
  World Soundtrack Awards
  World Stunt Awards

Ireland

• Irish Film and Television Academy Awards

Israel

• Israeli Film and Television Academy Awards

Italy

• David di Donatello Awards
• Nastro d'Argento Awards

Japan

• Japanese Academy Awards

Mexico

• Ariel Awards

Russia

• Nika Award
  Golden Eagle Award

South Korea

• Grand Bell Awards

Spain

• Goya Awards

Sweden

• Guldbagga Awards

Switzerland

• Swiss Film Awards

Taiwan

• Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards

United Kingdom

• British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA)
  • British Academy Film Awards
• British Independent Film Awards

United States

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
  • Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars
• Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films
  • Saturn Award
• American Choreography Awards
  American Cinema Editors Golden Reels
  American Society of Cinematographers
  Art Directors Guild
  ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) Film and Television Awards
  AVN (Adult Video News) Awards
  BMI Film Music Awards
  Casting Society of America
  Cinema Audio Society
  Costume Designers Guild
  Directors Guild of America Awards
  EDI Reel Awards
  Golden Trailers
• Hollywood Foreign Press Association
  • Golden Globe Awards
• Hollywood Makeup and Hairstylist Guild
  Hollywood Reporter Key Art Awards
  Hollywood Reporter YoungStar
  Independent Spirit Awards
• International Animated Film Society / ASIFA-Hollywood
  • Annie Awards
• International Press Academy
  • Satellite Awards
• Motion Picture Sound Editors
  NAACP Image Awards
  Producers Guild of America Awards
  Publicists Guild of America Awards
  Screen Actors Guild Awards
  ShoWest/National Association of Theatre Owners Convention
  USC Scripter Award
  Visual Effects Society Awards
• Writers Guild of America
  • Writers Guild Awards

Sources and references

• IMDB search page for data on hundreds of awards and festivals

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Video: The 11th Beijing Student Film Festival Awards Ceremony

The Snowdon Theatre, Montreal, Quebec

A movie theater or cinema is a venue, usually a building, for viewing movies. Most cinemas are commercial operations catering to the general public, which attend by purchasing a ticket. The film is projected with a movie projector onto a large projection screen at the front of the auditorium. Some movie theaters are now equipped for digital cinema projection, removing the need to create and transport a physical film print.

A typical multiplex (AMC Promenade 30 in Woodland Hills, California).

Spelling and alternate terms

Outside of North America most English-speaking countries use the term cinema, while "theatre" usually refers to live-performance venues. In the United States, the customary spelling is "theater", but the National Association of Theatre Owners uses the spelling "theatre" to refer to cinemas.

Colloquial expressions, mostly used for cinemas collectively, include the silver screen, the big screen (contrasted with the "small screen" of television) and (in England) the pics, the flicks, and the flea pit, which derives from the long standing belief that the seats were infested with fleas as they were so uncomfortable to sit on, resulting in frequent fidgeting.

A "screening room" usually refers to a small facility for viewing movies, often for the use of those involved in the production of motion pictures, or in large private residences.

A movie theater in Australia

History

The Gateway Theatre in Jefferson Park, Chicago was a Movie Palace for the Balaban and Katz theater chain. The theater's Baroque spire is a replica of the Royal Castle in Warsaw.

The first theater dedicated exclusively to showing motion pictures was Vitascope Hall, established on Canal Street, New Orleans, Louisiana in 1896. The first permanent structure designed for screening of movies was Tally's Electric Theater, completed in 1902 in Los Angeles, California. The 1913 opening of the Regent Theater in New York City signalled a new respectability for the medium, and the start of the two-decade heyday of American cinema design. Los Angeles promoter Sid Grauman began the trend of theatre-as-destination with his ornate "Million Dollar Theatre" (the first to signify its primary use for motion pictures with the "theatre" spelling), which opened on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles in 1918. In the next ten years, as movie revenues exploded, independent promoters and movie studios (who owned their own proprietary chains until an antitrust ruling in 1948) raced to build the most lavish, elaborate, attractive theatres. These forms morphed into a unique architectural genre—the movie palace—a unique and extreme architectural genre which came to an end with the deepening of the Great Depression. The movie chains were also among the first industries to install air conditioning systems which gave the theatres an additional lure of comfort in the summer period.

This November 7, 1897 ad shows the actual programming of Vitascope Theater, one of the first motion picture theaters specially built for that purpose. In its first year, 200,000 people attended. It was in Buffalo, New York. However, during the rest of this period, between 1891-1900, films did not achieve much popularity.

Several movie studios achieved vertical integration by acquiring and constructing theatre chains. The so-called "Big Five" theatre chains of the 1920s and 1930s were all owned by studios: Paramount, Warner, Loews (owned by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), Fox, and RKO. All were broken up as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the 1948 United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. anti-trust case.

Other older movie theaters, such as the Texas Theatre in Dallas, Texas, have been deemed historically significant and undergone restoration. The Texas Theater is shown here in 2008 with replica marquee and appears as it did in 1963 when Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested on the premises. The building today hosts live theater.

References

1. Klady, Leonard. "Obituaries: Stanley Durwood." Variety, 19 July 1999, p. 40.
2. "The love and loathing of cinema ads", BBC News website, 23 February 2005
3. BoomChicago.nl website

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Video: Movie Theater Anthropologists

Cinematography is the discipline of making lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for the cinema. Etymologically, it means "writing in the movement", from the French word cinéma, shortened from cinématographe, the camera invented by the Lumière brothers in the 1890s.[1] It is closely related to the art of still photography, though many additional issues arise when both the camera and elements of the scene may be in motion.

Role of the cinematographer

In the film industry, the cinematographer is responsible for the technical aspects of the images (lighting, lens choices, composition, exposure, filtration, film selection), but works closely with the director to ensure that the artistic aesthetics are supporting the director's vision of the story being told. The cinematographers are the heads of the camera, grip and lighting crew on a set, and for this reason they are often called directors of photography or DP's.

Directors of photography make many creative and interpretive decisions during the course of their work, from pre-production to post-production, all of which affect the overall feel and look of the motion picture. Many of these decisions are similar to what a photographer needs to note when taking a picture: the cinematographer controls the film choice itself (from a range of available stocks with varying sensitivities to light and color), the selection of lens focal lengths, aperture exposure and focus. Cinematography, however, has a temporal aspect, unlike still photography, which is purely a single still image. It is also bulkier and more strenuous to deal with movie cameras, and it involves a more complex array of choices. As such a cinematographer often needs to work co-operatively with more people than does a photographer, who could frequently function as a single person. As a result, the cinematographer's job also includes personnel management and logistical organization.

Evolution of technology: new definitions

Traditionally the term "cinematography" referred to working with motion-picture film emulsion, but it is now largely synonymous with videography and digital video due to the popularity of digital cinema.

Modern digital image processing has also made it possible to radically modify pictures from how they were originally captured. This has allowed new disciplines to encroach on some of the choices that were once the cinematographer's exclusive domain.

Links

• Cinematography.com
• Cinematography Mailing List (the CML) home page

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Video: introduction to cinematography - teaser

Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films, individually and collectively. In general this can be divided into journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers and other popular, mass-media outlets and academic criticism by film scholars that is informed by film theory and published in journals.

Academic criticism

Some claim that journalist film critics should only be known as film reviewers, and that true film critics are those who take a more academic approach to films. This work is more often known as film theory or film studies. These film critics try to come to understand why film works, how it works, what it means, and what effects it has on people. Rather than write for mass-market publications their articles are published in scholarly journals, or sometimes in up-market magazines. They also tend to be affiliated with universities.

Further reading

• Jonathan Rosenbaum, Movie Wars: How Hollywood and the Media Conspire to Limit What Films We Can See, A Cappella Books 2000

• Slavoj Žižek, The Žižek Reader (edited by Elizabeth Wright and Edmond Wright), Blackwell Publishing 1999

• Maya Deren, Essential Deren: Collected Writings on Film by Maya Deren (edited by Bruce R. McPherson), Documentext 2005

• Raúl Ruiz, Poetics of Cinema (translated by Brian Holmes) Dis Voir 2005

Links

• Big Picture Big Sound Movie Reviews
• Bright Lights Film Journal
• Confessions of a Film Critic
• Classic Film Guide
• Everyone's A Critic
• Filmsite.org
• Film Threat
• Movie Reviews
• Independent Critics
• Internet Movie Database
• Kamera
• Elvis Mitchell's The Treatment
• Screening the Past
• Metacritic
• Movie Review Query Engine
• Offscreen
• Roger Ebert
• Rotten Tomatoes
• The Online Film Critics Society
• Senses of Cinema
• Links to everything else
• The Film Journal
• Interview with Philip Lopate, editor of the anthology, American Movie Critics: From the Silents Until Now — on the public-radio program, The Sound of Young America.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Video: Roger Ebert - Archive Interview Excerpt on Film Criticism

A film distributor is an independent company, a subsidiary company or occasionally an individual, which acts as the final agent between a film production company or some intermediary agent, and a film exhibitor, to the end of securing placement of the producer's film on the exhibitor's screen. In the film business, the term "distribution" refers to the marketing and circulation of movies in theaters.

The primary agenda of the distributor is to convince the exhibitor to rent, or "book", each film. To this end the distributor may arrange a private screening for the exhibitor, or use other marketing techniques that will make the exhibitor believe he will profit financially by showing the film. Once this is accomplished, the distributor then secures a written contract stipulating the amount of the gross ticket sales to be paid to the distributor, collect the amount due, audit the exhibitor's ticket sales as necessary to ensure the gross reported by the exhibitor is accurate, secure the distributor's share of these proceeds, and transmit the remainder to the production company (or to any other intermediary, such as a film release agent).

The distributor must also ensure that enough film prints are struck to service all contracted exhibitors on the contract-based opening day, ensure their physical delivery to the theater by the opening day, and ensure the prints' return to the distributor's office or other storage resource also on the contract-based return date. In practical terms, this includes the physical production of film prints and their shipping around the world (a process that may soon be replaced by digital distribution) as well as the creation of posters, newspaper and magazine advertisements, television commercials, and other types of ads.

Furthermore, the distributor is responsible for ensuring a full line of film advertising material is available on each film which it believes will help the exhibitor attract the largest possible audience, create such advertising if it is not provided by the production company, and arrange for the physical delivery of the advertising items selected by the exhibitor at intervals prior to the opening day.

If the distributor is handling an imported or foreign-language film, it may also be responsible for securing dubbing or subtitling for the film, and securing censorship or other legal or organizational "approval" for the exhibition of the film in the country/territory in which it does business, prior to approaching the exhibitors for booking.

This is an incomplete and general overview. The actual practices of film distributors may vary from this model at different points in time during the history of film, and according to different national business practices affecting film distribution. Thus, a full explication of this topic must account for all periods and nations since the beginning of film, or limit itself to the study of specific times and lands.

In the days of the classical Hollywood cinema, the studios used the studio system, producing and distributing their own films to theatres that they also owned — a practice known as vertical integration. The studios' control over distribution was greatly weakened in the U.S. when, in 1948, the court case United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. forced the major studios to sell all their theaters. Today, major studios and independent production companies alike compete for screens in theaters.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Video: film distribution

A film festival is a festival in one or more movie theaters with a special program showcasing many films. The films are usually of a recent date; sometimes there is a focus on a specific genre (e.g. animation) or subject (e.g. gay and lesbian film festivals). These are typically annual events.

History

The world's first major film festival was held in Venice in 1932; the other major film festivals of the world (Berlin, Cannes, Moscow and Karlovy Vary) date back to the 1940s and 1950s.

The Edinburgh International Film Festival in Scotland was established in 1947 and is the longest continually running film festival in the world.

The first North American film festival was the Columbus International Film & Video Festival, also know as The Chris Awards held in 1953. According the Film Arts Foundation in San Francisco "The Chris Awards (is) one of the most prestigious documentary, educational, business and informational competitions in the U.S; (it is) the oldest of its kind in North America and celebrating its 54th year".

It was followed shortly thereafter by the San Francisco International Film Festival held in March 1957 whose emphasis was on feature-length dramatic films. The festival played the major role in introducing foreign films to American audiences. Among the films were Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon and Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali.

The Toronto festival in Canada, begun in 1976, is now the major North American film festival and the most widely attended worldwide.

The Raindance Film Festival in London, is the largest independent film festival in the UK. It also the founder of the British Independent Film Awards.

The Ivy Film Festival at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island is the largest student film festival in North America and the only student-run film festival in the world.

The festivals in Toronto, Venice, Sundance, Cannes, Rotterdam, Berlin, Moscow, (since 2002) Locarno and Karlovy Vary are listed as so-called "A festivals", or the most prestigious in the world. New films may be screened at only one of these festivals.

References

• Turan, Kenneth, Sundance to Sarajevo: Film Festivals and the World They Made, Los Angeles, University of California Press, 2002, hardback, ISBN 0520218671.
• Talking Pictures website The Sense and Sensationalism of Film Festivals by Nigel Watson

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Video: In The Dark Film 2009 SBIFF.org Santa Barbara International

In film theory, genre refers to the primary method of film categorization. A "genre" generally refers to films that share similarities in the narrative elements from which they are constructed.

Links

• Safety, Danger, Dreams and Genre-Worlds. Alternate Takes

The History of film or cinema has brought this mass media from its early stages as an obscure novelty to one of the most important tools of communication and entertainment in the modern world. Film has existed since the late 19th century, and in the time since has had a broad impact on the arts, technology, and even politics.

References

Print

• Acker, Ally . Reel Women: Pioneers of the Cinema, 1896 to the Present. London: B.T. Batsford, 1991.
• Basten, Fred E. Glorious Technicolor: The Movies' Magic Rainbow. AS Barnes & Company, 1980.
• Cook, David A. A History of Narrative Film, 2nd edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 1990. ISBN 0-393-95553-2
• Eisner, Lotte H. The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardt. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1965.
• Eyman, Scott. The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution, 1926-1930. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. ISBN 0-684-81162-6
• King, Geoff. New Hollywood Cinema: An Introduction. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.
• Merritt, Greg. Celluloid Mavericks: A History of American Independent Film. Thunder's Mouth Press, 2001.
• Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey, ed. The Oxford History of World Cinema. Oxford University Press, 1999.
• Parkinson, David. History of Film. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1995. ISBN 0-500-20277-X
• Rocchio, Vincent F. Reel Racism. Confronting Hollywood's Construction of Afro-American Culture. Westview Press, 2000.
• Schrader, Paul. "Notes on Film Noir." Film Comment, 1984.
• Thackway, Melissa. Africa shoots back: Alternative perspectives in sub-saharan francophone african film. Indiana University Press, 2003.
• Unterburger, Amy L. The St. James Women Filmmakers Encyclopedia: Women on the Other Side of the Camera. Visible Ink Press, 1999.

Digital video

• Glorious Technicolor; directed by Peter Jones. Based on the book (above); written by Basten & Jones. Documentary, (1998).

Links

• The Complete History of the Discovery of Cinematography (prehistory to 1900)
• History exhibit of filmmaking in Florida, presented by the State Archives of Florida
• American Cinematographer - January, 1930, THE EARLY HISTORY OF WIDE FILMS
• History of Film Formats
• Technicolor History
• What is a Camera Obscura?
• Film Sound Historyat FilmSound.org
• An Introduction to Early cinema
• Ben Stein talks about the very large Jewish element in Hollywood
• Reality Film
• Film History by Decade *popup warning*
• Project "Westphalian History in the film"
• Cinema: From 1890 To Now

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

The film industry consists of the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking: i.e. film production companies, film studios, cinematography, film production, screenwriting, pre-production, post production, film festivals, distribution; and actors, film directors and other film personnel.

Though the expense involved in making movies almost immediately led film production to concentrate under the auspices of standing production companies, advances in affordable film making equipment, and expansion of opportunities to acquire investment capital from outside the film industry itself, have allowed independent film production to evolve.

Links

• Movie Making Manual wikibook
• Jews in Hollywood Ben Stein talks about the Jewish element in Hollywood
• Online Movies, Taiwanese Law, and the American Film Industry - Feb 4, 2002 MP3 Newswire article on the potential impact of Net distribution on the film industry

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

A film being made in Warsaw, Bracka street

Film production is the process by which a motion picture film is created, from initial development to distribution. The process varies somewhat from country to country and from production company to production company, particularly for independent films. The stages include (very broadly):

Development:

• Script development, or purchase of a screenplay
• Rewriting the screenplay (repeat)
• Financing

Pre-production:

• Budgeting
• Scheduling
• Casting
• Rehearsals
• Set construction
• Location scouting

Production:

• Principal photography
• In-camera special effects

Post-production:

• Film editing
• Visual effects
• Musical scoring
• Sound editing
• Sound effects

Distribution and Exhibition:

• Marketing

Merchandising

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In TV and movies a scene is a part of the action in a single location. Due to the ability to edit recorded visual works, it is typically much shorter than a scene in theater.

Francis Ford Coppola, 2007

A Film school is a generic term for any educational institution dedicated to teaching moviemaking, including, but not limited to, film production, theory, and writing for the screen. Usually hands on technical training is incorporated as part of the curriculum, such as learning how to use cameras, light meters and other equipment. Most schools are tied to existing colleges and universities, often in art or communication departments. Some are privately owned and not tied to universities, such as technical schools offering associate degrees.

Various debates have raged over the years on the importance of film school in allowing one to enter the film industry. Of course, examples can be offered from both sides, as directors Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, and Francis Ford Coppola graduated from prestigious film schools, whereas Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, and David Fincher had no formal college film training. The rapid rise of independent filmmaking and digital video have changed this debate somewhat, as anyone with a few thousand dollars can shoot their own film (and some have done so quite successfully) with little formal knowledge of the industry. Thus, it can be argued that the cost of attending a film school can now be better spent on making a film. Others argue that film school is important because it allows students to network and connect with others interested in filmmaking, as well as with those who may eventually offer them careers in the industry. One example is that the more prestigious schools allow their students to showcase work in film festivals near the end of the semester for film producers and executives.

Film schools in the United States

Some prominent film schools in the United States include:

Academy of Art University - School of Motion Pictures and Television - San Francisco
American Film Institute (AFI Conservatory)
American University - School of Communications, Film/Media Arts Department
Art Center College of Design
Bob Jones University
California Institute of the Arts
Chapman University
College of Santa Fe - Moving Image Arts Department
Collins College
Columbia University - School of the Arts
Columbia College
Film Connection
Florida State University - School of Motion Picture, Television, and Recording Arts
Emerson College - Department of Visual and Media Arts
Ithaca College - Park School of Communications
North Carolina School of the Arts
Northwestern University
The New York Film Academy
Los Angeles Film School The Los Angeles Film School
New York University (NYU) - Tisch School of the Arts
San Francisco State University
SUNY Purchase
Syracuse University
Temple University - Film and Media Arts
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - School of Theater, Film and Television
University of California, Santa Cruz - Department of Film and Digital Media
University of New Orleans - Department of Drama & Communications
University of Southern California (USC) - School of Cinema-Television
University of Texas at Austin - Department of Radio, Television and Film

High school film programs

Due to the increasing ease and low costs of digital video production and post-production, high schools are slowly starting to build programs that teach film technique. Perhaps the most successful of these programs is Grant High School in Los Angeles, California. Grant has won seven CINE Golden Eagles in six years (this is better than USC's or UCLA's current track record).

Prominent high school film programs in the United States include:

Dearborn High School in Dearborn, Michigan
Grant High School in Los Angeles, California
Kamehameha High School in Honolulu, Hawaii
Paint Branch High School in Burtonsville, Maryland
Germantown High School in Memphis, Tennessee

International Film Schools

Film schools outside the United States include:

The International Academy of Film and Television
Beijing Film Academy
Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography
The German Film School
National Film and Television School (UK)
National Film School in Lodz
Vancouver Film School
National Film School IADT in Dublin

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

A film score is the background music in a film, generally specially written for the film and often used to heighten emotions provoked by the imagery on the screen or by the dialogue.

In many instances, film scores are performed by orchestras, which vary in size from a small chamber ensemble to a large ensemble, often including a choir. The orchestra is either a studio orchestra, employed by the studio, or a performing orchestra such as the London Symphony Orchestra. However, TV, video games, and films with even smaller budgets, often utilize sampling technology to re-create the sound of an orchestra. This is generally much cheaper, although most film-makers try to avoid this.

Some films use popular music as the primary musical component, but an orchestral score is more often preferred. An orchestral score can be much more closely adapted to a film while popular music is based upon a strong and repetitive rhythm that is inflexible and cannot be easily adapted to a scene. Popular genres of music also tend to date quickly as styles rapidly evolve while orchestral music tends to age much more gracefully. Instead, popular music may be included for special occasions where more attention must be diverted to the music. In these cases, songs are usually not written specifically for the film.

Links

• The Film Music Society
• Film Music Forum/Discussion Board
• Film Music on the Web
• Film Music Articles at FilmSound.org
• The SoundtrackINFO project
• Classic FM List of film composers
• SoundtrackNet film music and soundtrack database
• Most prolific composers
• Film Score Monthly magazine
• The Journal of Film Music
• Website of the European FilmPhilharmonic
• Kevin Macloed's Free Film Scores - Free Film Scoring

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Video: Ethereal Movie Scores

Film sound production

A film soundtrack is the music that is from or inspired by a feature film. Soundtracks themselves are not limited to film. One may find soundtracks to television shows, ranging from ER to the anime Cowboy Bebop, and video games such as the Final Fantasy series.

Soundtracks can be divided by purpose and placement. As a general rule, soundtracks can be divided into the score and the songs from (or inspired by) the movie/TV show/video game.

Origin

It is likely the film "soundtrack" came into existence about the same time as the films themselves. Early films were silent, but were released with cue sheets or scores so that individual theater houses could play music, recorded or live, at appropriate places in the film. The first reels of 1961's West Side Story and 2001's Moulin Rouge! follow the practice of the era of silent film by beginning with an orchestra playing the opening theme. With the advent of talkies in 1927, music was optically integrated into the actual film itself, and the wide world of film soundtracks was born.

Title song

A title song is a theme, usually sung to lyrics, and associated with a particular movie that is heard in toto during the credits and rarely anywhere else in the film, except in the case of musicals. Usually the title song is composed for the movie itself, but sometimes existing pieces are used, especially when a current movie is set in a recent era that possessed stereotypical music, such as disco. The singer of the title theme is usually unrelated to the movie itself, with Barbra Streisand being a notable exception.

Title songs are, by and large, vague in their references to the film’s particulars, focusing instead on general themes of love, loss, and betrayal. These songs often go on to be commercial successes even if the movie was forgettable, though the fate of both movie and title song are intertwined. One wonders if "My Heart Will Go On" would have become such a hit had not Titanic succeeded as well as it did. Ditto for "I Will Always Love You" and its corresponding movie The Bodyguard.

Occasionally, a film will have both a popular orchestrated theme and a sung theme. The James Bond films all feature the James Bond theme as well as a movie-specific title song, such as Carly Simon's The Spy who Loved Me (Nobody Does it Better).

Songs from the movie

Existing in a similar place, but different class, as the score are the so-called songs from the movie, which will be abbreviated SftM for now. SftM are discrete songs, almost always not composed specifically for the movie, heard during the course of the movie itself. A SftM may either be background music or semi-interactive. (Soviet cinematography traditionally relied heavily on songs with lyrics, even in non-musical films.)

An SftM used as background music functions much in the same way as an orchestrated piece would. It is added external to the movie and used to heighten the mood. The main difference is its existing as a full, independent song without being a theme (and thus played only once during the film), though a piece such as Shaft would traverse that boundary.

A semi-interactive SftM is a song playing in the context of the movie, such as the background music in a club or a tune heard on the radio of a character’s car. When a semi-interactive SftM is playing, it functions as background music, so it would be rare to see a gang fight scene with a giddy SftM unless the director were going for irony.

The average movie soundtrack will contain eight or so SftM by popular artists tangentially or unrelated to the film itself. Forrest Gump's soundtrack is one of the best selling of all times and reads almost like a laundry list of popular tunes from the Baby Boomer generation.

Songs inspired by the movie

A somewhat recent invention, songs inspired by the movie are almost always not actually played in the movie itself. Instead, as the title suggests, they are derivative of the musical, cultural, social, etc. themes of the film. This seems to be done primarily to capitalize on the success of a particular film. After the soundtrack to The Lion King was released to great acclaim, Disney released the follow-up album Rhythm of the Pridelands.

Notable soundtracks

8 Mile (This movie has two soundtracks, the first containing award winning hit "Lose Yourself")
2001: A Space Odyssey (memorable theme music Also Sprach Zarathustra became a radio hit, rare for a classical instrumental piece)
American Graffiti (massive-selling double album of rock oldies)
Apocalypse Now (another hit, memorable use of the Ride of the Valkyries by Richard Wagner)
Black Hawk Down (by Hans Zimmer. One of his best soundtracks composed, given the short time frame he had to finish the task for the movie)
The Bodyguard (by Whitney Houston and others, bestselling of all time)
Deep Red (first album by Goblin, 1975 soundtrack to popular Dario Argento thriller)
Selmasongs (from Dancer in the Dark by Björk)
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (successful soundtrack using contemporary hits)
Flashdance (launched several hit songs, surprise hit)
Garden State (won a Grammy for Best Soundtrack in 2005 for first time director Zach Braff)
Gladiator (yet another of Hans Zimmer's best-composed soundtracks)
A Hard Day's Night (early rock and roll soundtrack by The Beatles)
The Harder They Come (very successful soundtrack and movie, launched career of Jimmy Cliff, early mainstream reggae music)
Jungle Book (first soundtrack in the modern sense, from the 1942 film scored by Miklós Rózsa)
Miami Vice (TV soundtrack that stayed at the top of the album charts for 11 weeks in 1985)
Mo' Better Blues (established Gang Starr's reputation and helped launch jazz rap)
O Brother Where Art Thou? (surprise bluegrass hit, Grammy winner)
Peter Gunn (first jazz soundtrack, theme song is still recognizable by many people today)
Reservoir Dogs (soundtrack deliberately chose the "worst" songs of the 1970s, became a cult favorite)
Saturday Night Fever (massive hit mostly by the Bee Gees, brought disco to the mainstream)
Shaft (hit by Isaac Hayes, his biggest record and Academy Award winner)
Space Jam (popular tracks by Seal, and R. Kelly)
Star Wars (hugely popular movie, and music by John Williams that became the bestselling score-only soundtrack of all time)
The Stoned Age (early teen film focused on a cult band, Blue Öyster Cult)
Superfly (A number one hit for Curtis Mayfield, pioneering socially conscious lyrics in funk and soul)
That's the Way of the World (film unsuccessful, soundtrack a huge hit for Earth, Wind & Fire)
Till the Clouds Roll by (soundtrack and film inspired by life of Jerome Kern, early use of the release of a soundtrack to promote a film)
Urban Cowboy (soundtrack from the movie that brought country music and the honky tonk lifestyle to many suburban cultures, and spawned many hits, credited to have been launching the boom in country music appeal in 1980)
The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (Original scores by Howard Shore who iconically evoked the sounds of Tolkien's Middle-earth; roughly 80 different leitmotifs were composed for all three films)

Bestselling soundtracks

The Bodyguard (1992); 17 times platinum
Saturday Night Fever (1977); 15 times platinum
Purple Rain (1984); 13 times platinum
Forrest Gump (1994); 12 times platinum
Dirty Dancing (1987); 11 times platinum
The Lion King (1994); 10 times platinum
(Tie) Top Gun (1986); Footloose (1984); 9 times platinum
Grease (1978); 8 times platinum
Waiting to Exhale (1995); 7 times platinum
Evita (1996); 5 times platinum

List of songs popularized by a movie

Some of these songs had been released before the movie, but had found little success only to become popular once featured in the movie. Other songs were released alongside the film or were briefly re-popularized some years after their initial peak. (This list does not include songs associated with a cinematic opera or musical.)

Most of these theme songs occur at least once during a climax during the movie, and are often played during the opening and/or closing credits; the close association between the highlights of a movie and a particular song, especially when the two are marketed together (as in a music video), means that songs can find new audiences. For example, Quentin Tarantino's use of "La La Means I Love You" and 1970s Philly soul group The Delfonics led to a renaissance in hipness for the band some fifteen years after their mainstream success ended.

Blue Öyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" from The Stoned Age
Elton John's "Circle of Life" from The Lion King
Céline Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" from Titanic
Stealers Wheel's "Stuck In The Middle" from Reservoir Dogs
Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Tuesday's Gone" from Dazed and Confused
The Proclaimers' "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" from Benny and Joon
Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" from Wayne's World
Simple Minds' "Don't You (Forget About Me)" from The Breakfast Club
Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" from The Bodyguard
R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly" from Space Jam
"March of the Volunteers", theme song to the movie Sons and Daughters in a Time of Storm, which became the national anthem of the People's Republic of China
Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" from Good Morning, Vietnam
Madonna's "Into The Groove" from Desperately Seeking Susan

Links

• the SoundtrackINFO project

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Time Warner Center

A movie studio is a controlled environment for the making of a film. This environment may be interior (sound stage), exterior (backlot) or both.

Disambiguation

In casual usage, the term has become confused with production company, due to the fact that, especially in the United States, the major, well-known production companies of Hollywood's "Golden Age" (roughly 1925-1960) normally owned their own studio subsidiaries. However, worldwide (and even in the USA) most production companies did not, in fact, own their own studios but had to rent space at independently owned studios which, just as frequently, never produced a film of their own.

History

In 1893, Thomas Edison built the first movie studio in the USA when he constructed the Black Maria, a tarpaper-covered structure near his laboratories in West Orange, New Jersey, and asked circus, vaudeville and dramatic actors to perform for the camera. He distributed these movies at vaudeville theatres, penny arcades, wax museums and fairgrounds. Other studio operations followed in New Jersey, New York City and Chicago, Illinois.

But in the early 1900s, companies started moving to Los Angeles, California, because of the good weather and longer days. Although electric lights existed at that time, none were powerful enough to adequately expose film; the best source of illumination for motion picture production was natural sunlight. Some movies were shot on the roofs of buildings in Downtown Los Angeles. Another reason that early movie producers located in Southern California was to escape Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company, as he owned almost all the patents relevant to movie production at the time. The distance from New Jersey made it more difficult for Edison to enforce his patents.

The first movie studio in the Hollywood area was Nestor Studios, which was opened in 1911 by Al Christie for David Horsley. In the same year, another fifteen Independents settled in Hollywood. Other studios eventually settled in such towns and districts in the Los Angeles area as Culver City, Burbank and Studio City in the San Fernando Valley.

By the mid 1920s the evolution of a handful of American production companies into wealthy film industry conglomerates, which owned their own studios, as well as their own distribution divisions, theaters, contracted performers and filmmaking personnel, led to the incorrect equation of "studio" with "production company" as a result of industry slang. Five large companies, Fox (later 20th Century Fox), Loew’s Incorporated (parent company for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), Paramount Pictures, RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum) and Warner Bros., came to be known as the "Big Five", the "majors" or "the Studios" in trade publications such as Variety and their management structures and practices came to be called the Studio system. Universal Pictures, Columbia Pictures and United Artists also fell under these rubrics, although they did not own their own theaters to play only their own productions: United Artists, in fact, also did not own its studio or contract personnel, and functioned only as a financier-distributor.

The Big Five's ownership of theaters was eventually opposed by eight independent producers, which included Samuel Goldwyn, David O. Selznick, Walt Disney and Walter Wanger, and in 1948 the U.S. government won a case against Paramount in the Supreme Court, the ruling being that this high level of power constituted a monopoly and was therefore against the law. This decision effectively helped end the "studio system" and The Golden Age of Hollywood, along with the economic after-effects of World War II on the general American economy.

By the mid-1950s, when television proved a profitable enterprise that was here to stay, movie studios started also being used for the production of programming in that medium. Some companies, such as Republic Pictures, eventually sold their studios to TV production companies. With the end of "the Studios" and the continued incursion of television into the audience for film, more and more companies became simply management structures which put together artistic teams on a project-by-project basis, usually renting space from some of the surviving studios, which is still the norm today.

Some early movie studios

Babelsberg Studios, (Germany)
Barrandov Studios, (Czech Republic)
Biograph Studios (USA)
Champion Film Company (USA)
Christie Film Company, (USA)
Edison's Black Maria (USA)
Edison Studios, The Bronx (USA)
Famous Players Film Company
Fox Film Corporation (USA)
Gaumont Pictures, (France)
Méliès Films, (France)
Mosfilm, (Russia)
Mutual Film Corporation, (USA)
Goldwyn Picture Corporation, (USA)
Kalem Company, (USA)
Keystone Studios, (USA)
Lone Star Film Company, (USA)
Lubin Studios (USA)
Nelson Entertainment, (USA)
Nestor Studios, (USA)
New York Motion Picture Company, (USA)
Nordisk Film, (Denmark)
Pathé Frères, (France)
Pinewood Studios, (England)
Premium Picture Productions, (USA)
Selig Polyscope Company
Solax Studios (USA)
Southall Studios (UK)
Thanhouser Company, (USA)
Triangle Pictures Corporation, (USA)
Yankee Film Company, (USA)
Victor Studios (USA)
The Vitagraph Company, (USA)
World Pictures Corporation, (USA)

Sources

• PBS Frontline, "the monster that ate hollywood"

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A film style is a recognizable group of conventions used by filmmakers to give specific meaning, or depth to their work. It can encompass every aspect of film; dialogue, cinematography, attitude (i.e., seriousness or lack thereof).

Film style is distinct from film genre, which defines what a film is about -- Western films are about the American West, love stories are about love, and so on. Although some styles are strongly associated with certain genres, a style can be applied to any genre -- Barbarella is a surrealistic science fiction film, for example.

Provided in this list of film techniques is a categorised (and then alphabetised) list of techniques used in film (motion pictures).

Camera view, angle, movement, shot

Aerial shot
American shot
Bird's eye shot
Close up
Crane shot
Dolly shot
Dutch angle
Establishing shot
"Evangelion" shot
Follow shot
Forced perspective
Video frame
Freeze frame shot
Full shot
Head-on shot
High-angle shot
Long shot
Low-angle shot
Master shot
Medium shot
Pan shot
Point of view shot
Reaction shot
Sequence shot
Shot
Shot reverse shot
Talking head
Tracking shot
Trunk shot
Two Shot
Vertigo shot
Whip pan

Lighting technique and aesthetics

Background lighting
Cameo lighting
Fill light
High-key lighting
Key lighting
Mood lighting
Pool hall lighting
Rembrandt lighting
Stage lighting
Soft light

Editing and transitional devices

• A Roll
  B Roll
  A and B editing
  Cross cutting
  Cutaway
  Cut in
  Cut out
  Dissolve
• Editing
• Establishing shot
  Fast cutting
  Hairy Arm
  Insert
  Jump cut
  Keying
  L cut ("split edit")
  Master shot
  Match cut
• Montage
• Point of view shot
  Screen direction
  Sequence shot
  Slow cutting
  Split screen
  SMPTE time code
  Shot reverse shot
  Talking head
• Wipe
  • Clock wipe
    Heart wipe
    Matrix wipe
    Star wipe

Special effects (FX)

• 3-D film for movie history
• 3-D computer graphics
  Bluescreen/Chroma key
• Computer-generated imagery
• Digital compositing
  Optical effects
• Special effects
• Stereoscopy for 3D technical details
  Stop trick
• Stop motion

Other

Film stock
Movie projector
Widescreen

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Film theory seeks to develop concise, systematic concepts that apply to the study of cinema as art. Classical film theory provides a structural framework to address classical issues of techniques, narrativity, diegesis, cinematic codes, "the image", genre, subjectivity, and authorship. More recent analysis has given rise to psychoanalytical film theory, structuralist film theory, feminist film theory, and theories of documentary, new media, third cinema, and new queer cinema, to name just a few.

History

The Italian futurist Ricciotto Canudo (1879-1923) is considered to be the very first theoretician of cinema. He published his manifesto The Birth of the Seventh Art in 1911. Another early attempt was The Photoplay (1916) by the psychologist Hugo Münsterberg.

It must be noted however, that the French philosopher Henri Bergson with Matière et Mémoire (1896) made comments on the need for new ways of thinking on movement, and coined the terms "image-temps" and "image-mouvement". Criticising the concept of time as analogous to space, in his 1906 essay l'illusion cinématographique (in: L'évolution créatrice) he rejects film as an exemplification of what he had in mind when he wrote on images-as-movement and images-as-time.

In Cinéma I & II (1983-1985), the philosopher Gilles Deleuze, taking Matière et Mémoire as the basis of his philosophy of film, revisits Bergson's concepts and combines it with peircian semiotics.

Classical film theory took shape during the era of silent film. It emerged from the works of directors like Germaine Dulac, Louis Delluc, Jean Epstein, Sergei Eisenstein, Lev Kuleshov, Dziga Vertov,Paul Rotha and film critics like Rudolf Arnheim, Béla Balázs and Siegfried Kracauer. It was not an academic discipline.

In the early 1950s the French film critic André Bazin helped to found the highly influential Cahiers du cinéma. Many of its young writers such as François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard would go on to direct the films of the French New Wave. These writers were some of the first to take popular Hollywood cinema seriously as an artform. Their fascination with Westerns and gangster films effectively spawned genre theory.

In the 1960s film theory took up residence in academe, importing concepts from established disciplines like psychoanalysis, literary theory and linguistics.

In the seventies the British journal Screen was very influential.

During the 1990s the digital revolution in image technologies has impacted on film theory in various ways. There has been a refocus onto celluloid film's ability to capture an indexical image of a moment in time by theorists like Mary Ann Doane, Philip Rosen and Laura Mulvey. There has also been a historical revisiting of early cinema screenings, practices and spectatorship modes by writers Tom Gunning, Miriam Hansen and Yuri Tsivian.

Specific theories and styles of film

Apparatus Theory
Art film
Auteur theory
Feminist film theory
Formalist film theory
Cyberpunk
Film noir
German Expressionism
Horror film
Italian neorealism
Marxist film theory
New Wave
No Wave Cinema
Psychoanalytical film theory
Remodernist Film
Romanticism
Socialist realism
Structuralist film theory

Further reading

• Dudley Andrew, Concepts in Film Theory, Oxford, New York: oxford University Press, 1984
• Andre Bazin, What is Cinema? essays selected and translated by Hugh Gray, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1971
• Francesco Casetti, Theories of Cinema, 1945-1990, Paperback Edition, University of Texas Press 1999
• Bill Nichols, Representing Reality. Issues and Concepts in Documentary, Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1991
• The Oxford Guide to Film Studies, Oxford University Press 1998

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

The film director, on the right, gives last minute direction to the cast and crew, whilst filming a costume drama on location in London.

A film director controls the artistic and dramatic aspects of a film. The role typically includes:

• Realizing the overall artistic vision of the film.
• Controlling the content and flow of the film's plot.
• Directing the performances of actors, both by putting them in certain positions and by eliciting the required range of emotions.
• Organizing and selecting the locations in which the film will be shot.
• Managing technical details such as the positioning of cameras, the use of lighting, and the timing and content of the film's soundtrack.
• On occasion, writing the screenplay.

The director will delegate many of these responsibilities to other members of his or her film crew. For example, the director may describe the mood he wants from a scene, then leave it to other members of the film crew to find a suitable location, or to set up the appropriate lighting.

How much control a director exerts over a film varies greatly. Many directors are under the control of the studio and producer. This was true from the 1930s through the 1950s, when studios had many directors, actors and writers under contract.

Other directors have far more control and bring their artistic vision to the pictures they make. Their methods range from those who:

• Like to outline a general plot line and let the actors improvise dialogue
• Control every aspect, and demand that the actors and crew follow instructions precisely
• Write their own scripts such as Quentin Tarantino or Hayao Miyazaki
• Collaborate on screenplays with long-standing writing partners
• Act as their own cinematographers and editors
• Star, often in leading roles, in their films, such as Clint Eastwood or Woody Allen

Directors work closely with film producers who are usually responsible for the non-artistic elements of the film, such as financing, contract negotiation and marketing. Directors will often take on some of the responsibilities of the producer for their films (e.g. Steven Spielberg). The early silent film director Alice Guy Blaché not only produced her own pictures but actually created her own highly successful studio.

The director is usually the individual who visualizes the script and guides the technical crew and actors to carry out that vision. It is the director's sense of the dramatic along with the creative visualization of the script that transforms a screenplay into a well-made motion picture. However the director doesn't always have absolute artistic control. The director is usually selected by the producer, whose job it is to make the decisions that are in the best interests of the production company or studio or network. As such, the producers have veto power over everything from the script itself to the final cut of the film, often in opposition to the director's vision.

Links

• FreeFilmSchool.Org has detailed articles on how to be an independent film director
• Smooth Negotiating: Making the Director Deal
• Director's Guild of America
• A comprehensive collection of interviews with a century's worth of European film directors

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

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A motion picture rating system is a method of giving moviegoers an idea of the suitability of a movie for children and/or adults in terms of issues such as sex, violence and profanity. A particular issued rating is called a certification. In some jurisdictions, they may impose legal obligations of refusing the entrance of children or minors to certain movies; in others, while there is no legal obligation to do so strictly speaking, movie theaters enforce the restrictions. Ratings are often given in lieu of censorship. Some people think that the ratings should be stronger. There is much debate in major countries as to whether ratings actually serve a valid function, or whether they simply entice young children to watch movies deemed inappropriate for them. This concept is known as the forbidden fruit phenomenon.

In some countries (e.g. Australia), an official government body decides on ratings; in other countries (e.g. the US), it is done by industry bodies with no official government status. However, in most countries, movies that are considered morally offensive have been banned or restricted.

Links

• List of certificates recorded in the IMDb database. Note that while extensive, this list is not exhaustive, and that it mixes current and old rating systems and does not specify which is which, thus making it difficult to use.
• IMDb's information about rating systems from all over the world.
• Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification
• Denmark Medieraadet for Born og Unge (The Media Council for Children and Young People).
• Finland Valtion Elokuvatarkastamo.
• France Centre Nationale de la Cinematographie.
• Germany Spitzenorganisation der Filmwirtschaft e.V (SPIO).
• Iceland Kvikmyndaskodun.
• Irish Film Censor's Office.
• Japan Administration Commission of Motion Picture Code of Ethics.
• USA Motion Picture Association of America.
• Netherlands Kijkwijzer (and Nicam).
• New Zealand Office of Film & Literature Classification.
• Norwweigian Media Authority.
• Sweden Statens Biografbyra (SBB).
• South African Film and Publications Board.

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Movements in cinema

Special effects (abbreviated SPFX or SFX) are used in the film, television, and entertainment industry to visualize scenes that cannot be achieved by normal means, such as space travel. They are also used when creating the effect by normal means is prohibitively expensive, such as an enormous explosion. They are also used to enhance previously filmed elements, by adding, removing or enhancing objects within the scene.

Many different visual special effects techniques exist, ranging from traditional theater effects or elaborately staged as in the "machine plays" of the Restoration spectacular, through classic film techniques invented in the early 20th century, such as aerial image photography and optical printers, to modern computer graphics techniques (CGI). Often several different techniques are used together in a single scene or shot to achieve the desired effect.

Special effects are often "invisible." That is to say that the audience is unaware that what they are seeing is a special effect. This is often the case in historical movies, where the architecture and other surroundings of previous eras is created using special effects.

Developmental history

In 1895, when the film industry was just starting out, Alfred Clarke created what is commonly accepted as the first-ever special effect. While filming a reenactment of the beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots, Clarke instructed an actor to step up to the block in Mary's costume. As the executioner brought the axe above his head, Clarke stopped the camera, had all of the actors freeze, and had the person playing Mary step off the set. He placed a Mary dummy in the actor's place, rolled the tape, and allowed the executioner to bring the axe down, severing the dummy's head. “Such… techniques would remain at the heart of special effects production for the next century” (Rickitt, 10). This was the first time an effect was used in film to make the audience believe that something that wasn't happening was. Clarke tricked his audience into believing what they saw was real, and from that moment on, nothing shown in film could be believed to have happened. In 1935, RKO studios produced Becky Sharp, the first commercial film to use Technicolor. The ability to produce color films added to the look of reality of film. During World War II, black and white films were the most common in the new popular war movies, but a new phenomenon had reached filmmakers; the use of miniatures.

To create complex shots of airplanes leaving a ship, or a fleet of aircraft carriers moving across the ocean, the producers of the movie used a large tank of water with model boats and planes and filmed the shot. Using special machines to produce waves, the filmmakers were able to create realistic shots of boats and airplanes. “Films such as Ships with Wings (1942) relied on model ships, planes, and miniature pyrotechnics for their portrayal of war” (Rickitt, 23). This posed a question to audiences; how do we know what is real and what is unreal?

Then, in 1977, a new blockbuster movie hit the market: Star Wars, directed by George Lucas. What made Star Wars unique was that it created so many of its own original effects. The lightsabers that the actors fought with got their glowing effect by drawing directly on the film stock, and the same technique was later applied to the laser beams the Tie-fighters shot at the X-wings. Lucas' effects shop's biggest innovatios were to use the outdated VistaVision cameras that used larger film cells so that when the effects were composited and transferred to standard film stock the effects looked as clean as the non-effects shots (previously when such bluescreen effects were composited they appeared grainy and blurry compared to the rest of the film). A variety of techniques to shoot the ships in space included running the models down wires and having the models stand still and the camera move. Another big innovation was the perfection of the motion control system enabling a camera to make multiple identical passes. Following success of Star Wars and planning a sequel, Lucas turned the effects shop created for one movie into Industrial Light and Magic for The Empire Strikes Back.

In 1993, Lucas' close friend, Steven Spielberg, directed Jurassic Park. This film used computer generated imagery (CGI) to create realistic monsters without the use of stop motion, which was not always successful. What Spielberg did was to film the scene with the actors acting as though their dinosaur counterparts were there, then he scanned the film into a computer, and added the dinosaurs in afterwards. This new technology really pushed special effects to new heights. Two years later, entire films could be made on a computer such as Toy Story (1995). Audiences had lost all sense of reality in film, if indeed there had been any since 1896, with the new CGI. Everything on screen now looked so real that it was almost impossible to tell what was a backlot set, or an actor in costume, or what was entirely or mostly produced on a computer. Many fear that we have lost the comfort of knowing that what we see isn't real, due to the ever-changing effect industry.

Special effects animation

Also known as simply effects animation, special effects animation is a specialization of the traditional animation and computer animation processes. Anything that moves in an animated film and is not a character (who are handled by character animators) is considered a special effect, and is left up to the special effects animators to create. Effects animation tasks can include animating cars, trains, rain, snow, fire, magic, shadows, or other non-character entities, objects, and phenomena.

Sometimes, special processes are used to produce effects animation instead of drawing or rendering. Rain, for example, has been created in Disney films since the late-1930s by filming slow-motion footage of water in front of a black background, with the resulting film superimposed over the animation.

Among the most notable effects animators in history are A.C. Gamer from Termite Terrace/Warner Bros.; and Joshua Meador, Cy Young, Mark Dindal, and Randy Fullmer from the Walt Disney animation studio.

Special effects animation is also common in live-action films to create certain images that cannot be traditionally filmed. In that respect, special effects animation is more commonplace than character animation, since special effects of many different types and varieties have been used in film for a century.

Visual special effects techniques in rough order of invention

practical effects
in-camera effects
miniature effects
Schüfftan process
matte paintings
rotoscoping
Dolly zoom
optical effects
travelling matte
bluescreen
prosthetic makeup effects
motion control photography
Audio-Animatronic models
digital compositing
wire removal
morphing
computer-generated imagery
match moving
Virtual cinematography

CGI versus SFX

Effects that are created via computers, or during editing are known as CGI (Computer generated Imagery) Effects, or Visual effects — not Special Effects. Special Effects are those effects which are created during filming on-set, such as bullet hits, fire, flame, and explosions, wind, rain, etc. AI refers to "Artificial Intelligence." It is the creation of a computer generated character who has the ability to think and make decisions for itself.

Landmark movies

• The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Created Massive Software, prosthetic work, digital effects)
• The Day After Tomorrow (prolonged digital shots, playing with "weather effects")
• Star Wars (Creation of original, practical effects)
• Tron (Digital Animation)
• The Terminator (digital effects)
• Independence Day (Digital effects combined with small-scale models)
• Jurassic Park (Large animatronics, creating creatures from scratch)
• Amadeus (Old age stipple, era effects)
• The Birds (Male/Female Matte developments)
• Titanic (Model work, scaling water)
• Toy Story (Computer Animation)
• Buddy (Anamatronics)
• The Matrix Trilogy (Digital effects)
• King Kong (2005) (Motion Capture)
• Final Fantasy (2001) (Full Human Actors Animation)

Special effect software

• Inferno
• Final Cut Pro
• trukor (mac guff)
• symbor (mac guff)
• Shake
• Motion
• Nuke
• Avid
• Sony Vegas
• Pinnacle
• Avid Liquid
• Adobe After Effects
• Combustion

References

• Special Effects: The History and Technique by Richard Rickitt

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