Outline of film  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Revision as of 23:49, 4 August 2010

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Film can refer to motion pictures as individual projects and to the field in general. The name came from the fact that photographic film (also called filmstock) has historically been the primary medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist — motion pictures (or just pictures or "picture"), the silver screen, photoplays, the cinema, picture shows, flicks — and commonly movies.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to film:

Essence of film

Main article: Film

• Filmmaking

Cinematic genres

By setting

• Biography - portrays a real-life character in his or her real life story.
• Crime - places its character within realm of criminal activity
• Film noir - portrays its principal characters in a nihilistic and existentialist realm or manner
• Historical - taking place in the past
• Science fiction - placement of characters in an alternative reality, typically in the future or in space
• Sports - sporting events and locations pertaining to a given sport
• War - battlefields and locations pertaining to a time of war
• Westerns - colonial period to modern era of the western United States

By genre

• Action - generally involves a moral interplay between "good" and "bad" played out through violence or physical force
• Adventure - involving danger, risk, and/or chance, often with a high degree of fantasy.
• Comedy - intended to provoke laughter
• Drama - mainly focuses on character development
• Fantasy - speculative fiction outside reality (i.e. myth, legend)
• Horror - intended to provoke fear in audience
• Mystery - the progression from the unknown to the known by discovering and solving a series of clues
• Romance - dwelling on the elements of romantic love
• Thrillers - intended to provoke excitement and/or nervous tension into audience

By format

• Animation - illusion of motion by consecutive display of static images which have been created by hand or on a computer
• Biographical - a biopic is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person, with varying degrees of basis in fact
• Documentary - a factual following of an event or person to gain an understanding of a particular point or issue
• Experimental (avant-garde) - created to test audience reaction or to expand the boundaries of film production/story exposition then generally at play
• Musical - a film interspersed with singing by all or some of the characters
• Short - may strive to contain many of the elements of a "full-length" feature, in a shorter time-frame

By age

• Children's film - films for young children - as opposed to a family film, no special effort is made to make the film attractive for other audiences.
• Family - intended to be attractive for people of all ages and suitable for viewing by a young audience. Examples of this are Disney films.
• Teen film - intended and aimed towards teens although some teen films such as the High School Musical series may also be a family film. Not all of these films are suitable for all teens in which some are rated-R.
• Adult film - intended to be viewed only by an adult audience, content may include violence, disturbing themes, obscene language, or explicit sexual behaviour. Adult film may also be used as a synonym for pornographic film.

Cinema by region

History of film

Camera obscura - Intertitle - Magic lantern - Motion Picture Patents Company - Phantasmagoria - Silent film - Thomas Edison - Zoetrope

Major film studios

• 20th Century Fox
• Buena Vista/Walt Disney Pictures
• Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group (a subsidiary of Sony Pictures Entertainment)
• Lions Gate Entertainment
• New Line Cinema (a subsidiary of Time Warner)

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• Paramount Pictures (a subsidiary of Viacom)
• Universal Studios (a subsidiary of NBC Universal)
• Warner Bros. (another subsidiary of Time Warner)
• The Weinstein Company
• MGM/UA Entertainment Co. (another subsidiary of Sony Pictures Entertainment)

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General film concepts

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