Film Roman, Inc. Business Information, Profile, and History

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A light-sensitive photographic emulsion on a thin flexible transparent support, originally celluloid (cellulose nitrate), but later the less inflammable cellulose triacetate and polyester materials. Film for still cameras is supplied in cut sheets and film packs, but more generally as short rolls in various standard widths coded 110, 126, 127, and 135. Motion-picture film is used in long rolls, up to 300 m, in widths 16, 35, and 70 mm, with accurately spaced perforations along the edge for transport and location in the camera and other mechanisms. The amateur movie gauges of 8 mm, Super-8 and 9揃5 mm are obsolescent.

For the Rush album see Moving Pictures (album).

Film is a term that encompasses motion pictures as individual projects, as well as the field in general. The origin of the name comes from the fact that photographic film (also called filmstock) has historically been the primary medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Additional terms for the field in general include the cinema, the silver screen, and the movies.

Films are produced by recording actual people and objects with cameras, or by creating them using animation techniques and/or special effects. a psychological effect identified as beta movement.

Film is considered by many to be an important art form; Any film can become a worldwide attraction, especially with the addition of dubbing or subtitles that translate the dialogue. Films are also artifacts created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them.

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. 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. 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. Early motion pictures were static shots that showed an event or action with no editing or other cinematic techniques.

Motion pictures were purely visual art up to the late 19th century, but these innovative silent films had gained a hold on the public imagination. Films began stringing scenes together to tell narratives. 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. 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. 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. 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.

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. 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. Mass marketed action, horror, and comedy films tend not to be greatly affected by a critic's overall judgment of a film. Poor reviews will often doom a film to obscurity and financial loss.

The impact of a reviewer on a given film's box office performance is a matter of debate. 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. 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 and risky nature of filmmaking; many films have large cost overruns, a notorious example being Kevin Costner's Waterworld. 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. Many Hollywood adventure films need computer generated imagery (CGI), created by dozens of 3D modellers, animators, rotoscopers and compositors. 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. Pre-production
   
3. Production
   
4. Post-production
   
5. Distribution
   

This production cycle typically takes three years. 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. 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. class=ilnk>Warner Bros. in 2000 were joint ventures, up from 10% in 1987). 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. Technologies such as DVDs, FireWire connections and non-linear editing system pro-level software like Adobe Premiere Pro and Apple's Final Cut Pro, and consumer level software such as Apple's Final Cut Express and iMovie make movie-making relatively inexpensive.

Since the introduction of DV technology, the means of production have become more democratized.

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.

File formats like GIF, QuickTime, Shockwave 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). 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.

Although most animation studios are now using digital technologies in their productions, there is a specific style of animation that depends on film. Cameraless animation, made famous by moviemakers like Norman McLaren, Len Lye and Stan Brakhage, is painted and drawn directly onto pieces of film, and then run through a projector. The first theater designed exclusively for cinema opened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1905. 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). 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. 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. 46% came from VHS and DVD sales to consumers;

Development of film technology

Film stock consists of transparent celluloid, polyester, or acetate base coated with an emulsion containing light-sensitive chemicals. 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) www.cinemaweb.com/silentfilm/bookshelf/18_car_1.htm. 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. 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). 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.

See also

Wikibooks

• Movie making manual
  
• Movie making directory
  

Basic types of film

• Narrative film
  
  • Cinematic genre
    
• Documentary film
  
• Experimental film
  
• Animation
  
• Web film
  

International Film

• World cinema
  
• Foreign film
  
• Cinema of Europe
  
• Asian cinema
  
  • East Asian cinema
    
  • Southeast Asian cinema
    
  • South Asian cinema
    
  • Middle Eastern cinema
    
• African cinema
  
• North American cinema
  
• South American cinema
  
• Australasian cinema
  

Lists

• Lists of films
  

• Films considered the worst ever
  
• Films that have been considered the greatest ever
  
• List of character-based movie franchises
  
• List of cinematic genres
  
• List of computer-animated films
  
• List of cult films
  
• List of disaster films
  
• List of fantasy films
  
• List of film festivals
  
• List of film formats
  
• List of film noir
  
• List of film-related topics (extensive alphabetical listing)
  
• List of film techniques
  
• List of films about possessed or sentient inanimate objects
  
• List of films set in Puerto Rico
  
• List of films with single syllable titles
  
• List of highest-grossing films
  
• List of horror films
  
• List of longest films by running time
  
• List of movie series
  
• List of science fiction films
  
• List of songs based on a movie or book
  
• Lists of movie source material
  

Other

• Digital film
  
• Filmmaking
  
• Film criticism
  
• Film journals and magazines
  
• Film festival
  
• Film manifesto
  
• Film theory
  
• History of film
  
• The Internet Movie Database
  
• Movie star
  
• Sound stage
  

References

• Paul Read. Oxford University Press, 1999. Weidenfeld & Nichols, 1974.
  
• The Oxford History of World Cinema, Oxford University Press, 1999; 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