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103-497: The Laurel Awards were American cinema awards that honored films , actors , actresses, producers , directors , and composers . This award was created by the Motion Picture Exhibitor magazine, and ran from 1948 to 1971 (with the exception of 1969). The winners of Laurel Awards were determined by both American and Canadian film buyers. After the vote, the results were published in the magazine and each winner

206-665: A "completely immobile image of a little perfectly regular horse" when rotated in front of a mirror. After several attempts and many difficulties he constructed a working model of the phénakisticope in November or December 1832. Plateau published his invention in a 20 January 1833 letter to Correspondance Mathématique et Physique . He believed that if the manner of producing the illusions could be somehow modified, they could be put to other uses, "for example, in phantasmagoria ". Stampfer read about Faraday's findings in December 1832 and

309-688: A Film would probably be about the aesthetics or theory of film, while a book entitled Let's Go to the Movies would probably be about the history of entertaining movies and blockbusters . Phenakistiscope When it was introduced in the French newspaper Le Figaro in June 1833, the term 'phénakisticope' was explained to be from the root Greek word φενακιστικός phenakistikos (or rather from φενακίζειν phenakizein ), meaning "deceiving" or "cheating", and ὄψ óps , meaning "eye" or "face", so it

412-475: A French import license on 28 May 1833 for 'Le Phénakisticope' and were granted one on 5 August 1833. They had a first set of 12 single sided discs available before the end of June 1833. Before the end of December 1833 they released two more sets. By 16 June 1833, Joh. Val. Albert published Die belebte Wunderscheibe in Frankfurt and soon marketed internationally. This version had uncut discs with pictures and

515-611: A coin-operated peep-box Electrotachyscope model were manufactured by Siemens & Halske in Berlin and sold internationally. Nearly 34,000 people paid to see it at the Berlin Exhibition Park in the summer of 1892. Others saw it in London or at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair . On 25 November 1894, Anschütz introduced a Electrotachyscope projector with a 6x8 meter screening in Berlin. Between 22 February and 30 March 1895,

618-474: A contract that called for an annual salary of one million dollars. From 1931 to 1956, film was also the only image storage and playback system for television programming until the introduction of videotape recorders . In the United States, much of the film industry is centered around Hollywood, California . Other regional centers exist in many parts of the world, such as Mumbai -centered Bollywood ,

721-421: A day or two to formulate their opinions. Despite this, critics have an important impact on the audience response and attendance at films, especially those of certain genres . Mass marketed action , horror , and comedy films tend not to be greatly affected by a critic's overall judgment of a film. The plot summary and description of a film and the assessment of the director's and screenwriters' work that makes up

824-540: A few decades before it was successfully combined with a method to record series of sequential images in real-time. In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge eventually managed to take a series of photographs of a running horse with a battery of cameras in a line along the track and published the results as The Horse in Motion on cabinet cards . Muybridge, as well as Étienne-Jules Marey , Ottomar Anschütz and many others, would create many more chronophotography studies. Muybridge had

927-512: A first model for him which could only project images of a few inches in diameter. A more successful second model by Prokesch had a stationary disc with transparent pictures with a separate lens for each picture focused on the same spot on a screen. A limelight revolved rapidly behind the disc to project the sequential images one by one in succession. This model was demonstrated to the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 1853. Prokesch marketed

1030-551: A flashing soda can during a screening). These fields may further create derivative fields, such as a movie review section in a newspaper or a television guide. Sub-industries can spin off from film, such as popcorn makers, and film-related toys (e.g., Star Wars figures ). Sub-industries of pre-existing industries may deal specifically with film, such as product placement and other advertising within films. The terminology used for describing motion pictures varies considerably between British and American English . In British usage,

1133-524: 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. Henry Renno Heyl presented his Phasmatrope on 5 February 1870 at the Philadelphia Academy of Music . This modified magic lantern had

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1236-486: A mirror more simple. By February 1833 he had prepared six double-sided discs, which were later published by Trentsensky & Vieweg. Matthias Trentsensky and Stampfer were granted an Austrian patent (Kaiserlichen königlichen Privilegium) for the discs on 7 May 1833. Publisher and Plateau's doctoral adviser Adolphe Quetelet claimed to have received a working model to present to Faraday as early as November 1832. Plateau mentioned in 1836 that he thought it difficult to state

1339-764: A more dynamic and engaging experience for the viewer. The development of scene construction through mise-en-scène , editing, and special effects led to more sophisticated techniques that can be compared to those utilized in opera and ballet. The French New Wave movement of the late 1950s and 1960s also embraced the montage technique, with filmmakers such as Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut using montage to create distinctive and innovative films. This approach continues to be influential in contemporary cinema, with directors employing montage to create memorable sequences in their films. In contemporary cinema, montage continues to play an essential role in shaping narratives and creating emotional resonance. Filmmakers have adapted

1442-549: A name for the device when he first published about it in January 1833. Later in 1833 he used 'phénakisticope' in an article to refer to the published versions that he was not involved with. By then, he had an authorized set published first as Phantasmascope (by Ackermann in London), which some months later was changed into Fantascope for a new edition and sets by other animators. In many writings and presentations Plateau used both

1545-425: A new section or sequence within a film. This technique can be used to convey a narrative or to create an emotional or intellectual effect by juxtaposing different shots, often for the purpose of condensing time, space, or information. Montage can involve flashbacks , parallel action, or the interplay of various visual elements to enhance the storytelling or create symbolic meaning . The concept of montage emerged in

1648-555: A normal picture when it is spun fast and seen through the four radial slits of a counter-rotating black disc. This invention was later marketed, for instance by Newton & Co in London. On 10 December 1830 Michael Faraday presented a paper at the Royal Institution of Great Britain called On a Peculiar Class of Optical Deceptions about the optical illusions that could be found in rotating wheels. He referred to Roget's paper and described his associated new findings. Much

1751-466: A projection before 1882. He then further developed the device into the Théâtre Optique which could project longer sequences with separate backgrounds, patented in 1888. He created several movies for the machine by painting images on hundreds of gelatin plates that were mounted into cardboard frames and attached to a cloth band. From 28 October 1892 to March 1900 Reynaud gave over 12,800 shows to

1854-562: A relationship between the content in the separate shots in the minds of the viewer. It is this relationship that makes all film storytelling possible. In a simple example, if a person is shown looking out a window, whatever the next shot shows, it will be regarded as the view the person was seeing.) Each scene was a single stationary shot with the action occurring before it. The scenes were later broken up into multiple shots photographed from different distances and angles. Other techniques such as camera movement were developed as effective ways to tell

1957-476: A separate larger disc with round holes. The set of Die Belebte Wunderscheibe in Dick Balzer's collection shows several discs with designs that are very similar to those of Stampfer and about half of them are also very similar to those of Giroux's first set. It is unclear where these early designs (other than Stampfer's) originated, but many of them would be repeated on many discs of many other publishers. It

2060-526: A source of profit almost as soon as the process was invented. Upon seeing how successful their new invention, and its product, was in their native France, the Lumières quickly set about touring the Continent to exhibit the first films privately to royalty and publicly to the masses. In each country, they would normally add new, local scenes to their catalogue and, quickly enough, found local entrepreneurs in

2163-403: A standard name through encyclopedias, for instance in A Dictionary of Science, Literature, & Art (London, 1842) Iconographic Encyclopaedia of Science, Literature, and Art (New York, 1852). The phénakistiscope usually comes in the form of a spinning cardboard disc attached vertically to a handle. Arrayed radially around the disc's center is a series of pictures showing sequential phases of

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2266-415: A story with film. Until sound film became commercially practical in the late 1920s, motion pictures were a purely visual art , but these innovative silent films had gained a hold on the public imagination. Rather than leave audiences with only the noise of the projector as an accompaniment, theater owners hired a pianist or organist or, in large urban theaters, a full orchestra to play music that fit

2369-687: A time through "peep show" devices such as the Electrotachyscope , Kinetoscope and the Mutoscope . Not much later, exhibitors managed to project films on large screens for theatre audiences. The first public screenings of films at which admission was charged were made in 1895 by the American Woodville Latham and his sons, using films produced by their Eidoloscope company, by the Skladanowsky brothers and by

2472-425: A time. The pictures of the phénakisticope became distorted when spun fast enough to produce the illusion of movement; they appeared a bit slimmer and were slightly curved. Sometimes animators drew an opposite distortion in their pictures to compensate for this. However, most animations were not intended to give a realistic representation and the distortion isn't very obvious in cartoonish pictures. The distortion and

2575-531: A total of circa 7,000 paying customers came to view a 1.5-hour show of some 40 scenes at a 300-seat hall in the old Reichstag building in Berlin. Émile Reynaud already mentioned the possibility of projecting the images of the Praxinoscope in his 1877 patent application. He presented a praxinoscope projection device at the Société française de photographie on 4 June 1880, but did not market his praxinoscope

2678-516: A total of over 500,000 visitors at the Musée Grévin in Paris. By the end of the 1880s, the introduction of lengths of celluloid photographic film and the invention of motion picture cameras , which could photograph a rapid sequence of images using only one lens, allowed action to be captured and stored on a single compact reel of film. Movies were initially shown publicly to one person at

2781-652: A transparent disc was made by Englishman T.W. Naylor in 1843 in the Mechanical's Magazine – Volume 38 . His letter was illustrated with a detailed side view of the device. Naylor suggested tracing the pictures of available phenakisticopes onto glass with transparent paint and painting the rest black. Nothing else is known of Naylor or his machine. Franz von Uchatius possibly read about Naylor's idea in German or Austrian technical journals and started to develop his own version around 1851. Instrument maker Wenzel Prokesch made

2884-474: A valid fine art . André Bazin reacted against this theory by arguing that film's artistic essence lay in its ability to mechanically reproduce reality, not in its differences from reality, and this gave rise to realist theory . More recent analysis spurred by Jacques Lacan 's psychoanalysis and Ferdinand de Saussure 's semiotics among other things has given rise to psychoanalytic film theory , structuralist film theory , feminist film theory , and others. On

2987-470: A wheel that could hold 16 photographic slides and a shutter. The wheel was rotated in front of the light source by an intermittent mechanism to project the slides successively (probably with a speed of 3 fps ). The program contained three subjects: All Right (a popular Japanese acrobat), Brother Jonathan and a waltzing couple. Brother Jonathan addressed the audience with a voice actor behind the screen and professed that "this art will rapidly develop into one of

3090-483: A wooden stand with a hand-cranked mechanism to spin the disc. Several phénakisticope projectors with glass discs were produced and marketed since the 1850s. Joseph Plateau created a combination of his phénakisticope and his Anorthoscope sometime between 1844 and 1849, resulting in a back-lit transparent disc with a sequence of figures that are animated when it is rotated behind a counter-rotating black disc with four illuminated slits, spinning four times as fast. Unlike

3193-411: Is having a shot that zooms in on the forehead of an actor with an expression of silent reflection that cuts to a shot of a younger actor who vaguely resembles the first actor, indicating that the first person is remembering a past self, an edit of compositions that causes a time transition. Montage is a film editing technique in which separate pieces of film are selected, edited, and assembled to create

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3296-446: Is the greatest director , the one who invented a new language , true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream." An example of the language is a sequence of back and forth images of one speaking actor's left profile, followed by another speaking actor's right profile, then a repetition of this, which is a language understood by the audience to indicate a conversation. This describes another theory of film,

3399-481: Is unlikely that much of this copying was done with any licensing between companies or artists. Joseph Plateau and Simon Stampfer both complained around July 1833 that the designs of the discs they had seen around (besides their own) were poorly executed and they did not want to be associated with them. The phénakisticope became very popular and soon there were very many other publishers releasing discs with numerous names, including: After its commercial introduction by

3502-437: Is used to refer to either filmmaking , the film industry , the overall art form, or a movie theater . The moving images of a film are created by photographing actual scenes with a motion-picture camera , by photographing drawings or miniature models using traditional animation techniques, by means of CGI and computer animation , or by a combination of some or all of these techniques, and other visual effects . Before

3605-460: The 180-degree rule , as a visual story-telling device with an ability to place a viewer in a context of being psychologically present through the use of visual composition and editing. The " Hollywood style " includes this narrative theory, due to the overwhelming practice of the rule by movie studios based in Hollywood, California, during film's classical era. Another example of cinematic language

3708-545: The French New Wave , New German Cinema wave, Indian New Wave , Japanese New Wave , New Hollywood , and Egyptian New Wave ) and the rise of film-school-educated independent filmmakers contributed to the changes the medium experienced in the latter half of the 20th century. Digital technology has been the driving force for change throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s. Digital 3D projection largely replaced earlier problem-prone 3D film systems and has become popular in

3811-802: The Indian film industry's Hindi cinema which produces the largest number of films in the world. Though the expense involved in making films 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 , an example being Kevin Costner 's Waterworld . Yet many filmmakers strive to create works of lasting social significance. The Academy Awards (also known as "the Oscars") are

3914-538: The Milton Bradley Company , the Zoetrope (patented in 1867) soon became the more popular animation device and consequently fewer phénakisticopes were produced. Many versions of the phénakisticope used smaller illustrated uncut cardboard discs that had to be placed on a larger slotted disc. A common variant had the illustrated disc on one end of a brass axis and the slotted disc on the other end; this

4017-438: The 1840s and commercial success since the early 1850s, raised interest in completing the photographic medium with the addition of means to capture colour and motion. In 1849, Joseph Plateau published about the idea to combine his invention of the phénakisticope with the stereoscope, as suggested to him by stereoscope inventor Charles Wheatstone , and to use photographs of plaster sculptures in different positions to be animated in

4120-427: The 1890s. Photography was introduced in 1839, but initially photographic emulsions needed such long exposures that the recording of moving subjects seemed impossible. At least as early as 1844, photographic series of subjects posed in different positions were created to either suggest a motion sequence or document a range of different viewing angles. The advent of stereoscopic photography, with early experiments in

4223-432: The 1920s, with pioneering Soviet filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein and Lev Kuleshov developing the theory of montage. Eisenstein's film Battleship Potemkin (1925) is a prime example of the innovative use of montage, where he employed complex juxtapositions of images to create a visceral impact on the audience. As the art of montage evolved, filmmakers began incorporating musical and visual counterpoint to create

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4326-686: The 2000s is so intense, well-coordinated and well financed that reviewers cannot prevent a poorly written or filmed blockbuster from attaining market success. However, the cataclysmic failure of some heavily promoted films which were harshly reviewed, as well as the unexpected success of critically praised independent films indicates that extreme critical reactions can have considerable influence. Other observers note that positive film reviews have been shown to spark interest in little-known films. Conversely, there have been several films in which film companies have so little confidence that they refuse to give reviewers an advanced viewing to avoid widespread panning of

4429-508: The Dolby A noise reduction system, which became a standard in the recording industry and eliminated the hissing sound associated with earlier standardization efforts. Dolby Stereo , a revolutionary surround sound system, followed and allowed cinema designers to take acoustics into consideration when designing theaters. This innovation enabled audiences in smaller venues to enjoy comparable audio experiences to those in larger city theaters. Today,

4532-458: The United States is "movie", while in Europe , "film" is preferred. Archaic terms include "animated pictures" and "animated photography". "Flick" is, in general a slang term, first recorded in 1926. It originates in the verb flicker, owing to the flickering appearance of early films. Common terms for the field, in general, include "the big screen", "the movies", "the silver screen", and "cinema";

4635-402: The United States, movie is the predominant term for the medium. Although the words film and movie are sometimes used interchangeably, film is more often used when considering artistic , theoretical , or technical aspects. The term movies more often refers to entertainment or commercial aspects, as where to go for fun evening on a date. For example, a book titled How to Understand

4738-433: The animation. Small rectangular apertures are spaced evenly around the rim of the disc. The user would spin the disc and look through the moving slits at the images reflected in a mirror. The scanning of the slits across the reflected images keeps them from simply blurring together so that the user can see a rapid succession of images that appear to be a single moving picture. When there is the same number of images as slots,

4841-498: The appearance of the spokes of a wheel when seen through vertical apertures which addressed the same illusion. Plateau decided to investigate the phenomenon further and later published his findings in Correspondance Mathématique et Physique in 1828. In a letter to the same scientific periodical dated December 5, 1829 he presented his (still nameless) Anorthoscope , a disc that turns an anamorphic picture into

4944-479: The chronophotography works of Muybridge and Étienne-Jules Marey . In 1886, Anschütz developed the Electrotachyscope , an early device that displayed short motion picture loops with 24 glass plate photographs on a 1.5 meter wide rotating wheel that was hand-cranked to a speed of circa 30 frames per second. Different versions were shown at many international exhibitions, fairs, conventions, and arcades from 1887 until at least 1894. Starting in 1891, some 152 examples of

5047-552: The combined device. In 1852, Jules Duboscq patented such an instrument as the "Stéréoscope-fantascope, ou Bïoscope", but he only marketed it very briefly, without success. One Bïoscope disc with stereoscopic photographs of a machine is in the Plateau collection of Ghent University, but no instruments or other discs have yet been found. By the late 1850s the first examples of instantaneous photography came about and provided hope that motion photography would soon be possible, but it took

5150-403: The contours of dozens of his chronophotographic series traced onto glass discs and projected them with his zoopraxiscope in his lectures from 1880 to 1895. Anschütz made his first instantaneous photographs in 1881. He developed a portable camera that allowed shutter speeds as short as 1/1000 of a second in 1882. The quality of his pictures was generally regarded as much higher than that of

5253-399: The disc or the mirror with a cut-out sheet of cardboard so that one sees only one of the moving figures and painting theatrical coulisses and backdrops around the cut-out part (somewhat similar to the later Praxinoscope-Theatre). Stampfer also mentioned a version which has a disc with pictures on one end and a slotted disc on the other side of an axis, but he found spinning the disc in front of

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5356-593: The early 2010s. " Film theory " seeks to develop concise and systematic concepts that apply to the study of film as art . The concept of film as an art-form began in 1911 with Ricciotto Canudo 's manifest The Birth of the Sixth Art . The Moscow Film School , the oldest film school in the world, was founded in 1919, in order to teach about and research film theory. Formalist film theory , led by Rudolf Arnheim , Béla Balázs , and Siegfried Kracauer , emphasized how film differed from reality and thus could be considered

5459-808: The exact time when he got the idea, but he believed he was first able to successfully assemble his invention in December. He stated to trust the assertion of Stampfer to have invented his version at the same time. Peter Mark Roget claimed in 1834 to have constructed several phénakisticopes and showed them to many friends as early as in the spring of 1831, but as a consequence of more serious occupations he did not get around to publishing any account of his invention. According to Mathias Trentsensky, of art dealer and publishing company Trentsensky & Vieweg, Stampfer had prepared six double-sided discs as early as February 1833 and had repeatedly demonstrated these to many friends. In April 1833 Trentsensky applied for an Austrian patent (k.k. Privilegium) together with Stampfer, which

5562-792: The film. However, this usually backfires, as reviewers are wise to the tactic and warn the public that the film may not be worth seeing and the films often do poorly as a result. Journalist film critics are sometimes called film reviewers. Critics who take a more academic approach to films, through publishing in film journals and writing books about films using film theory or film studies approaches, study how film and filming techniques work, and what effect they have on people. Rather than having their reviews published in newspapers or appearing on television, their articles are published in scholarly journals or up-market magazines. They also tend to be affiliated with colleges or universities as professors or instructors. The making and showing of motion pictures became

5665-448: The flicker caused by the rotating slits are not seen in most phénakisticope animations now found online (for instance the GIF animation on this page). These are usually animations created with software. These do not replicate the actual viewing experience of a phénakisticope, but they can present the work of the animators in an optimized fashion. Some miscalculated modern re-animations also have

5768-410: The future of sound in film remains uncertain, with potential influences from artificial intelligence , remastered audio, and personal viewing experiences shaping its development. However, it is clear that the evolution of sound in cinema has been marked by continuous innovation and a desire to create more immersive and engaging experiences for audiences. A significant technological advancement in film

5871-522: The future of the cinema industry, and Hollywood employment has become less reliable, particularly for medium and low-budget films. Derivative academic fields of study may both interact with and develop independently of filmmaking, as in film theory and analysis. Fields of academic study have been created that are derivative or dependent on the existence of film, such as film criticism , film history , divisions of film propaganda in authoritarian governments, or psychological on subliminal effects (e.g., of

5974-419: The glass discs he sometimes even reworked images from multiple photographs into new combinations. An entertaining example is the sequence of a man somersaulting over a bull chased by a dog. For only one disc he chose a photographic representation; the sequence of a running horse skeleton, which was probably too detailed to be painted on glass. This disc was most likely the very first time a stop motion technique

6077-585: The greatest merit for instruction and enjoyment." The pictures of the waltzing couple survived and consist of four shots of costumed dancers (Heyl and a female dancing partner) that were repeated four times in the wheel. The pictures were posed. Capturing movement with "instantaneous photography" would first be established by Eadward Muybridge in 1878. Eadward Muybridge created his Zoopraxiscope in 1879 and lectured until 1894 with this projector for glass discs on which pictures in transparent paint were derived from his chronophotographic plates. The phénakisticope

6180-414: The images will animate in a fixed position, but will not drift across the disc. Fewer images than slots and the images will drift in the opposite direction to that of the spinning disc. More images than slots and the images will drift in the same direction as the spinning disc. Unlike the zoetrope and other successors, common versions of the phénakisticope could only practically be viewed by one person at

6283-493: The innovative work of D. W. Griffith in The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916). However, in the 1920s, European filmmakers such as Eisenstein , F. W. Murnau and Fritz Lang , in many ways inspired by the meteoric wartime progress of film through Griffith, along with the contributions of Charles Chaplin , Buster Keaton and others, quickly caught up with American film-making and continued to further advance

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6386-458: The introduction of digital production, a series of still images were recorded on a strip of chemically sensitized celluloid ( photographic film stock ), usually at a rate of 24 frames per second. The images are transmitted through a movie projector at the same rate as they were recorded, with a Geneva drive ensuring that each frame remains still during its short projection time. A rotating shutter causes stroboscopic intervals of darkness, but

6489-426: The labels or on the vinyl itself. In 1956 Red Raven Movie Records started a series of 78 RPM 8" singles with animations to be viewed with a device with small mirrors similar to a praxinoscope to be placed on the center of the disc. Since 2010 audio-visual duo Sculpture has released several picture discs with very elaborate animations to be viewed under a stroboscope flashing exactly 25 times per second, or filmed with

6592-452: The last of these is commonly used, as an overarching term, in scholarly texts and critical essays. In the early years, the word "sheet" was sometimes used instead of "screen". The art of film has drawn on several earlier traditions in fields such as oral storytelling , literature , theatre and visual arts . Forms of art and entertainment that had already featured moving or projected images include: The stroboscopic animation principle

6695-441: The machine and sold one to magician Ludwig Döbler who used it in his shows that also included other magic lantern techniques, like dissolving views . From around 1853 until the 1890s J. Duboscq in Paris 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. An "Optical Instrument"

6798-461: The majority of most film reviews can still have an important impact on whether people decide to see a film. For prestige films such as most dramas and art films , the influence of reviews is important. Poor reviews from leading critics at major papers and magazines will often reduce audience interest and attendance. The impact of a reviewer on a given film's box office performance is a matter of debate. Some observers claim that movie marketing in

6901-405: The medium. In the 1920s, the development of electronic sound recording technologies made it practical to incorporate a soundtrack of speech, music and sound effects synchronized with the action on the screen. The resulting sound films were initially distinguished from the usual silent "moving pictures" or "movies" by calling them "talking pictures" or "talkies." The revolution they wrought

7004-401: The mood of the film at any given moment. By the early 1920s, most films came with a prepared list of sheet music to be used for this purpose, and complete film scores were composed for major productions. The rise of European cinema was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I , while the film industry in the United States flourished with the rise of Hollywood , typified most prominently by

7107-440: The most prominent film awards in the United States, providing recognition each year to films, based on their artistic merits. There is also a large industry for educational and instructional films made in lieu of or in addition to lectures and texts. Revenue in the industry is sometimes volatile due to the reliance on blockbuster films released in movie theaters . The rise of alternative home entertainment has raised questions about

7210-477: The name of the medium is film . The word movie is understood but seldom used. Additionally, the pictures (plural) is used somewhat frequently to refer to the place where movies are exhibited; in American English this may be called the movies , but that term is becoming outdated. In other countries, the place where movies are exhibited may be called a cinema or movie theatre . By contrast, in

7313-436: The number of films made in color gradually increased year after year. In the early 1950s, the proliferation of black-and-white television started seriously depressing North American theater attendance. In an attempt to lure audiences back into theaters, bigger screens were installed, widescreen processes, polarized 3D projection , and stereophonic sound were introduced, and more films were made in color, which soon became

7416-454: The other hand, critics from the analytical philosophy tradition, influenced by Wittgenstein , try to clarify misconceptions used in theoretical studies and produce analysis of a film's vocabulary and its link to a form of life . Film is considered to have its own language . James Monaco wrote a classic text on film theory, titled "How to Read a Film," that addresses this. Director Ingmar Bergman famously said, " Andrei Tarkovsky for me

7519-549: The phénakisticope several persons could view the animation at the same time. This system has not been commercialised; the only known two handmade discs are in the Joseph Plateau Collection of the Ghent University. Belgian painter Jean Baptiste Madou created the first images on these discs and Plateau painted the successive parts. In 1849 Joseph Plateau discussed the possibilities of combining

7622-419: The phénakisticope with the stereoscope as suggested to him by its inventor Charles Wheatstone . In 1852 Duboscq patented such a "Stéréoscope-fantascope, stéréofantscope ou Bïoscope". Of three planned variations only one was actually produced but without much success. Only one extant disc is known, which is in the Plateau collection of Ghent University. The first known plan for a phénakisticope projector with

7725-523: The rule rather than the exception. Some important mainstream Hollywood films were still being made in black-and-white as late as the mid-1960s, but they marked the end of an era. Color television receivers had been available in the US since the mid-1950s, but at first, they were very expensive and few broadcasts were in color. During the 1960s, prices gradually came down, color broadcasts became common, and sales boomed. The overwhelming public verdict in favor of color

7828-492: The same dreams and hurts, then it deserves to be called great. — Roger Ebert (1986) Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films. In general, these works can be divided into two categories: academic criticism by film scholars and journalistic film criticism that appears regularly in newspapers and other media. Film critics working for newspapers, magazines , and broadcast media mainly review new releases. Normally they only see any given film once and have only

7931-445: The slits rotating (which would appear motionless when viewed through an actual phénakisticope) and the figures moving across the discs where they were supposed to stand still (or standing still when they were supposed to move around). Most commercially produced discs are lithographic prints that were colored by hand, but also multi-color lithography and other printing techniques have been used by some manufacturers. The phenakisticope

8034-602: The spoken words, music, and other sounds ) runs along a portion of the film exclusively reserved for it, and was not projected. Contemporary films are usually fully digital through the entire process of production, distribution, and exhibition. The name "film" originally referred to the thin layer of photochemical emulsion on the celluloid strip that used to be the actual medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for an individual motion-picture, including "picture", "picture show", "moving picture", "photoplay", and "flick". The most common term in

8137-510: The street, and the view from the front of a trolley as it traveled a city's Main Street. According to legend, when a film showed a locomotive at high speed approaching the audience, the audience panicked and ran from the theater. Around the turn of the 20th century, films started stringing several scenes together to tell a story. (The filmmakers who first put several shots or scenes discovered that, when one shot follows another, that act establishes

8240-545: The subjects he illustrated was the beating of a heart. German physicist Johann Heinrich Jakob Müller published a set of 8 discs depicting several wave motions (waves of sound, air, water, etcetera) with J.V. Albert in Frankfurt in 1846. The famous English pioneer of photographic motion studies Eadweard Muybridge built a phenakisticope projector for which he had his photographs rendered as contours on glass discs. The results were not always very scientific; he often edited his photographic sequences for aesthetic reasons and for

8343-445: The television threat emerged in the 1940s and 1950s, the film industry needed to innovate to attract audiences. In terms of sound technology, this meant the development of surround sound and more sophisticated audio systems, such as Cinerama's seven-channel system. However, these advances required a large number of personnel to operate the equipment and maintain the sound experience in theaters. In 1966, Dolby Laboratories introduced

8446-499: The terms phénakisticope and fantascope , seemingly accepting phénakisticope as the better-known name and holding on to fantascope as the name he preferred. The spelling 'phenakistiscope' was possibly introduced by lithographers Forrester & Nichol in collaboration with optician John Dunn; they used the title "The Phenakistiscope, or, Magic Disc" for their box sets, as advertised in September 1833. The corrupted part 'scope'

8549-451: The traditional montage technique to suit the evolving aesthetics and storytelling styles of modern cinema. As the medium of film continues to evolve, montage remains an integral aspect of visual storytelling, with filmmakers finding new and innovative ways to employ this powerful technique. If a movie can illuminate the lives of other people who share this planet with us and show us not only how different they are but, how even so, they share

8652-564: The various countries of Europe to buy their equipment and photograph, export, import, and screen additional product commercially. The Oberammergau Passion Play of 1898 was the first commercial motion picture ever produced. Other pictures soon followed, and motion pictures became a separate industry that overshadowed the vaudeville world. Dedicated theaters and companies formed specifically to produce and distribute films, while motion picture actors became major celebrities and commanded huge fees for their performances. By 1917 Charlie Chaplin had

8755-403: The viewer does not notice the interruptions due to flicker fusion . The apparent motion on the screen is the result of the fact that the visual sense cannot discern the individual images at high speeds, so the impressions of the images blend with the dark intervals and are thus linked together to produce the illusion of one moving image. An analogous optical soundtrack (a graphic recording of

8858-420: The – arguably better known – French brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière with ten of their own productions. Private screenings had preceded these by several months, with Latham's slightly predating the otherss'. The earliest films were simply one static shot that showed an event or action with no editing or other cinematic techniques . Typical films showed employees leaving a factory gate, people walking in

8961-488: Was clear. After the final flurry of black-and-white films had been released in mid-decade, all Hollywood studio productions were filmed in color, with the usual exceptions made only at the insistence of "star" filmmakers such as Peter Bogdanovich and Martin Scorsese . The decades following the decline of the studio system in the 1960s saw changes in the production and style of film. Various New Wave movements (including

9064-406: Was given a golden plaque. Film A film , also known as a movie , is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally accompanied by sound and (less commonly) other sensory stimulations. The word "cinema" is a shortening of the word " cinematography " and

9167-809: Was granted on 7 May 1833. A first edition of four double-sided discs was soon published, but it sold out within four weeks and left them unable to ship orders. These discs probably had round holes as illustrated in an 1868 article and a 1922 reconstruction by William Day, but no original copies are known to still exist. Trentsensky & Vieweg published an improved and expanded set of eight double-sided discs with vertical slits in July 1833. English editions were published not much later with James Black and Joseph Myers & Co. A total of 28 different disc designs have been credited to Professor Stampfer. Joseph Plateau never patented his invention, but he did design his own set of six discs for Ackermann & Co in London. The series

9270-479: Was inspired to do similar experiments, which soon led to his invention of what he called Stroboscopischen Scheiben oder optischen Zauberscheiben (stroboscope discs or optical magic discs). Stampfer had thought of placing the sequence of images on either a disc, a cylinder (like the later zoetrope) or, for a greater number of images, on a long, looped strip of paper or canvas stretched around two parallel rollers (much like film reels). He also suggests covering up most of

9373-549: Was introduced in 1833 with the stroboscopic disc (better known as the phénakisticope ) and later applied in the zoetrope (since 1866), the flip book (since 1868), and the praxinoscope (since 1877), before it became the basic principle for cinematography. Experiments with early phénakisticope-based animation projectors were made at least as early as 1843 and publicly screened in 1847. Jules Duboscq marketed phénakisticope projection systems in France from c.  1853 until

9476-598: Was invented almost simultaneously around December 1832 by the Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau and the Austrian professor of practical geometry Simon Stampfer . As a university student Plateau noticed in some early experiments that when looking from a small distance at two concentric cogwheels that turned fast in opposite directions, it produced the optical illusion of a motionless wheel. He later read Peter Mark Roget 's 1824 article Explanation of an optical deception in

9579-431: Was invented through scientific research into optical illusions and published as such, but soon the device was marketed very successfully as an entertaining novelty toy. After the novelty wore off, it was mostly seen as a toy for children. Nonetheless, some scientists still regard it as a useful demonstration tool. The Czech physiologist Jan Purkyně used his version, called Phorolyt, in lectures since 1837. In 1861 one of

9682-432: Was patented in the U.S. in 1869 by O.B. Brown, using a phenakistiscope-like disc with a technique very close to the later cinematograph; with Maltese Cross motion; a star-wheel and pin being used for intermittent motion, and a two-sector shutter. Thomas Ross developed a small transparent phénakisticope system, called Wheel of life , which fitted inside a standard magic lantern slide. A first version, patented in 1869, had

9785-416: Was probably intended loosely as 'optical deception' or 'optical illusion'. The term phénakisticope was first used by the French company Alphonse Giroux et Compagnie in their application for an import license (29 May 1833) and this name was used on their box sets. Fellow Parisian publisher Junin also used the term 'phenakisticope' (both with and without the accent). Inventor Joseph Plateau did not give

9888-429: Was published in July 1833 as Phantasmascope . In October 1833, Ackermann & Co changed the name of the series to Fantascope and released two more sets of six discs each, one designed by Thomas Talbot Bury and one by Thomas Mann Baynes . In the meantime some other publishers had apparently been inspired by the first edition of Professor Stampfer's Stroboscopische Scheiben: Alphonse Giroux et Compagnie applied for

9991-468: Was similar to what Plateau had published and Faraday not only acknowledged this publicly but also corresponded with Plateau personally and sent him his paper. Some of Faraday's experiments were new to Plateau and especially the one with a fixed image produced by a turning wheel in front of the mirror inspired Plateau with the idea for new illusions. In July 1832 Plateau sent a letter to Faraday and added an experimental disc with some "anamorphoses" that produced

10094-510: Was slightly more unwieldy but needed no mirror and was claimed to produce clearer images. Fores offered an Exhibitor : a handle for two slotted discs with the pictures facing each other which allowed two viewers to look at the animations at the same time, without a mirror. A few discs had a shaped edge on the cardboard to allow for the illusion of figures crawling over the edge. Ackermann & Co published three of those discs in 1833, including one by inventor Joseph Plateau. Some versions added

10197-409: Was successfully applied. Muybridge first called his apparatus Zoogyroscope, but soon settled on the name Zoöpraxiscope. He used it in countless lectures on human and animal locomotion between 1880 and 1895. The Joseph Plateau Award , a trophy resembling a phénakisticope, was a Belgian movie award given yearly between 1985 and 2006. Several vinyl music releases have phénakistiscope-like animations on

10300-947: Was swift. By 1930, silent film was practically extinct in the US and already being referred to as "the old medium." The evolution of sound in cinema began with the idea of combining moving images with existing phonograph sound technology. Early sound-film systems, such as Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope and the Vitaphone used by Warner Bros ., laid the groundwork for synchronized sound in film. The Vitaphone system, produced alongside Bell Telephone Company and Western Electric , faced initial resistance due to expensive equipping costs, but sound in cinema gained acceptance with movies like Don Juan (1926) and The Jazz Singer (1927). American film studios, while Europe standardized on Tobis-Klangfilm and Tri-Ergon systems. This new technology allowed for greater fluidity in film, giving rise to more complex and epic movies like King Kong (1933). As

10403-458: Was the introduction of "natural color," where color was captured directly from nature through photography, as opposed to being manually added to black-and-white prints using techniques like hand-coloring or stencil-coloring. Early color processes often produced colors that appeared far from "natural". Unlike the rapid transition from silent films to sound films, color's replacement of black-and-white happened more gradually. The crucial innovation

10506-485: Was the three-strip version of the Technicolor process, first used in animated cartoons in 1932. The process was later applied to live-action short films, specific sequences in feature films, and finally, for an entire feature film, Becky Sharp, in 1935. Although the process was expensive, the positive public response, as evidenced by increased box office revenue, generally justified the additional cost. Consequently,

10609-494: Was understood to be derived from Greek 'skopos', meaning "aim", "target", "object of attention" or "watcher", "one who watches" (or rather from σκοπεῖν skopein ) and was quite common in the naming of optical devices (e.g. Telescope, Microscope, Kaleidoscope, Fantascope, Bioscope). The misspelling 'phenakistoscope' can already be found in 1835 in The American Journal of Science and Arts and later ended up as

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