Precursors of film are concepts and devices that have much in common with the later art and techniques of cinema.
181-413: A movie theater ( American English ) or cinema ( Commonwealth English ), also known as a movie house , cinema hall , picture house , picture theater , the pictures , or simply theater , is a business that contains auditoriums for viewing films for public entertainment. Most are commercial operations catering to the general public, who attend by purchasing tickets . The film is projected with
362-707: A cot–caught merger , which is rapidly spreading throughout the whole country. However, the South, Inland North, and a Northeastern coastal corridor passing through Rhode Island, New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore typically preserve an older cot–caught distinction. For that Northeastern corridor, the realization of the THOUGHT vowel is particularly marked , as depicted in humorous spellings, like in tawk and cawfee ( talk and coffee ), which intend to represent it being tense and diphthongal : [oə] . A split of TRAP into two separate phonemes , using different
543-413: A digital cinema format that uses dual 2K resolution projectors and a screen with a 1.90:1 aspect ratio; this system is designed primarily for use in retrofitted multiplexes, using screens significantly smaller than those normally associated with IMAX. In 2015, IMAX introduced an updated "IMAX with Laser" format, using 4K resolution laser projectors. The term " premium large format " ( PLF ) emerged in
724-412: A movie projector onto a large projection screen at the front of the auditorium while the dialogue, sounds and music are played through a number of wall-mounted speakers. Since the 1970s, subwoofers have been used for low-pitched sounds. Since the 2010s, the majority of movie theaters have been equipped for digital cinema projection , removing the need to create and transport a physical film print on
905-520: A pronunciations for example in gap [æ] versus gas [eə] , further defines New York City as well as Philadelphia–Baltimore accents. Most Americans preserve all historical /r/ sounds, using what is known as a rhotic accent . The only traditional r -dropping (or non-rhoticity) in regional U.S. accents variably appears today in eastern New England , New York City , and some of the former plantation South primarily among older speakers (and, relatedly, some African-American Vernacular English across
1086-406: A stroboscopic disc , so that they would appear as if moving in and out of the cardboard when animated. He supposed that this principle provided endless possibilities to make different 3D animations. He then introduced two methods to animate stereoscopic pairs of images, one was basically a stereo viewer using two stroboscopic discs and the other was more or less similar to the later zoetrope (but in
1267-553: A 5,200-year old pottery bowl found in Iran, in an Egyptian mural approximately 4000 years old (found in the tomb of Khnumhotep at the Beni Hassan cemetery) and several other examples. However, it is very unlikely that these could be viewed in motion before the invention of stroboscopic animation in the 1830s. In 1825, the thaumatrope used a stroboscopic effect that made the brain combine incomplete pictures on either side of
1448-467: A battery of six large lanterns running on tracked tables to project the finely detailed images of extra large slides on the 648 square feet screen. The magic lantern was used to illustrate lectures, concerts, pantomimes and other forms of theatre. Popular magic lantern presentations included phantasmagoria, mechanical slides, Henry Langdon Childe 's dissolving views and his chromatrope. The earliest known public screening of projected stroboscopic animation
1629-573: A better view. Many modern theaters have accessible seating areas for patrons in wheelchairs. See also luxury screens below. Canada was the first country in the world to have a two-screen theater. The Elgin Theatre in Ottawa, Ontario became the first venue to offer two film programs on different screens in 1957 when Canadian theater-owner Nat Taylor converted the dual screen theater into one capable of showing two different movies simultaneously. Taylor
1810-537: A break in between. Separate admission for a short subject is rare; it is either an extra before a feature film or part of a series of short films sold as one admission (this mainly occurs at film festivals). (See also anthology film .) In the early decades of "talkie" films, many movie theaters presented a number of shorter items in addition to the feature film. This might include a newsreel , live-action comedy short films, documentary short films, musical short films, or cartoon shorts (many classic cartoons series such as
1991-499: A circa 30-second "moving tableau". Von Uchatius showed little interest in commercial shows and seems to have only performed private screenings at his home. From around 1853 until the 1890s in Paris, J. Duboscq marketed different models of a projection phénakisticope. It had a glass disc with a diameter of 34 centimeters for the pictures, and a separate disc with four lenses. The discs rotated at different speeds. Thomas Ross developed
SECTION 10
#17327732115532172-631: A complex phenomenon of "both convergence and divergence": some accents are homogenizing and leveling , while others are diversifying and deviating further away from one another. Having been settled longer than the American West Coast, the East Coast has had more time to develop unique accents, and it currently comprises three or four linguistically significant regions, each of which possesses English varieties both different from each other as well as quite internally diverse: New England ,
2353-447: A consonant, such as in pearl , car and fort . Non-rhotic American accents, those that do not pronounce ⟨r⟩ except before a vowel, such as some accents of Eastern New England , New York City , and African-Americans , and a specific few (often older ones) spoken by Southerners , are often quickly noticed by General American listeners and perceived as sounding especially ethnic, regional, or antiquated. Rhoticity
2534-418: A darkened room to project clearer images has been dated back to 1550. Giambattista della Porta 's very popular and influential Magia Naturalis helped popularize the camera obscura. In the 1558 first edition of the book series, Della Porta advised to use a convex mirror to project the image onto paper and to use this as a drawing aid. The 1589 second edition added a "lenticular crystal" or biconvex lens to
2715-509: A demon's head blowing on a glowing coal. Plateau stated that the illusion could be advanced even further with an idea communicated to him by Charles Wheatstone : a combination of Fantascope and stereoscope . Plateau believed two copies of his improved Fantascope could be adapted to deliver stereoscopic images to Wheatstone's reflecting stereoscope. He thought the construction of a sequential set of stereoscopic image pairs would be more difficult. Wheatstone had suggested using photographs on paper of
2896-470: A description of his forerunner to the magic lantern: the "Steganographic Mirror". This was a primitive projection system with a focusing lens and text or pictures painted on a concave mirror reflecting sunlight, mostly intended for long distance communication. Kircher also suggested projecting shadow puppets and living flies from the surface of the mirror. The book was widely distributed and may have offered some inspiration for Christiaan Huygens ' invention of
3077-405: A full restaurant menu instead of general movie theater concessions such as popcorn or candy. In certain countries, there are also Bed Cinemas where the audience sits or lays in beds instead of chairs. 3D film is a system of presenting film images so that they appear to the viewer to be three-dimensional. Visitors usually borrow or keep special glasses to wear while watching the movie. Depending on
3258-432: A hand-crank. Naylor suggested tracing the pictures from readily available printed phenakisticopes, colouring them with translucent colours mixed with oil-varnish and covering the remaining portion of the disk with thick black paint. Nothing else has been found regarding Naylor's machine, so it remains uncertain whether it was ever even constructed. On 15 January 1847, Austrian magician Ludwig Döbler debuted his Phantaskop at
3439-526: A heavy reel. A great variety of films are shown at cinemas, ranging from animated films to blockbusters to documentaries. The smallest movie theaters have a single viewing room with a single screen. In the 2010s, most movie theaters had multiple screens. The largest theater complexes, which are called multiplexes —a concept developed in Canada in the 1950s—have up to thirty screens. The audience members often sit on padded seats, which in most theaters are set on
3620-591: A merger with the THOUGHT ( caught ) set. Having taken place prior to the unrounding of the cot vowel, it results in lengthening and perhaps raising, merging the more recently separated vowel into the THOUGHT vowel in the following environments: before many instances of /f/ , /θ/ , and particularly /s/ (as in Austria, cloth, cost, loss, off, often, etc.), a few instances before /ŋ/ (as in strong, long, wrong ), and variably by region or speaker in gone , on , and certain other words. Unlike American accents,
3801-520: A movie can be thought of as a photographed play . Much of the production for a live-action movie is similar to that of a theatre play, with very similar contributions by actors , a theatre director / film director , producers, a set designer , lighting designer , costume designer , composer , etc. Much terminology later used in film theory and film criticism was already applied for theatre, such as mise en scene . Some forms of theatre, such as cantastoria , also utilize sequentially ordered pictures in
SECTION 20
#17327732115533982-507: A much improved view, with both eyes, of the opposite pictures. In 1861 American engineer Coleman Sellers II received US patent No. 35,317 for the kinematoscope , a device that exhibited "stereoscopic pictures as to make them represent objects in motion" on glass plates, linked together in a chain, and mounted in a box. In his application he stated: "This has frequently been done with plane pictures but has never been, with stereoscopic pictures". He used three sets of stereoscopic photographs in
4163-400: A new optical illusion that could represent any conceivable action depicted on the sections of a spinning disc (viewed in a mirror through slits in the disc). In January 1833, Plateau published a paper that introduced the principle of stroboscopic animation with a device that became known as the phenakistiscope . Several months after the publication of Plateau's paper, Simon Stampfer patented
4344-636: A nice day , for sure); many are now distinctly old-fashioned (swell, groovy). Some English words now in general use, such as hijacking, disc jockey , boost, bulldoze and jazz , originated as American slang. American English has always shown a marked tendency to use words in different parts of speech and nouns are often used as verbs . Examples of nouns that are now also verbs are interview, advocate, vacuum, lobby, pressure, rear-end, transition, feature, profile, hashtag, head, divorce, loan, estimate, X-ray, spearhead, skyrocket, showcase, bad-mouth, vacation , major, and many others. Compounds coined in
4525-560: A patent given to the Mayer brothers for their "multiplicateur", which photographed multiple (identical) images onto a single plate (a technique that created the carte de visite format that was very popular in the 1860s). Claudet claimed to have invented something very similar in 1844, with results exhibited at the French Industrial Exposition of 1844 , including a self portrait that showed 12 sides of his face. Before
4706-522: A plain in the sunshine on the other side of the camera obscura wall. Little children and animals (for instance handmade deer, wild boars, rhinos, elephants, and lions) could perform in this set. "Then, by degrees, they must appear, as coming out of their dens, upon the Plain: The Hunter he must come with his hunting Pole, Nets, Arrows, and other necessaries, that may represent hunting: Let there be Horns, Cornets, Trumpets sounded: those that are in
4887-480: A process of extensive dialect mixture and leveling in which English varieties across the colonies became more homogeneous compared with the varieties in Britain. English thus predominated in the colonies even by the end of the 17th century's first immigration of non-English speakers from Western Europe and Africa. Additionally, firsthand descriptions of a fairly uniform American English (particularly in contrast to
5068-438: A projection variation. On 12 November 1852 he applied for an addition certificate to include his "Stéréoscope-fantascope, ou Bïoscope". Basically a combination of Plateau's standard fantascope and the stereoscope, it used two small mirrors in different angles next to each other that reflected stereoscopic image pairs (printed above each other on the stroboscopic disc) into the stereoscope viewer. Of three planned variations only one
5249-417: A result, the customer geography area of multiplexes and megaplexes typically overlaps with smaller theaters, which face threat of having their audience siphoned by bigger theaters that cut a wider swath in the movie-going landscape. In most markets, nearly all single-screen theaters (sometimes referred to as a "Uniplex") have gone out of business; the ones remaining are generally used for arthouse films, e.g.
5430-409: A screen in front of the stage and adding a projector; this conversion may be permanent, or temporary for purposes such as showing arthouse fare to an audience accustomed to plays. The familiar characteristics of relatively low admission and open seating can be traced to Samuel Roxy Rothafel , an early movie theater impresario . Many of these early theaters contain a balcony , an elevated level across
5611-411: A sequence with some duplicates to regulate the flow of a simple repetitive motion, but also described a system for very large series of pictures of complicated motion. In 1861, Samuel Goodale patented a hand-turned stereoscope device which rapidly moves stereo images past a viewer, in a fashion similar to the later mutoscope . In 1864, Dundee mechanic James Laing's motororoscope was presented to
Movie theater - Misplaced Pages Continue
5792-680: A series of other vowel shifts in the same region, known by linguists as the " Inland North ". The Inland North shares with the Eastern New England dialect (including Boston accents ) a backer tongue positioning of the GOOSE /u/ vowel (to [u] ) and the MOUTH /aʊ/ vowel (to [ɑʊ~äʊ] ) in comparison to the rest of the country. Ranging from northern New England across the Great Lakes to Minnesota, another Northern regional marker
5973-455: A sloped floor, with the highest part at the rear of the theater. Movie theaters often sell soft drinks , popcorn and candy , and some theaters sell hot fast food . In some jurisdictions, movie theaters can be licensed to sell alcoholic drinks. A movie theater might also be referred to as a movie house , film house , film theater , cinema or picture house . In the US, theater has long been
6154-482: A small transparent phénakisticope system, called Wheel of life , which fitted inside a standard magic lantern slide. A first version, patented in 1869, had a glass disc with eight phases of a movement and a counter-rotating glass shutter disc with eight apertures. The discs depicted Ice Skaters, Fishes, Giant's Ladder, Bottle Imp and other subjects. An improved version had 13 images and a single slot shutter disc, and received British Patent 2685 on 10 October 1871. After
6335-407: A solid object, for instance a statuette. Plateau concluded that for this purpose 16 plaster models could be made with 16 regular modifications. He believed such a project would take much time and careful effort, but would be well wort it because of the expected marvelous results. Unfortunately, the plan was never executed, possibly because Plateau became almost completely blind by this time. Eventually
6516-577: A somersaulting monkey with arms attached to mechanism that made it tumble with dangling feet. Named after the Italian word for animated puppets, like marionettes or jumping jacks . Peep shows or "raree shows" were viewed through a hole in a box (sometimes fitted with a lens or magnifying glass) and were very popular in Europe from the 17th to 19th century. The view inside could be an exhibition of any kind of pictures, objects, puppets or other curiosities. It
6697-424: A stationary slide which showed the rest of the picture. In 1770 Edmé-Gilles Guyot detailed how to project a magic lantern image on smoke to create a transparent, shimmering image of a hovering ghost. This technique was used in the phantasmagoria shows that became very popular in several parts of Europe between 1790 and the 1830s. Other techniques were developed to produce convincing ghost experiences. The lantern
6878-525: A survey, completed in 2003, polling English speakers across the United States about their specific everyday word choices, hoping to identify regionalisms. The study found that most Americans prefer the term sub for a long sandwich, soda (but pop in the Great Lakes region and generic coke in the South) for a sweet and bubbly soft drink , you or you guys for the plural of you (but y'all in
7059-583: A system is used that requires inexpensive 3D glasses, they can sometimes be kept by the patron. Most theaters have a fixed cost for 3D, while others charge for the glasses, but the latter is uncommon (at least in the United States). For example, in Pathé theaters in the Netherlands the extra fee for watching a 3D film consists of a fixed fee of €1.50, and an optional fee of €1 for the glasses. Holders of
7240-412: A total of over 500,000 visitors, with programs including Pauvre Pierrot and Autour d'une cabine . Thomas Edison initially believed film screening would not be as viable commercially as presenting films in peep boxes, hence the film apparatus that his company would first exploit became the kinetoscope . A few public demonstrations occurred since 9 May 1893, before a first public Kinetoscope parlor
7421-463: A transversely connected iron wire. The lamp would typically show images of horses and horse-riders. Several scholars and inventors, like Giovanni Fontana (circa 1420), Leonardo da Vinci (circa 1515) and Cornelis Drebbel (1608) possibly had early image projectors before the invention of the Magic Lantern . Athanasius Kircher 's 1645 first edition of Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae included
Movie theater - Misplaced Pages Continue
7602-434: A twirling cardboard disc into one logical image. The effect was incorrectly attributed to a so-called " persistence of vision ", or " retinal persistence". The technology of the thaumatrope can also be used to display very simple and repetitive animation when each side of the card depicts one of two phases of an action. However, this option was only recognized much later. Joseph Plateau experimented with spinning discs since
7783-453: A variation of American English in these islands. In 2021, about 245 million Americans, aged 5 or above, spoke English at home: a majority of the United States total population of roughly 330 million people. The United States has never had an official language at the federal level, but English is commonly used at the federal level and in states without an official language. 32 of the 50 states, in some cases as part of what has been called
7964-699: A version that used an endless band of pictures running between two spools that was intermittently lit by an electric spark. Desvignes' Mimoscope , received an Honourable Mention "for ingenuity of construction" at the 1862 International Exhibition in London. It could "exhibit drawings, models, single or stereoscopic photographs, so as to animate animal movements, or that of machinery, showing various other illusions." Desvignes "employed models, insects and other objects, instead of pictures, with perfect success." The horizontal slits (like in Czermak's Stereophoroskop) allowed
8145-407: A vertical position with horizontal slits). Czermak explained how suitable stereoscopic photographs could be made by recording a series of models, with an example of a growing pyramid. In 1858, Joseph-Charles d'Almeida published descriptions of two methods that he had successfully developed to project stereoscopic images. The first was an anaglyph method with red and green glasses, the second used
8326-439: A way that anticipates cinema. Early motion picture shows were often screened in existing theatre venues and accompanied by live narration, music, and sound effects, thus combining the new medium with theatrical traditions. Many early films by Edison 's company, Max Skladanowsky and other pioneers, consisted of popular vaudeville acts performed in front of a camera instead of an audience. The famous movie pioneer Georges Méliès
8507-399: Is a lantern which on the inside has cut-out silhouettes attached to a shaft with a paper vane impeller on top, rotated by heated air rising from a lamp. The silhouettes are projected on the thin paper sides of the lantern and appear to chase each other. Some versions showed more motion with the heads, feet or hands of figures connected with fine iron wire to an extra inner layer and triggered by
8688-654: Is also associated with the United States, perhaps mostly in the Midwest and the South. American accents that have not undergone the cot–caught merger (the lexical sets LOT and THOUGHT ) have instead retained a LOT – CLOTH split : a 17th-century distinction in which certain words (labeled as the CLOTH lexical set ) separated away from the LOT set. The split, which has now reversed in most British English, simultaneously shifts this relatively recent CLOTH set into
8869-664: Is also home to a creole language known commonly as Hawaiian Pidgin , and some Hawaii residents speak English with a Pidgin-influenced accent. American English also gave rise to some dialects outside the country, for example, Philippine English , beginning during the American occupation of the Philippines and subsequently the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands ; Thomasites first established
9050-426: Is also part of a wider and less teleological approach called media archaeology . Many of the devices that can be interpreted as precursors of film are also referred to as "philosophical toys", or " optical toys ". Unlike film and cinema, viewing these moving images always involves brevity and repetition. In the early days of film the word "photoplay" was quite commonly used for motion pictures. This illustrates how
9231-574: Is arguably the first cinema in the world. Claimants for the title of the earliest movie theatre include the Eden Theater in La Ciotat , where L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat was screened on 21 March 1899. The theatre closed in 1995 but re-opened in 2013. L'Idéal Cinéma in Aniche (France), built in 1901 as l'Hôtel du Syndicat CGT, showed its first film on 23 November 1905. The cinema
SECTION 50
#17327732115539412-538: Is common in most American accents despite being now rare in England because, during the 17th-century British colonization, nearly all dialects of English were rhotic, and most North American English simply remained that way. The preservation of rhoticity in North America was also supported by continuing waves of rhotic-accented Scotch-Irish immigrants, most intensely during the 18th century (and moderately during
9593-577: Is credited by Canadian sources as the inventor of the multiplex or cineplex; he later founded the Cineplex Odeon Corporation , opening the 18-screen Toronto Eaton Centre Cineplex, the world's largest at the time, in Toronto, Ontario. In the United States, Stanley Durwood of American Multi-Cinema (now AMC Theatres ) is credited as pioneering the multiplex in 1963 after realizing that he could operate several attached auditoriums with
9774-457: Is increasing. The RealD company expects 15,000 screens worldwide in 2010. The availability of 3D movies encourages exhibitors to adopt digital cinema and provides a way for theaters to compete with home theaters . One incentive for theaters to show 3D films is that although ticket sales have declined, revenues from 3D tickets have grown. In the 2010s, 3D films became popular again. The IMAX 3D system and digital 3D systems are used (the latter
9955-766: Is known as camera obscura or pinhole image. Its oldest known recorded description is found in Chinese Mohist writings dated to circa 400 BCE. However, people have probably witnessed and made use of occurrences of the phenomenon since prehistoric times. It has been suggested that distortions in the shapes of animals in many paleolithic cave paintings were possibly based on distortions seen in pinhole images formed through tiny holes in tents or in screens of animal hide. Some ancient sightings of gods and spirits, especially in temple worship, are thought to possibly have been conjured up by means of camera obscura or proto magic lantern projections. In Arab and European science
10136-494: Is known in linguistics as General American ; it covers a fairly uniform accent continuum native to certain regions of the U.S. but especially associated with broadcast mass media and highly educated speech. However, historical and present linguistic evidence does not support the notion of there being one single mainstream American accent . The sound of American English continues to evolve, with some local accents disappearing, but several larger regional accents having emerged in
10317-435: Is known) published details and an illustration of his plan for a "Phantasmagoria for the projection of moving figures" (by then, the word "phantasmagoria" was often used for a type of magic lanterns). It would use an Argand lamp or Drummond light to project sequential images from a rotating glass disk. A shutter disk would be mounted on the same axis as the picture disk to have its holes coincide with pictures when turned with
10498-551: Is mentioned in the 2010 Guinness World Records . The World's smallest solar-powered mobile cinema is Sol Cinema in the UK. Touring since 2010 the cinema is actually a converted 1972 caravan. It seats 8–10 at a time. In 2015 it featured in a Lenovo advert for the launch of a new tablet. The Bell Museum of Natural History in Minneapolis , Minnesota has recently begun summer "bike-ins", inviting only pedestrians or people on bicycles onto
10679-420: Is often identified by Americans as a "country" accent, and is defined by the /aɪ/ vowel losing its gliding quality : [aː] , the initiation event for a complicated Southern vowel shift, including a " Southern drawl " that makes short front vowels into distinct-sounding gliding vowels . The fronting of the vowels of GOOSE , GOAT , MOUTH , and STRUT tends to also define Southern accents as well as
10860-512: Is still inconvenient and disturbing to find and claim it during the commercials and trailers, unless it is near an aisle. Some movie theaters have some kind of break during the presentation, particularly for very long films. There may also be a break between the introductory material and the feature. Some countries such as the Netherlands have a tradition of incorporating an intermission in regular feature presentations, though many theaters have now abandoned that tradition, while in North America, this
11041-496: Is the common language at home, in public, and in government. Precursors of film Precursors of film are often referred to as precinema , or 'pre-cinema'. Terms like these are disliked by several historians, partly because they seem to devalue the individual qualities of these media by presenting them as a small step in the development of a later invention. For instance: the flip book, zoetrope and phenakistiscope are very tactile devices that allow study and play by manipulating
SECTION 60
#173277321155311222-515: Is the oldest known movie theater still in continuous operation. Traditionally a movie theater, like a stage theater , consists of a single auditorium with rows of comfortable padded seats, as well as a foyer area containing a box office for buying tickets. Movie theaters also often have a concession stand for buying snacks and drinks within the theater's lobby. Other features included are film posters , arcade games and washrooms. Stage theaters are sometimes converted into movie theaters by placing
11403-469: Is the variable fronting of /ɑ/ before /r/ , for example, appearing four times in the stereotypical Boston shibboleth Park the car in Harvard Yard . Several other phenomena serve to distinguish regional U.S. accents. Boston , Pittsburgh , Upper Midwestern , and Western U.S. accents have fully completed a merger of the LOT vowel with the THOUGHT vowel ( /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ , respectively):
11584-474: Is used in the animated movies of Disney / Pixar ). The RealD 3D system works by using a single digital projector that swaps back and forth between the images for eyes. A filter is placed in front of the projector that changes the polarization of the light coming from the projector. A silver screen is used to reflect this light back at the audience and reduce loss of brightness. There are four other systems available: Volfoni, Master Image, XpanD and Dolby 3D . When
11765-806: Is usually called a " megaplex ". However, in the United Kingdom, this was a brand name for Virgin Cinema (later UGC). The first megaplex is generally considered to be the Kinepolis in Brussels, Belgium, which opened in 1988 with 25 screens and a seating capacity of 7,500. The first theater in the U.S. built from the ground up as a megaplex was the AMC Grand 24 in Dallas, Texas , which opened in May 1995, while
11946-424: Is very rare and usually limited to special circumstances involving extremely long movies. During the closing credits many people leave, but some stay until the end. Usually the lights are switched on after the credits, sometimes already during them. Some films show mid-credits scenes while the credits are rolling, which in comedy films are often bloopers and outtakes, or post-credits scenes , which typically set up
12127-640: The Looney Tunes and Mickey Mouse shorts were created for this purpose). Examples of this kind of programming are available on certain DVD releases of two of the most famous films starring Errol Flynn as a special feature arrangement designed to recreate that kind of filmgoing experience while the PBS series, Matinee at the Bijou , presented the equivalent content. Some theaters ran on continuous showings , where
12308-534: The Digital Cinema Package for the film. Control data is encoded in a monoaural WAV file on Sound Track channel 13, labelled as "Motion Data". Motion Data tracks are unencrypted and not watermarked. Movie theaters may be classified by the type of movies they show or when in a film's release process they are shown: Usually in the 2020s, an admission is for one feature film. Sometimes two feature films are sold as one admission ( double feature ), with
12489-482: The English-only movement , have adopted legislation granting official or co-official status to English. Typically only "English" is specified, not a particular variety like American English. (From 1923 to 1969, the state of Illinois recognized its official language as "American", meaning American English.) Puerto Rico is the largest example of a United States territory in which another language – Spanish –
12670-753: The Latham family, was demonstrated for members of the press on 21 April 1895 and opened to the paying public on 20 May, in a lower Broadway store with films of the Griffo-Barnett prize boxing fight, taken from Madison Square Garden 's roof on 4 May. Max Skladanowsky and his brother Emil demonstrated their motion pictures with the Bioscop in July 1895 at the Gasthaus Sello in Pankow (Berlin). This venue
12851-622: The Mid-Atlantic states (including a New York accent as well as a unique Philadelphia–Baltimore accent ), and the South . As of the 20th century, the middle and eastern Great Lakes area , Chicago being the largest city with these speakers, also ushered in certain unique features, including the fronting of the LOT /ɑ/ vowel in the mouth toward [a] and tensing of the TRAP /æ/ vowel wholesale to [eə] . These sound changes have triggered
13032-468: The Ministry of Technology campaign to raise standards. Using a very futuristic look, these 27-seat cinema vehicles were designed to attract attention. They were built on a Bedford SB 3 chassis with a custom Coventry Steel Caravan extruded aluminum body. Movies are also commonly shown on airliners in flight, using large screens in each cabin or smaller screens for each group of rows or each individual seat;
13213-551: The Native American languages . Examples of such names are opossum , raccoon , squash , moose (from Algonquian ), wigwam , and moccasin . American English speakers have integrated traditionally non-English terms and expressions into the mainstream cultural lexicon; for instance, en masse , from French ; cookie , from Dutch ; kindergarten from German , and rodeo from Spanish . Landscape features are often loanwords from French or Spanish, and
13394-522: The Pathé Unlimited Gold pass (see also below) are supposed to bring along their own glasses; one pair, supplied yearly, more robust than the regular type, is included in the price. IMAX is a system using 70 mm film with more than ten times the frame size of a 35 mm film . IMAX theaters use an oversized screen as well as special projectors. The first permanent IMAX theater was at Ontario Place in Toronto, Canada. Until 2016, visitors to
13575-656: The Phantasmascope and later as the Fantascope , clearly referring to phantasmagoria. Stampfer also suggested using the stroboscopic principle with "transparencies". It seemed a simple and logical next step, but in practice it turned out to be relatively complicated. Apart from mica and glass there were hardly any transparent materials that could be used and it took years before mechanisms were developed that enabled fluent animation to be projected. In 1843, T.W. Naylor (an experimenter from Newcastle about whom little else
13756-463: The Place Vendôme in Paris. The eerie surroundings, with a graveyard and ruins, formed an ideal location for his ghostraising spectacle. When it opened in 1838, The Royal Polytechnic Institution in London became a very popular and influential venue with all kinds of magic lantern shows as an important part of its program. At the main theatre, with 500 seats, lanternists would make good use of
13937-490: The Royal Scottish Society of Arts by a secretary. The device allowed a relatively large amount of stereoscopic pictures to be pasted on the inside of a "revolving web" with slits, transported over two rollers to pass in front of stereoscopic eyepieces. The rectangular openings of the viewer were adapted to the shape and size of the slits to avoid flaring and to reduce flicker. The demonstrated picture sequence
14118-722: The francophile tastes of the 19th century Victorian era Britain (for example they preferred programme for program , manoeuvre for maneuver , cheque for check , etc.). AmE almost always uses -ize in words like realize . BrE prefers -ise , but also uses -ize on occasion (see: Oxford spelling ). There are a few differences in punctuation rules. British English is more tolerant of run-on sentences , called " comma splices " in American English, and American English prefers that periods and commas be placed inside closing quotation marks even in cases in which British rules would place them outside. American English also favors
14299-460: The stroboscopic principle to alternately present each picture to the corresponding eye in quick succession. D'Almeida had started work on combining this method with the principles of the phénakisticope . On 7 April 1859, Belgian civil engineer and inventor Henri Désiré du Mont filed a Belgian patent for nine different versions of his Omniscope, of which most would show stereoscopic animation from stroboscopic discs or from cylinders with pictures on
14480-407: The zoetrope (1866), the flip book (1868) and the praxinoscope (1877), before its basic principle became the foundation for the apparent motion in film technology. In a private letter to Faraday from early 1833, Plateau suggested that the principle of his illusion could be further developed for use in phantasmagoria shows. Not much later, Plateau published his invention in England, initially as
14661-549: The 17th century in the shape of tents and eventually as portable wooden boxes with a viewing pane and a mirror to get an upright image. The camera obscura became increasingly popular as a drawing and painting aid for artists. The box type camera obscura was eventually turned into the photographic camera by capturing the projected image with plates or sheets that were treated with light-sensitive chemicals. The "trotting horse lamp" [走馬燈] has been known in China since before 1000 CE. It
14842-764: The 18th century; apartment , shanty in the 19th century; project, condominium , townhouse , mobile home in the 20th century; and parts thereof ( driveway , breezeway, backyard ) . Industry and material innovations from the 19th century onwards provide distinctive new words, phrases, and idioms through railroading (see further at rail terminology ) and transportation terminology, ranging from types of roads ( dirt roads , freeways ) to infrastructure ( parking lot , overpass , rest area ), to automotive terminology often now standard in English internationally. Already existing English words—such as store , shop , lumber —underwent shifts in meaning; others remained in
15023-566: The 1980s the introduction of VHS cassettes made possible video-salons, small rooms where visitors viewed movies on a large TV. These establishments were especially popular in the Soviet Union , where official distribution companies were slow to adapt to changing demand, and so movie theaters could not show popular Hollywood and Asian films . In 1967, the British government launched seven custom-built mobile cinema units for use as part of
15204-546: The 20th century. The use of English in the United States is a result of British colonization of the Americas . The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North America during the early 17th century, followed by further migrations in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 17th and 18th centuries, dialects from many different regions of England and the British Isles existed in every American colony, allowing
15385-572: The British form is a back-formation , such as AmE burglarize and BrE burgle (from burglar ). However, while individuals usually use one or the other, both forms will be widely understood and mostly used alongside each other within the two systems. While written American English is largely standardized across the country and spoken American English dialects are highly mutually intelligible, there are still several recognizable regional and ethnic accents and lexical distinctions. The regional sounds of present-day American English are reportedly engaged in
15566-461: The Chamber shall see Trees, Animals, Hunters Faces, and all the rest so plainly, that they cannot tell whether they be true or delusions: Swords drawn will glister in at the hole, that they will make people almost afraid." Della Porta claimed to have shown such spectacles often to his friends. They admired it very much and could hardly be convinced by Della Porta's explanations that what they had seen
15747-466: The Crest Theatre in downtown Sacramento, California , small-scale productions, film festivals or other presentations. Because of the late development of multiplexes, the term "cinema" or "theater" may refer either to the whole complex or a single auditorium, and sometimes "screen" is used to refer to an auditorium. A popular film may be shown on multiple screens at the same multiplex, which reduces
15928-615: The Dark and Warner Bros. House of Wax , the first 3D feature with stereophonic sound. For many years, most 3D movies were shown in amusement parks and even "4D" techniques have been used when certain effects such as spraying of water, movement of seats, and other effects are used to simulate actions seen on the screen. The first decline in the theatrical 3D craze started in August and September 1953. In 2009, movie exhibitors became more interested in 3D film. The number of 3D screens in theaters
16109-413: The East Coast (perhaps in imitation of 19th-century London speech), even the East Coast has gradually begun to restore rhoticity, due to it becoming nationally prestigious in the 20th century. The pronunciation of ⟨r⟩ is a postalveolar approximant [ ɹ̠ ] or retroflex approximant [ ɻ ] , but a unique "bunched tongue" variant of the approximant r sound
16290-565: The Fantascope. He combined the stroboscopic disc with aspects of his Anorthoscope to create a 27 cm translucent disc (oiled paper on a cardboard frame) that was lit from behind and had a stroboscopic 4-slit black metal shutter disc in front. The pictures, 16 in Plateau's example, were designed with a 4 to 5 anamorphic width to compensate the deformation of the resulting image. The animation could be seen with both eyes by several people at
16471-719: The IMAX cinema attached to the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford , West Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom, could observe the IMAX projection booth via a glass rear wall and watch the large format films being loaded and projected. The largest permanent IMAX cinema screen measures 38.80 m × 21.00 m (127.30 ft × 68.90 ft) and was achieved by Traumplast Leonberg (Germany) in Leonberg, Germany , verified on 6 December 2022. IMAX also refers to
16652-571: The Inland North. Rather than one particular accent, General American is best defined as an umbrella covering an American accent that does not incorporate features associated with some particular region, ethnicity, or socioeconomic group. Typical General American features include rhoticity , the father–bother merger , Mary–marry–merry merger , pre-nasal "short a " tensing , and other particular vowel sounds . General American features are embraced most by Americans who are highly educated or in
16833-669: The Josephstadt Theatre in Vienna . On the front, the patented apparatus had 12 lenses with different pictures. Two lenses inside the machine were cranked around to direct limelight through each consecutive image. The eight scenes, mostly depicting circus or vaudeville acts, were designed by Mr. Geyling. He took the show to several other European cities until the spring of 1848. The multi-part optical entertainment could also feature dissolving views enhanced with an additional third image, chromatropes , or raree shows . The spectacle
17014-573: The South), sneakers for athletic shoes (but often tennis shoes outside the Northeast), and shopping cart for a cart used for carrying supermarket goods. American English and British English (BrE) often differ at the levels of phonology, phonetics, vocabulary, and, to a much lesser extent, grammar and orthography. The first large American dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language , known as Webster's Dictionary ,
17195-528: The U.S. Several verbs ending in -ize are of U.S. origin; for example, fetishize, prioritize, burglarize, accessorize, weatherize , etc.; and so are some back-formations (locate, fine-tune, curate, donate, emote, upholster and enthuse). Among syntactic constructions that arose are outside of, headed for, meet up with, back of, etc. Americanisms formed by alteration of some existing words include notably pesky, phony, rambunctious, buddy, sundae , skeeter, sashay and kitty-corner. Adjectives that arose in
17376-570: The U.S. are for instance foothill , landslide (in all senses), backdrop , teenager , brainstorm , bandwagon , hitchhike , smalltime, and a huge number of others. Other compound words have been founded based on industrialization and the wave of the automobile: five-passenger car, four-door sedan, two-door sedan, and station-wagon (called an estate car in British English). Some are euphemistic ( human resources , affirmative action , correctional facility ). Many compound nouns have
17557-676: The U.S. are, for example, lengthy, bossy, cute and cutesy, punk (in all senses), sticky (of the weather), through (as in "finished"), and many colloquial forms such as peppy or wacky . A number of words and meanings that originated in Middle English or Early Modern English and that have been in everyday use in the United States have since disappeared in most varieties of British English; some of these have cognates in Lowland Scots . Terms such as fall ("autumn"), faucet ("tap"), diaper ("nappy"; itself unused in
17738-530: The U.S. while changing in Britain. Science, urbanization, and democracy have been important factors in bringing about changes in the written and spoken language of the United States. From the world of business and finance came new terms ( merger , downsize , bottom line ), from sports and gambling terminology came, specific jargon aside, common everyday American idioms, including many idioms related to baseball . The names of some American inventions remained largely confined to North America ( elevator [except in
17919-427: The U.S.), candy ("sweets"), skillet , eyeglasses , and obligate are often regarded as Americanisms. Fall for example came to denote the season in 16th century England, a contraction of Middle English expressions like "fall of the leaf" and "fall of the year." Gotten ( past participle of get ) is often considered to be largely an Americanism. Other words and meanings were brought back to Britain from
18100-597: The U.S., especially in the second half of the 20th century; these include hire ("to employ"), I guess (famously criticized by H. W. Fowler ), baggage , hit (a place), and the adverbs overly and presently ("currently"). Some of these, for example, monkey wrench and wastebasket , originated in 19th century Britain. The adjectives mad meaning "angry", smart meaning "intelligent", and sick meaning "ill" are also more frequent in American (and Irish) English than British English. Linguist Bert Vaux created
18281-417: The UK are the pictures , the flicks and for the facility itself the flea pit (or fleapit ). A screening room is a small theater, often a private one, such as for the use of those involved in the production of motion pictures or in a large private residence. The etymology of the term "movie theater" involves the term "movie", which is a "shortened form of moving picture in the cinematographic sense" that
18462-474: The United States and the United Kingdom suggest that, while spoken American English deviated away from period British English in many ways, it is conservative in a few other ways, preserving certain features 21st-century British English has since lost. Full rhoticity (or "R-fulness") is typical of American accents, pronouncing the phoneme /r/ (corresponding to the letter ⟨r⟩ ) in all environments, including in syllable-final position or before
18643-605: The West and Midwest, and New York Latino English , spoken in the New York metropolitan area . Additionally, ethnic varieties such as Yeshiva English and " Yinglish " are spoken by some American Orthodox Jews , Cajun Vernacular English by some Cajuns in southern Louisiana , and Pennsylvania Dutch English by some Pennsylvania Dutch people. American Indian Englishes have been documented among diverse Indian tribes. The island state of Hawaii , though primarily English-speaking,
18824-555: The accents spoken in the " Midland ": a vast band of the country that constitutes an intermediate dialect region between the traditional North and South. Western U.S. accents mostly fall under the General American spectrum. Below, ten major American English accents are defined by their particular combinations of certain vowel sounds: In 2010, William Labov noted that Great Lakes, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and West Coast accents have undergone "vigorous new sound changes" since
19005-505: The aeronautical sense ], gasoline ) as did certain automotive terms ( truck , trunk ). New foreign loanwords came with 19th and early 20th century European immigration to the U.S.; notably, from Yiddish ( chutzpah , schmooze, bupkis, glitch ) and German ( hamburger , wiener ). A large number of English colloquialisms from various periods are American in origin; some have lost their American flavor (from OK and cool to nerd and 24/7 ), while others have not ( have
19186-612: The airline company sometimes charges a fee for the headphones needed to hear the movie's sound. In a similar fashion, movies are sometimes also shown on trains, such as the Auto Train . The smallest purpose-built cinema is the Cabiria Cine-Cafe which measures 24 m (260 sq ft) and has a seating capacity of 18. It was built by Renata Carneiro Agostinho da Silva (Brazil) in Brasília DF, Brazil in 2008. It
19367-409: The appearance of a scene from day to night. Around 1800 more elaborate variations with lighting effects were exhibited in small theatres. The raree shows can be regarded as a precursor of toy theaters, dioramas , Chinese fireworks , dissolving views , the stereoscope and the kinetoscope . Several possible examples of very early sequential images can be found in paleolithic cave paintings , on
19548-478: The audience for a sequel. American English American English , sometimes called United States English or U.S. English , is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States ; the de facto common language used in government, education, and commerce; and an official language in 32 of the 50 U.S. states . Since
19729-407: The audience sits upon chairs, blankets or even in hot tubs , and watch the movie on a temporary screen, or even the wall of a building. Colleges and universities have often sponsored movie screenings in lecture halls. The formats of these screenings include 35 mm, 16 mm, DVD , VHS, and even 70 mm in rare cases. Some alternative methods of showing movies have been popular in the past. In
19910-409: The auditorium above the theater's rearmost seats. The rearward main floor "loge" seats were sometimes larger, softer, and more widely spaced and sold for a higher price. In conventional low pitch viewing floors, the preferred seating arrangement is to use staggered rows. While a less efficient use of floor space this allows a somewhat improved sight line between the patrons seated in the next row toward
20091-417: The camera obscura was used in darkened rooms since circa 1000 CE to study light and especially sun eclipses. Very occasionally the camera obscura was thought of as an instrument for live projections of performances to entertain an audience inside a darkened room. Purportedly Arnaldus de Villa Nova did so at the end of the 13th century. The use of a lens in the opening of a wall or closed window shutter of
20272-469: The car's stereo system. Because of their outdoor nature, drive-ins usually only operate seasonally, and after sunset. Drive-in movie theaters are mainly found in the United States, where they were especially popular in the 1950s and 1960s. Once numbering in the thousands, about 400 remain in the U.S. today. In some cases, multiplex or megaplex theaters were built on the sites of former drive-in theaters. Some outdoor movie theaters are just grassy areas where
20453-436: The choice of other films but offers more choice of viewing times or a greater number of seats to accommodate patrons. Two or three screens may be created by dividing up an existing cinema (as Durwood did with his Roxy in 1964), but newly built multiplexes usually have at least six to eight screens, and often as many as twelve, fourteen, sixteen or even eighteen. Although definitions vary, a large multiplex with 20 or more screens
20634-408: The composition of complicated scenes. By experimenting with superimposition dissolving views were invented and became a separate popular magic lantern show, especially in England in the 1830s and 1840s. Dissolving views typically showed a landscape changing from a winter version to a spring or summer variation by slowly diminishing the light from one version while introducing the aligned projection of
20815-420: The countries where those terms are used, the word "theatre" is usually reserved for live performance venues. Colloquial expressions, mostly applied to motion pictures and motion picture theaters collectively, include the silver screen (formerly sometimes sheet ) and the big screen (contrasted with the smaller screen of a television set). Specific to North American term is the movies , while specific terms in
20996-406: The country), though the vowel-consonant cluster found in "bird", "work", "hurt", "learn", etc. usually retains its r pronunciation, even in these non-rhotic American accents. Non-rhoticity among such speakers is presumed to have arisen from their upper classes' close historical contact with England, imitating London's r -dropping, a feature that has continued to gain prestige throughout England from
21177-434: The dark. Since the advent of stadium theaters with stepped aisles, each step in the aisles may be outlined with small lights to prevent patrons from tripping in the darkened theater. In movie theaters, the auditorium may also have lights that go to a low level, when the movie is going to begin. Theaters often have booster seats for children and other people of short stature to place on the seats to allow them to sit higher, for
21358-630: The disc to entertain his grandchildren and show them how he, an old professor, could turn around at great speed. The damaged disc is preserved in the collection of the National Technical Museum in Prague. On 5 February 1870, Philadelphia engineer Henry Renno Heyl presented three moving picture scenes with his Phasmatrope to 1500 persons at a church entertainment evening at the Philadelphia Academy of Music . Each scene
21539-614: The diverse regional dialects of British English) became common after the mid-18th century, while at the same time speakers' identification with this new variety increased. Since the 18th century, American English has developed into some new varieties, including regional dialects that retain minor influences from waves of immigrant speakers of diverse languages, primarily European languages. Some racial and regional variation in American English reflects these groups' geographic settlement, their de jure or de facto segregation, and patterns in their resettlement. This can be seen, for example, in
21720-742: The double quotation mark ("like this") over the single ('as here'). Vocabulary differences vary by region. For example, autumn is used more commonly in the United Kingdom, whereas fall is more common in American English. Some other differences include: aerial (United Kingdom) vs. antenna, biscuit (United Kingdom) vs. cookie/cracker, car park (United Kingdom) vs. parking lot, caravan (United Kingdom) vs. trailer, city centre (United Kingdom) vs. downtown, flat (United Kingdom) vs. apartment, fringe (United Kingdom) vs. bangs, and holiday (United Kingdom) vs. vacation. AmE sometimes favors words that are morphologically more complex, whereas BrE uses clipped forms, such as AmE transportation and BrE transport or where
21901-527: The early 1950s with the release of the first color stereoscopic feature, Bwana Devil . The film starred Robert Stack , Barbara Britton and Nigel Bruce . James Mage was an early pioneer in the 3D craze. Using his 16 mm 3D Bolex system, he premiered his Triorama program in February 1953 with his four shorts: Sunday In Stereo , Indian Summer , American Life , and This is Bolex Stereo . 1953 saw two groundbreaking features in 3D: Columbia's Man in
22082-412: The end of 1851, Claudet claimed to have created a stereoscope that showed people in motion. The stereo viewer could show a motion of two phases repetitively. During the next two years, Claudet worked on a camera that would record stereoscopic pairs for four different poses (patented in 1853). Claudet found that the stereoscopic effect didn't work properly in this device, but believed the illusion of motion
22263-481: The end of the 18th century. Around the time cinema was developed, several theaters in Montmartre showed elaborate "Ombres Chinoises" shows that were very successful. The famous Le Chat noir produced 45 different shows between 1885 and 1896. Projection of images can occur naturally when rays of light pass through a small hole and produce an inverted image on a surface in a dark area behind the hole. This phenomenon
22444-414: The feature film. Advertised start times are usually for the entire program or session, not the feature itself; thus people who want to avoid commercials and trailers would opt to enter later. This is easiest and causes the least inconvenience when it is not crowded or one is not very choosy about where one wants to sit. If one has a ticket for a specific seat (see below) one is formally assured of that, but it
22625-552: The first decade of motion pictures, the demand for movies, the amount of new productions, and the average runtime of movies, kept increasing, and at some stage it was viable to have theaters that would no longer program live acts, but only movies. The first building built for the dedicated purpose of showing motion pictures was built to demonstrate The Phantoscope , a device created by Jenkins & Armat, as part of The Cotton State Exposition on September 25, 1895 in Atlanta, GA. This
22806-546: The first megaplex in the U.S.-based on an expansion of an existing facility was Studio 28 in Grand Rapids, Michigan , which reopened in November 1988 with 20 screens and a seating capacity of 6,000. A drive-in movie theater is an outdoor parking area with a screen—sometimes an inflatable screen —at one end and a projection booth at the other. Moviegoers drive into the parking spaces which are sometimes sloped upwards at
22987-517: The following two centuries) when this ethnic group eventually made up one-seventh of the colonial population. Scotch-Irish settlers spread from Delaware and Pennsylvania throughout the larger Mid-Atlantic region, the inland regions of both the South and North, and throughout the West: American dialect areas that were all uninfluenced by upper-class non-rhoticity and that consequently have remained consistently rhotic. While non-rhoticity spread on
23168-409: The front to give a more direct view of the movie screen. Movies are usually viewed through the car windscreen (windshield) although some people prefer to sit on the bonnet (hood) of the car. Some may also sit in the trunk (back) of their car if space permits. Sound is either provided through portable loudspeakers located by each parking space, or is broadcast on an FM radio frequency, to be played through
23349-510: The grounds for both live music and movies. In various Canadian cities, including Toronto , Calgary, Ottawa and Halifax , al-fresco movies projected on the walls of buildings or temporarily erected screens in parks operate during the Summer and cater to a pedestrian audience. The New Parkway Museum in Oakland, California replaces general seating with couches and coffee tables, as well as having
23530-944: The hospital , BrE to hospital ; contrast, however, AmE actress Elizabeth Taylor , BrE the actress Elizabeth Taylor ). Often, these differences are a matter of relative preferences rather than absolute rules; and most are not stable since the two varieties are constantly influencing each other, and American English is not a standardized set of dialects. Differences in orthography are also minor. The main differences are that American English usually uses spellings such as flavor for British flavour , fiber for fibre , defense for defence , analyze for analyse , license for licence , catalog for catalogue and traveling for travelling . Noah Webster popularized such spellings in America, but he did not invent most of them. Rather, "he chose already existing options on such grounds as simplicity, analogy or etymology." Other differences are due to
23711-492: The idea reached instrumentmaker Jules Duboscq , who since 1850 very successfully marketed a stereoscope with lenses in collaboration with David Brewster (he also sold Wheatstone's version with mirrors, became the French publisher for Plateau's Fantascope and offered a projector on wheels for phantasmagoria, among many other optical instruments). Duboscq patented his version of the stéréoscope on 16 February 1852, with mention of
23892-674: The influence of 18th-century Protestant Ulster Scots immigrants (known in the U.S. as the Scotch-Irish ) in Appalachia developing Appalachian English and the 20th-century Great Migration bringing African-American Vernacular English to the Great Lakes urban centers. Any phonologically unmarked North American accent falls under an umbrella known as General American. This section mostly refers to such General American features. Studies on historical usage of English in both
24073-521: The introduction of cinema, movies started to deviate more and more from live performances when filmmakers became creative with the unique possibilities that the medium provided: editing, close-ups, camera movements and special effects. The theatre form of puppetry has often been performed in front of cameras to create (children's) television shows, and is featured in some theatrical movies. It also spawned stop motion films, with puppets that seem to move all by themselves. The earliest projection of images
24254-414: The introduction of photography in 1839, it took circa 10 years before this new technique was occasionally combined with phénakisticopes and proto- zoetropes . Stereoscopic photography, which became very popular in the early 1850s, led to the belief that photography could be further developed into a perfect illusion of reality. Stereoscopic recordings with motion and colour were the logical next steps. Before
24435-438: The late 18th century onwards, but which has conversely lost prestige in the U.S. since at least the early 20th century. Non-rhoticity makes a word like car sound like cah or source like sauce . New York City and Southern accents are the most prominent regional accents of the country, as well as the most stigmatized and socially disfavored. Southern speech, strongest in southern Appalachia and certain areas of Texas,
24616-412: The late 20th century, American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide. Varieties of American English include many patterns of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and particularly spelling that are unified nationwide but distinct from other English dialects around the world. Any American or Canadian accent perceived as lacking noticeably local, ethnic, or cultural markers
24797-444: The magic lantern in 1659. Moving images were possibly projected with the magic lantern since its invention; Christiaan Huygens' 1659 sketches for slides show a skeleton taking his skull off his neck and placing it back. Techniques to add motion to the painted glass slides were described since circa 1700. These usually involved parts (for instance limbs) painted on one or more extra pieces of glass moved by hand or small mechanisms across
24978-524: The mid-1820s, mainly in attempts to measure the duration of impressions of different colours. Along the way, in 1828, he had discovered a type of abstract animation by counter-rotating lines or slits in discs (in 1829 he further developed aspects of this principle into a first prototype of what would become the anorthoscope ). In 1830, Michael Faraday published a paper about several illusions that occur in rotating cogwheels and toothed discs, coincidentally repeating some of Plateau's findings. A note added to
25159-937: The mid-2010s to refer to auditoriums with high-end amenities. PLF does not refer to a single format in general, but combinations of non-proprietary amenities such as larger "wall-to-wall" screens, 4K projectors, 7.1 and/or positional surround sound systems (including Dolby Atmos ), and higher-quality seating (such as leather recliners). Cinemas typically brand PLF auditoriums with chain-specific trademarks , such as "Prime" ( AMC ), "Grand Screen” ( B&B Theatres ), "BTX" ( Bow Tie ), "Superscreen" ( Cineworld ), "BigD" ( Carmike , now owned by AMC), "UltraAVX" ( Cineplex ), "Macro XE" ( Cinépolis ), "XD" ( Cinemark ), "BigPix" ( INOX ), "Laser Ultra" ( Kinepolis and Landmark Cinemas ), "RPX" ( Regal Cinemas ), "Superscreen DLX"/"Ultrascreen DLX" ( Marcus ), "Titan" ( Reading Cinemas ), "VueXtreme" ( Vue International ), and "X-land" ( Wanda Cinemas ). PLFs compete primarily with formats such as digital IMAX;
25340-427: The mid-nineteenth century onwards, so they "are now more different from each other than they were 50 or 100 years ago", while other accents, like of New York City and Boston, have remained stable in that same time-frame. However, a General American sound system also has some debated degree of influence nationwide, for example, gradually beginning to oust the regional accent in urban areas of the South and at least some in
25521-617: The most formal contexts, and regional accents with the most General American native features include North Midland, Western New England, and Western accents. Although no longer region-specific, African-American Vernacular English , which remains the native variety of most working- and middle-class African Americans , has a close relationship to Southern dialects and has greatly influenced everyday speech of many Americans, including hip hop culture . Hispanic and Latino Americans have also developed native-speaker varieties of English. The best-studied Latino Englishes are Chicano English , spoken in
25702-415: The motion by hand, while the projected image in cinema is intangible. Such devices as the zoetrope were not replaced by cinema: they were still used after the breakthrough of film. Furthermore, many early media examples are also part of a tradition that not only shaped cinema, but also home video , video games , computer-generated imagery , virtual reality and much more. The study of early media devices
25883-413: The necessary photographic emulsions and mechanics were fast enough to capture a photographic sequence in real-time, early attempts recorded simulated motion sequences by photographing different poses or positions separately. This technique would eventually become known as stop motion (for lifeless objects) or pixilation (for living actors). In 1849, Joseph Plateau published a note about improvements for
26064-781: The other slide. Another use of dissolving views, projected with a triple lantern, showed a sleeping figure while images of dreams were superimposed above its head and dissolved from one scene to another. This is similar to the use of a dissolve in film. Between the 1840s and 1870s several abstract magic lantern effects were developed. This included the chromatrope which projected dazzling colorful geometrical patterns by rotating two painted glass discs in opposite directions. Occasionally small jointed shadow puppets had been used in phantasmagoria shows. Magic lantern slides with jointed figures set in motion by levers, thin rods, or cams and worm wheels were also produced commercially and patented in 1891. A popular version of these "Fantoccini slides" had
26245-405: The outside. One version was built inside a peep-box and had a lens focusing a light-beam to project the image on a frosted glass screen. Another design combined two zoetropes with Wheatstone's reflecting stereoscope in between. On 27 February 1860, Peter Hubert Desvignes received British patent no. 537 for 28 monocular and stereoscopic variations of cylindrical stroboscopic devices. This included
26426-512: The paper discussed a disc that in addition to the teeth in the circumference had a different amount of holes regularly spaced across a circular zone closer to the center of the disc, representing the cogs of a smaller wheel. When looking into a mirror through the spaces in between the teeth, the holes appeared to be moving across the disc (or vice versa if looking through the holes). By November or December 1832, Plateau had experimentally managed to further develop Faraday's rotating cogs illusion into
26607-402: The past forms of a few verbs (for example, AmE/BrE: learned / learnt , burned / burnt , snuck/sneaked , dove/dived ) although the purportedly "British" forms can occasionally be seen in American English writing as well; different prepositions and adverbs in certain contexts (for example, AmE in school, BrE at school ); and whether or not a definite article is used, in very few cases (AmE to
26788-544: The people in the theater; a show, a spectacle", [or] literally "place for viewing". The use of the word "theatre" to mean a "building where plays are shown" dates from the 1570s in the English language. Movie theatres stand in a long tradition of theaters that could house all kinds of entertainment. Some forms of theatrical entertainment would involve the screening of moving images and can be regarded as precursors of film . In 1799, Étienne-Gaspard "Robertson" Robert moved his Phantasmagorie show to an abandoned cloister near
26969-512: The popularity of such shows in France. The earliest public film screenings took place in existing (vaudeville) theatres and other venues that could be darkened and comfortably house an audience. Émile Reynaud screened his Pantomimes Lumineuses animated movies from 28 October 1892 to March 1900 at the Musée Grévin in Paris, with his Théâtre Optique system. He gave over 12,800 shows to
27150-694: The preferred spelling, while in the UK, Australia, Canada and elsewhere it is theatre . However, some US theaters opt to use the British spelling in their own names, a practice supported by the National Association of Theatre Owners , while apart from Anglophone North America most English-speaking countries use the term cinema / ˈ s ɪ n ɪ m ə / , alternatively spelled and pronounced kinema / ˈ k ɪ n ɪ m ə / . The latter terms, as well as their derivative adjectives "cinematic" and "kinematic", ultimately derive from Greek κίνημα, κινήματος ( kinema , kinematos )—"movement, motion". In
27331-554: The same items would repeat throughout the day, with patrons arriving and departing at any time rather than having distinct entrance and exit cycles. Newsreels gradually became obsolete by the 1960s with the rise of television news, and most material now shown prior to a feature film is of a commercial or promotional nature (which usually include " trailers ", which are advertisements for films and commercials for other consumer products or services). A typical modern theater presents commercial advertising shorts , then movie trailers, and then
27512-590: The same staff needed for one through careful management of the start times for each movie. Ward Parkway Center in Kansas City, Missouri had the first multiplex cinema in the United States. Since the 1960s, multiple-screen theaters have become the norm, and many existing venues have been retrofitted so that they have multiple auditoriums. A single foyer area is shared among them. In the 1970s, many large 1920s movie palaces were converted into multiple screen venues by dividing their large auditoriums, and sometimes even
27693-479: The same time, with greatly improved image quality. A screen behind the translucent disc blocked the light, except for a cutout trapezoid area that corresponded with the space where the figures were visible at the proper position. A gear system for the rotation ensured that the image would appear in the right area. Plateau used the translucency of the disc to create light effects in the designs. One extant disc, made in collaboration with painter Jean Baptiste Madou , shows
27874-477: The screen, provided they do not lean toward one another. " Stadium seating ", popular in modern multiplexes, actually dates back to the 1920s. The 1922 Princess Theatre in Honolulu, Hawaii featured "stadium seating", sharply raked rows of seats extending from in front of the screen back towards the ceiling. It gives patrons a clear sight line over the heads of those seated in front of them. Modern "stadium seating"
28055-490: The setup. In this edition, Della Porta also described a way to scare people at night by projecting a scary image lit by torches in one room onto a white sheet or other surface in the dark nascent room. In a more elaborate daytime use of the camera obscura Della Porta proposed to project hunting scenes, banquets, battles, plays, or anything desired on white sheets. Trees, forests, rivers, mountains "that are really so, or made by Art, of Wood, or some other matter" could be arranged on
28236-413: The stage space, into smaller theaters. Because of their size, and amenities like plush seating and extensive food/beverage service, multiplexes and megaplexes draw from a larger geographic area than smaller theaters. As a rule of thumb, they pull audiences from an eight to 12-mile radius, versus a three to five-mile radius for smaller theaters (though the size of this radius depends on population density). As
28417-402: The system used, these are typically polarized glasses . Three-dimensional movies use two images channeled, respectively, to the right and left eyes to simulate depth by using 3D glasses with red and blue lenses (anaglyph), polarized (linear and circular), and other techniques. 3D glasses deliver the proper image to the proper eye and make the image appear to "pop-out" at the viewer and even follow
28598-570: The traditional standard accent of (southern) England, Received Pronunciation (RP), has evolved a trap–bath split . Moreover, American accents preserve /h/ at the start of syllables, while perhaps a majority of the regional dialects of England participate in /h/ dropping , particularly in informal contexts. However, General American is also innovative in a number of its own ways: The process of coining new lexical items started as soon as English-speaking British-American colonists began borrowing names for unfamiliar flora, fauna, and topography from
28779-567: The use of common " off-the-shelf " components and an in-house brand removes the need to pay licensing fees to a third-party for a proprietary large format. Although the term is synonymous with exhibitor-specific brands, some PLFs are franchised. Dolby franchises Dolby Cinema , which is based on technologies such as Atmos and Dolby Vision . CJ CGV franchises the 4DX and ScreenX formats. In some theaters, seating can be dynamically moved via haptic motion technology called D-BOX . In digital cinema , D-BOX codes for motion control are stored in
28960-417: The verb-and-preposition combination: stopover, lineup, tryout, spin-off, shootout , holdup, hideout, comeback, makeover , and many more. Some prepositional and phrasal verbs are in fact of American origin ( win out, hold up, back up/off/down/out, face up to and many others). Noun endings such as -ee (retiree), -ery (bakery), -ster (gangster) and -cian (beautician) are also particularly productive in
29141-495: The very similar stroboscopische Scheiben ("stroboscopic discs") in Austria. Stampfer mentioned several possible variations, including a cylinder (similar to the later zoetrope ) as well as a long, looped strip of paper or canvas stretched around two parallel rollers (somewhat similar to film) and a theater-like frame (much like the later praxinoscope theatre). The stroboscopic disc was followed by other animation toys, such as
29322-470: The viewer when he/she moves so viewers relatively see the same image. The earliest 3D movies were presented in the 1920s. There have been several prior "waves" of 3D movie distribution, most notably in the 1950s when they were promoted as a way to offer audiences something that they could not see at home on television. Still the process faded quickly and as yet has never been more than a periodic novelty in movie presentation. The "golden era" of 3D film began in
29503-775: The word corn , used in England to refer to wheat (or any cereal), came to denote the maize plant, the most important crop in the U.S. Most Mexican Spanish contributions came after the War of 1812 , with the opening of the West, like ranch (now a common house style ). Due to Mexican culinary influence, many Spanish words are incorporated in general use when talking about certain popular dishes: cilantro (instead of coriander), queso, tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, tostadas, fajitas, burritos, and guacamole. These words usually lack an English equivalent and are found in popular restaurants. New forms of dwelling created new terms ( lot , waterfront) and types of homes like log cabin , adobe in
29684-438: Was a theatre owner and illusionist who treated film as a means to create spectacles that were even more impressive than stage shows, with lavish stage designs and special effects . The popular féerie theatre shows had often featured stage machinery for special effects (such as smoke, moving props, changeable set pieces) and magic tricks, but film allowed new tricks that were impossible to perform live on stage. A few years after
29865-574: Was actually produced, but it wasn't very successful commercially. Only one extant disc is known, from the Joseph Plateau estate kept at the Ghent University. It has stereoscopic sets of a sequence of photographic images of a machine in action. No original viewing device has resurfaced, but parts of it are known from an illustration in an 1853 advertisement. In 1851, Antoine Claudet wrote to French magazine La Lumière in response to
30046-565: Was clearly a hypothetical allegory. Shadow puppetry was possibly developed in India around 200 BCE, but also has a long history in Indonesia (records relating to Wayang since 840 CE), Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, China (records since around 1000 CE) and Nepal. It later spread to the Ottoman empire and seems not to have reached Europe before the 17th century. It became very popular in France at
30227-643: Was closed in 1977 and the building was demolished in 1993. The "Centre Culturel Claude Berri" was built in 1995; it integrates a new movie theater (the Idéal Cinéma Jacques Tati). In the United States, many small and simple theaters were set up, usually in converted storefronts. They typically charged five cents for admission, and thus became known as nickelodeons . This type of theatre flourished from about 1905 to circa 1915. The Korsør Biograf Teater, in Korsør , Denmark, opened in August 1908 and
30408-530: Was first used in 1896 and "theater", which originated in the "...late 14c., [meaning an] open air place in ancient times for viewing spectacles and plays". The term "theater" comes from the Old French word "theatre", from the 12th century and "...directly from Latin theatrum [which meant] 'play-house, theater; stage; spectators in a theater'", which in turn came from the Greek word "theatron", which meant "theater;
30589-480: Was handheld to move the projection across the screen (which was usually an almost invisible transparent screen behind which the lanternist operated hidden in the dark). A ghost could seem to approach the audience or grow larger by moving the lantern towards the screen, sometimes with the lantern on a trolley on rails, just like a tracking shot in films. Multiple lanterns not only could make ghosts move independently, but were also occasionally used for superimposition in
30770-648: Was later, at least since 1918, exploited as the full-time movie theatre Pankower Lichtspiele and between 1925 and 1994 as Tivoli. The first certain commercial screenings by the Skladanowsky brothers took place at the Wintergarten in Berlin from 1 to 31 November 1895. The first commercial, public screening of films made with Louis and Auguste Lumière 's Cinématographe took place in the basement of Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris on 28 December 1895. During
30951-549: Was most likely done in primitive shadowgraphy dating back to prehistory. It evolved into more refined forms of shadow puppetry , mostly with flat jointed cut-out figures which are held between a source of light and a translucent screen. The shapes of the puppets sometimes include translucent color or other types of detailing. Plato seemed to hint at shadow puppetry in his Allegory of the Cave (circa 380 BCE) but no other signs of shadow play in ancient Greece are known and Plato's idea
31132-506: Was mostly well-received, but the flickering quality of the stroboscopic images was occasionally criticized. Franz von Uchatius developed two different phenakisticope-based projectors. An 1851 oil lamp version only managed to project weak six inch images. A later limelight variation was demonstrated to the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 1853, with plans to construct a similar apparatus with 100 lenses for 100 images to create
31313-619: Was opened on 14 April 1894, by the Holland Bros. in New York City at 1155 Broadway, on the corner of 27th Street. This can be regarded as the first commercial motion picture house. The venue had ten machines, set up in parallel rows of five, each showing a different movie. For 25 cents a viewer could see all the films in either row; half a dollar gave access to the entire bill. The Eidoloscope , devised by Eugene Augustin Lauste for
31494-427: Was photographed with wooden models, with a bit of white wool round a bendable wire representing smoke coming from a cottage chimney, a paper flag and mill fans of wood. The instrument "excited considerable interest" at this presentation. Around 1865, a disc with nine oval photographic images of Jan Evangelista Purkyně (1787–1869) turning around was probably created by the physiologist himself. Purkyně reportedly used
31675-409: Was presented by Austrian magician Ludwig Döbler on 15 January 1847 at the Josephstadt Theatre in Vienna , with his patented Phantaskop. The animated spectacle was part of a well-received show that sold out in several European cities during a tour that lasted until the spring of 1848. The famous Parisian entertainment venue Le Chat Noir opened in 1881 and is remembered for its shadow plays , renewing
31856-413: Was projected from its own a intermittent spur geared rotating disk with 16 photographic images. The only known extant disk repeated four images of a waltzing couple four times and was played with appropriate musical accompaniment of a 40-person orchestra. A disk depicting a Brother Jonathan speech was voiced live by an actor, and the other disc showed a jumping Japanese acrobat. Heyl's only known other show
32037-442: Was quite common that a showman would provide dramatic narration, while occasionally pulling a string or operate another type of simple mechanism to change backgrounds, move figures around, or introduce new elements. Leon Battista Alberti is thought to have created the earliest impressive peep show boxes around 1437. His painted pictures may have been lit from behind with special effects as seen in later examples, for instance to change
32218-502: Was really an optical trick. Although there seem to be few records of the camera obscura being used for such elaborate spectacles, the scarier kind of "magic" was probably more or less commonplace by the start of the seventeenth century, mainly with actors portraying the devil, demons, witches or ghosts. In 1572, the oldest known suggestion for the camera to become mobile was described as a lightweight wooden hut to be carried around on two wooden poles. More practical solutions followed in
32399-425: Was successful. Instrument maker Francis Herbert Wenham (or possibly a lesser known Frederic Wenham) would claim in 1895 that he had already made a series of ten stereoscopic images to be viewed on two phenakistiscopes in 1852. In 1855, Johann Nepomuk Czermak 's published an article about his Stereophoroskop and other experiments aimed at stereoscopic moving images. He mentioned a method of sticking needles in
32580-508: Was utilized in IMAX theaters, which have very tall screens, beginning in the early 1970s. Rows of seats are divided by one or more aisles so that there are seldom more than 20 seats in a row. This allows easier access to seating, as the space between rows is very narrow. Depending on the angle of rake of the seats, the aisles have steps. In older theaters, aisle lights were often built into the end seats of each row to help patrons find their way in
32761-469: Was written by Noah Webster in 1828, codifying several of these spellings. Differences in grammar are relatively minor, and do not normally affect mutual intelligibility; these include: typically a lack of differentiation between adjectives and adverbs, employing the equivalent adjectives as adverbs he ran quick / he ran quickly ; different use of some auxiliary verbs ; formal (rather than notional) agreement with collective nouns ; different preferences for
#552447