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The Tokyo Comedy Store ( TCS ) is an English-language comedy show held at various venues in central Tokyo , Japan . It features stand-up comedians and improvised comedy.

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80-703: The Tokyo Comedy Store was founded in 1994 as the "Tokyo Comedy Club" by Kevin Burns. Burns gathered together stand-up comics and a hypnotist by placing many ads in the Tokyo Classifieds (now called The Metropolis ), calling for performers. The first show was held at the Tokyo American Club, and the second at the British Club in Ebisu, Tokyo. Roughly around the same time a separate group called

160-591: A Metropolis (dir. Walter Ruttmann , 1927); Man with a Movie Camera (dir. Dziga Vertov , 1929); Douro, Faina Fluvial (dir. Manoel de Oliveira , 1931); and Rhapsody in Two Languages (dir. Gordon Sparling , 1934). A city symphony film, as the name suggests, is most often based around a major metropolitan city area and seeks to capture the life, events and activities of the city. It can use abstract cinematography (Walter Ruttman's Berlin ) or may use Soviet montage theory (Dziga Vertov's, Man with

240-421: A Movie Camera ). Most importantly, a city symphony film is a form of cinepoetry , shot and edited in the style of a " symphony ". The European continental tradition ( See: Realism ) focused on humans within human-made environments, and included the so-called city symphony films such as Walter Ruttmann's, Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (of which Grierson noted in an article that Berlin, represented what

320-429: A Summer ( Jean Rouch ), Dont Look Back ( D. A. Pennebaker ), Grey Gardens ( Albert and David Maysles ), Titicut Follies ( Frederick Wiseman ), Primary and Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (both produced by Robert Drew ), Harlan County, USA (directed by Barbara Kopple ), Lonely Boy ( Wolf Koenig and Roman Kroitor ) are all frequently deemed cinéma vérité films. The fundamentals of

400-669: A black box theatre and workshop space in Shibuya-Ku, which opened in April, 2019. The school offers improv and acting lessons in Japanese, English and Spanish on a daily basis. Jun Imai directs improvised and scripted plays at Studio Gokko and teaches improv and acting classes there on a weekly basis. He is the author of five volumes on improvisation, including the long-selling “Jiyu ni naru no ha taihen na no da: Impro Manual” (It's Tough to be Free: Impro Manual). A documentary film about

480-527: A broader perspective, as a reaction against studio-based film production constraints. Shooting on location, with smaller crews, would also happen in the French New Wave , the filmmakers taking advantage of advances in technology allowing smaller, handheld cameras and synchronized sound to film events on location as they unfolded. Although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, there are important differences between cinéma vérité ( Jean Rouch ) and

560-630: A documentary should not be); Alberto Cavalcanti's, Rien que les heures; and Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera . These films tend to feature people as products of their environment, and lean towards the avant-garde. Dziga Vertov was central to the Soviet Kino-Pravda (literally, "cinematic truth") newsreel series of the 1920s. Vertov believed the camera – with its varied lenses, shot-counter shot editing, time-lapse, ability to slow motion, stop motion and fast-motion – could render reality more accurately than

640-437: A form of journalism, advocacy, or personal expression. Early film (pre-1900) was dominated by the novelty of showing an event. Single-shot moments were captured on film, such as a train entering a station, a boat docking, or factory workers leaving work. These short films were called "actuality" films; the term "documentary" was not coined until 1926. Many of the first films, such as those made by Auguste and Louis Lumière , were

720-601: A greater interest in presenting the world from perspectives closer to those of their students. Young filmmakers produced the films which encompassed racial, age-related, and inter- or intra-cultural issues. They focused on history, literature, and social sciences. Most of the films were 30 minutes, or even less, allowing a teacher to provide context before and answer questions after within a one-hour class. Many educational films shown in schools are part of long series - for example, films demonstrating scientific principles and experiments tend to be episodic, with each episode devoted to

800-450: A legitimate component of an artistic education at universities. After World War II, film became an ideal medium to carry the visual arts out of the museum, the artist's studio, and the gallery and into new locations, such as educational institutions (mainly art schools), non-theatrical venues, and, for a time, even commercial cinemas. This type of film includes non-narrated short subjects, poetry, and journalism. Educational film companies in

880-413: A live demonstration. Documentaries, used as an educational resource, are a major category of educational film. They were mostly shown in schools for educational purposes and used to introduce various topics to children. However, documentaries were also used to train teachers. By 1950, prominent educational film institutions like New York University's Educational Film Library, Columbia Teachers College, and

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960-515: A major battle and re-enact scenes to film them. The propagandist tradition consists of films made with the explicit purpose of persuading an audience of a point. One of the most celebrated and controversial propaganda films is Leni Riefenstahl 's film Triumph of the Will (1935), which chronicled the 1934 Nazi Party Congress and was commissioned by Adolf Hitler . Leftist filmmakers Joris Ivens and Henri Storck directed Borinage (1931) about

1040-437: A minute or less in length, due to technological limitations. Examples can be viewed on YouTube. Films showing many people (for example, leaving a factory) were often made for commercial reasons: the people being filmed were eager to see, for payment, the film showing them. One notable film clocked in at over an hour and a half, The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight . Using pioneering film-looping technology, Enoch J. Rector presented

1120-506: A more poetic aesthetic approach to documentary. Examples of their work include Drifters (John Grierson), Song of Ceylon (Basil Wright), Fires Were Started , and A Diary for Timothy (Humphrey Jennings). Their work involved poets such as W. H. Auden , composers such as Benjamin Britten , and writers such as J. B. Priestley . Among the best known films of the movement are Night Mail and Coal Face . Calling Mr. Smith (1943)

1200-453: A practice without clear boundaries". Early documentary films, originally called " actuality films ", briefly lasted for one minute or less. Over time, documentaries have evolved to become longer in length and to include more categories. Some examples are educational , observational and docufiction . Documentaries are very informative , and are often used within schools as a resource to teach various principles . Documentary filmmakers have

1280-436: A responsibility to be truthful to their vision of the world without intentionally misrepresenting a topic. Social media platforms (such as YouTube ) have provided an avenue for the growth of the documentary- film genre . These platforms have increased the distribution area and ease-of-accessibility. Polish writer and filmmaker Bolesław Matuszewski was among those who identified the mode of documentary film. He wrote two of

1360-490: A specific experiment or principle. Many schoolchildren in Britain in the late 1980s and early 1990s watched hundreds of episodes of British-made educational films (all very similar in style and production) over the course of their primary school careers. As a result, the delivery-style and distinctive colour-palette ("scientific" looking neutral-blue backgrounds etc.) of these films is instantly recognizable to any child of

1440-533: A spoken word performance in the first act, and a long-form musical in the first act. These are called “What’s on Your Mind?” and “Musical Premiere”, respectively. The performers are now referred to as simply “the Improvazilla cast.” The a musical Premiere is done in various genres throughout the year, including a 1940s love story for February's Valentine's Day special, and a zombie-themed musical in October for

1520-483: A way to efficiently educate the public on various topics. The government established official film studios to create educational films. In addition, the potential of educational films had been explored for educating deaf people. Captioned Films for the Deaf, also known as The Described and Captioned Media Program, was established in 1950, and created 15 volumes of Lesson Guides for Captioned Film. During World War I, both

1600-514: A wordless meditation on wartime Britain. From 1982, the Qatsi trilogy and the similar Baraka could be described as visual tone poems, with music related to the images, but no spoken content. Koyaanisqatsi (part of the Qatsi trilogy ) consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse photography of cities and many natural landscapes across the United States. Baraka tries to capture

1680-474: Is a separate area. Pathé was the best-known global manufacturer of such films in the early 20th century. A vivid example is Moscow Clad in Snow (1909). Biographical documentaries appeared during this time, such as the feature Eminescu-Veronica-Creangă (1914) on the relationship between the writers Mihai Eminescu , Veronica Micle and Ion Creangă (all deceased at the time of the production), released by

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1760-419: Is an anti-Nazi color film created by Stefan Themerson which is both a documentary and an avant-garde film against war. It was one of the first anti-Nazi films in history. Cinéma vérité (or the closely related direct cinema ) was dependent on some technical advances to exist: light, quiet and reliable cameras, and portable sync sound. Cinéma vérité and similar documentary traditions can thus be seen, in

1840-670: The Bucharest chapter of Pathé . Early color motion picture processes such as Kinemacolor (known for the feature With Our King and Queen Through India (1912)) and Prizma Color (known for Everywhere With Prizma (1919) and the five-reel feature Bali the Unknown (1921)) used travelogues to promote the new color processes. In contrast, Technicolor concentrated primarily on getting their process adopted by Hollywood studios for fiction feature films. Also during this period, Frank Hurley 's feature documentary film, South (1919) about

1920-666: The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition was released. The film documented the failed Antarctic expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in 1914. With Robert J. Flaherty 's Nanook of the North in 1922, documentary film embraced romanticism . Flaherty filmed a number of heavily staged romantic documentary films during this time period, often showing how his subjects would have lived 100 years earlier and not how they lived right then. For instance, in Nanook of

2000-539: The "Tokyo Cynics" shows, and the two groups were effectively merged. Around the same time, the name was changed to the "Tokyo Comedy Store". Since then, the Tokyo Comedy Store has held multiple shows every month at various venues. Venues come and go, and so over the year shows have come and gone, or moved locations, but there were usually between three and six shows running at any one time. Other shows around Tokyo had been organized by Dave Gutteridge, who since

2080-884: The 1920s and 1930s. These films were particularly influenced by modern art , namely Cubism , Constructivism , and Impressionism . According to art historian and author Scott MacDonald , city symphony films can be described as, "An intersection between documentary and avant-garde film: an avant-doc "; however, A.L. Rees suggests regarding them as avant-garde films. Early titles produced within this genre include: Manhatta (New York; dir. Paul Strand , 1921); Rien que les heures /Nothing But The Hours ( France ; dir. Alberto Cavalcanti , 1926); Twenty Four Dollar Island (dir. Robert J. Flaherty , 1927); Moscow (dir. Mikhail Kaufman , 1927); Études sur Paris (dir. André Sauvage , 1928); The Bridge (1928) and Rain (1929), both by Joris Ivens ; São Paulo, Sinfonia da Metrópole (dir. Adalberto Kemeny , 1929), Berlin: Symphony of

2160-486: The 1960s defaulted to a white, conservative, Christian perspective, such as Ray Garner's Ancient World: Egypt (1954) and Greece: The Golden Age (1963). Both films were composed mostly of footage of artifacts and ruins, with narration comparing them to then-current American culture. In other films, characters meant to be seen as civilized or sympathetic where played by white actors, while non-whites were cast in less desirable roles, if at all. Such filmmakers largely left out

2240-505: The 1960s: the geographical-industrial film, the travelogue, and the ethnological film. The geographical-industrial film talked about the industry and customs of foreign land. Filmmakers often included insights into the makeup of the country beyond the locations and basic statistics, describing cultures politically, socially, and economically. For the travelogue, rather than professional cinematographers, many travelers, explorers, scientists, and missionaries produced travelogues. They traveled

2320-553: The Belgian coal mining region. Luis Buñuel directed a " surrealist " documentary Las Hurdes (1933). Pare Lorentz 's The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) and The River (1938) and Willard Van Dyke 's The City (1939) are notable New Deal productions, each presenting complex combinations of social and ecological awareness, government propaganda, and leftist viewpoints. Frank Capra 's Why We Fight (1942–1944) series

2400-810: The Furnaces , from 1968), directed by Octavio Getino and Fernando Solanas , influenced a whole generation of filmmakers. Among the many political documentaries produced in the early 1970s was "Chile: A Special Report", public television's first in-depth expository look at the September 1973 overthrow of the Salvador Allende government in Chile by military leaders under Augusto Pinochet , produced by documentarians Ari Martinez and José Garcia. A June 2020 article in The New York Times reviewed

2480-822: The Halloween Special. TCS directors Chris Wells and Jun Imai teach internationally, and have been invited to teach at improv conferences in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the Americas. Chris Wells runs the Improvazilla show at the Crocodile live-house in Shibuya, attracting audiences of around 80, the vast majority of whom are non-Japanese, as well as the TCS School of Improv and Acting at Studio Gokko,

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2560-541: The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) believed that documentaries intended for children, such as A Better Tomorrow (1945), Tomorrow's a Wonderful Day (1948), and The Children's Republic (1947), were suitable for adult audiences interested in teacher training, child care and development, and even the rehabilitation of so-called delinquents. Educational film was also used as a promotional tool. For example, after World War II, teenagers why many of their educational environments separated

2640-574: The North , Flaherty did not allow his subjects to shoot a walrus with a nearby shotgun, but had them use a harpoon instead. Some of Flaherty's staging, such as building a roofless igloo for interior shots, was done to accommodate the filming technology of the time. Paramount Pictures tried to repeat the success of Flaherty's Nanook and Moana with two romanticized documentaries, Grass (1925) and Chang (1927), both directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack . The " city symphony " sub film genre consisted of avant-garde films during

2720-680: The North American " direct cinema " (or more accurately " cinéma direct "), pioneered by, among others, Canadians Michel Brault , Pierre Perrault and Allan King , and Americans Robert Drew , Richard Leacock , Frederick Wiseman and Albert and David Maysles . The directors of the movement take different viewpoints on their degree of involvement with their subjects. Kopple and Pennebaker, for instance, choose non-involvement (or at least no overt involvement), and Perrault, Rouch, Koenig, and Kroitor favor direct involvement or even provocation when they deem it necessary. The films Chronicle of

2800-465: The Penguins , and An Inconvenient Truth among the most prominent examples. Compared to dramatic narrative films, documentaries typically have far lower budgets which makes them attractive to film companies because even a limited theatrical release can be highly profitable. The nature of documentary films has expanded in the past 30 years from the cinéma vérité style introduced in the 1960s in which

2880-581: The Romanian professor Gheorghe Marinescu made several science films in his neurology clinic in Bucharest : Walking Troubles of Organic Hemiplegy (1898), The Walking Troubles of Organic Paraplegies (1899), A Case of Hysteric Hemiplegy Healed Through Hypnosis (1899), The Walking Troubles of Progressive Locomotion Ataxy (1900), and Illnesses of the Muscles (1901). All these short films have been preserved. The professor called his works "studies with

2960-610: The Second World War. For instance, instructional films were made for military personnel or industrial labourers. The use of educational film was a part of the official policy of Department of War in America. Even after World War II, some of the educational films remained in use. Low budgets and a narrow profit margin handicapped the production of new, high-quality educational films. Before World War II, ERPI Classroom Films, Eastman Classroom Films, and Film Incorporated were

3040-475: The Tokyo Comedy Store was made and released on DOC: The Documentary Channel in 2008. The film is a narrative account of director Brian C. Anderson's experience performing with the stand-up comedians of the Tokyo Comedy Store. Anderson's film explores the differences between Eastern and Western styles of comedy, and showcases various acts he encounters as he progresses as a stand-up comedian in Tokyo. Anderson made

3120-523: The Tokyo Cynics started an all stand-up comedy show in the Takadanobaba area at a bar called The Fiddler. By about 1998, Burns was no longer involved, and from that time up until the mid-2000s the group was run first by Nick Abrahams, then Michael Naishtut, who had been independently performing improv comedy in Tokyo, and Chris Wells, one of the founding members of TCS. Naishtut was also hosting

3200-463: The US Army and Navy made training films and established instructional procedures for such media as slides, film strips, and models. Both organized film divisions for the twofold purpose of supplying information to the public and of instructing officers and troops. Likewise, there were a large-scale introduction of audio-visual media in schools and an expansion of the non-theatrical film circuit during

3280-588: The United States began acquiring dramatic content from sources overseas in the 1950s. They were commonly from France, which included several well-known non-narrated short dramas, director Albert Lamorisse's The Red Balloon (1956) among them. Many sociodrama films were based on topics such as racial equality or civic engagement . Because of the advent of the Civil Rights Act (1964), and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965), educators had

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3360-485: The advantage of documentaries lies in introducing new perspectives which may not be prevalent in traditional media such as written publications and school curricula. Documentary practice is the complex process of creating documentary projects. It refers to what people do with media devices, content, form, and production strategies to address the creative, ethical, and conceptual problems and choices that arise as they make documentaries. Documentary filmmaking can be used as

3440-480: The appropriate generation. This was used to great effect by the British television series Look Around You which parodies these films. Many early psychological studies of learning from film and particularly TV found this medium to be inferior to text. Studies included comparisons between reading newspaper reports and watching TV news. In these early studies, the memory retention was always stronger in those who read

3520-474: The camera). The American film critic Pare Lorentz defines a documentary film as "a factual film which is dramatic." Others further state that a documentary stands out from the other types of non-fiction films for providing an opinion, and a specific message, along with the facts it presents. Scholar Betsy McLane asserted that documentaries are for filmmakers to convey their views about historical events, people, and places which they find significant. Therefore,

3600-429: The development of "reality television" that occasionally verges on the documentary but more often veers to the fictional or staged. The "making-of" documentary shows how a movie or a computer game was produced. Usually made for promotional purposes, it is closer to an advertisement than a classic documentary. Modern lightweight digital video cameras and computer-based editing have greatly aided documentary makers, as has

3680-407: The director. The commercial success of these documentaries may derive from this narrative shift in the documentary form, leading some critics to question whether such films can truly be called documentaries; critics sometimes refer to these works as " mondo films " or "docu-ganda." However, directorial manipulation of documentary subjects has been noted since the work of Flaherty, and may be endemic to

3760-452: The dramatic drop in equipment prices. The first film to take full advantage of this change was Martin Kunert and Eric Manes ' Voices of Iraq , where 150 DV cameras were sent to Iraq during the war and passed out to Iraqis to record themselves. Films in the documentary form without words have been made. Listen to Britain , directed by Humphrey Jennings and Stuart McAllister in 1942, is

3840-502: The earliest texts on cinema, Une nouvelle source de l'histoire ("A New Source of History") and La photographie animée ("Animated photography"). Both were published in 1898 in French and were among the earliest written works to consider the historical and documentary value of the film. Matuszewski is also among the first filmmakers to propose the creation of a Film Archive to collect and keep safe visual materials. The word "documentary"

3920-449: The early 2000s had been a show runner, performer, and administrator of the website. Some shows involved stand-up, some involved improv, and some involved both. The cornerstone show continues to be held on the last Friday of every month and featured stand-up comedians in the first half until 2015. The second half of the show consisted of an entirely improvised comedy by "Spontaneous Confabulation" (known as "Spontaneous Confusion" until 2010),

4000-536: The early part of the 20th century. They were often referred to by distributors as "scenics". Scenics were among the most popular sort of films at the time. An important early film which moved beyond the concept of the scenic was In the Land of the Head Hunters (1914), which embraced primitivism and exoticism in a staged story presented as truthful re-enactments of the life of Native Americans . Contemplation

4080-527: The entirety of a famous 1897 prize-fight on cinema screens across the United States. In May 1896, Bolesław Matuszewski recorded on film a few surgical operations in Warsaw and Saint Petersburg hospitals. In 1898, French surgeon Eugène-Louis Doyen invited Matuszewski and Clément Maurice to record his surgical operations. They started in Paris a series of surgical films sometime before July 1898. Until 1906,

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4160-512: The film while stationed overseas in the United States Air Force . Documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a historical record ". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in terms of "a filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception [that remains]

4240-520: The films was so vital that they were often given co-director credits. Famous cinéma vérité/direct cinema films include Les Raquetteurs , Showman , Salesman , Near Death , and The Children Were Watching . In the 1960s and 1970s, documentary film was often regarded as a political weapon against neocolonialism and capitalism in general, especially in Latin America, but also in a changing society. La Hora de los hornos ( The Hour of

4320-721: The first educational films is controversial. Some researchers suggest that the first educational films were shown in St. Petersburg in 1897, while other studies determined that the first educational films were inspired by the newsreel in 1913. The increasing number of educational films prove that the production of such films started in the early 1900s. In the 1910s and 1920s, the production, distribution and exhibition of education film became gradually institutionalized, which happened differently in different countries. Educational films are productions aiming to inform target audiences about designated issues. The topic of study varies. Educational cinema

4400-533: The form due to problematic ontological foundations. Documentary filmmakers are increasingly using social impact campaigns with their films. Social impact campaigns seek to leverage media projects by converting public awareness of social issues and causes into engagement and action, largely by offering the audience a way to get involved. Examples of such documentaries include Kony 2012 , Salam Neighbor , Gasland , Living on One Dollar , and Girl Rising . Although documentaries are financially more viable with

4480-453: The genders. For example, shop classes were almost exclusively male and home economics classes almost exclusively female. Filmmakers attempted to address this concern by making films, such as Why Study Home Economics? in 1955. In China in the 1930s, educational film became one of the most important educational tools. During the period of Republic of China, many citizens were illiterate, so the national government focused on educational films as

4560-411: The great adventure of buying land and building a dream home. Challenging questions or debate over social issues are also raised in educational films, such as labor reform, communism, civil rights, and nuclear proliferation. One of these was "An Educational Film on Land Reform," which examined the question "Why is building enough housing for everyone difficult, when everyone agrees it is needed?" The film

4640-446: The great pulse of humanity as it flocks and swarms in daily activity and religious ceremonies. Bodysong was made in 2003 and won a British Independent Film Award for "Best British Documentary." Educational film An educational film is a film or movie whose primary purpose is to educate . Educational films have been used in classrooms as an alternative to other teaching methods . Determining which films should count as

4720-694: The help of the cinematograph," and published the results, along with several consecutive frames, in issues of La Semaine Médicale magazine from Paris, between 1899 and 1902. In 1924, Auguste Lumière recognized the merits of Marinescu's science films: "I've seen your scientific reports about the usage of the cinematograph in studies of nervous illnesses, when I was still receiving La Semaine Médicale , but back then I had other concerns, which left me no spare time to begin biological studies. I must say I forgot those works and I am thankful to you that you reminded them to me. Unfortunately, not many scientists have followed your way." Travelogue films were very popular in

4800-428: The human eye, and created a film philosophy from it. The newsreel tradition is important in documentary film. Newsreels at this time were sometimes staged but were usually re-enactments of events that had already happened, not attempts to steer events as they were in the process of happening. For instance, much of the battle footage from the early 20th century was staged; the cameramen would usually arrive on site after

4880-471: The increasing popularity of the genre and the advent of the DVD, funding for documentary film production remains elusive. Within the past decade, the largest exhibition opportunities have emerged from within the broadcast market, making filmmakers beholden to the tastes and influences of the broadcasters who have become their largest funding source. Modern documentaries have some overlap with television forms, with

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4960-665: The landmark 14-hour Eyes on the Prize : America's Civil Rights Years (1986 – Part 1 and 1989 – Part 2) by Henry Hampton, 4 Little Girls (1997) by Spike Lee , The Civil War by Ken Burns , and UNESCO-awarded independent film on slavery 500 Years Later , express not only a distinctive voice but also a perspective and point of views. Some films such as The Thin Blue Line by Errol Morris incorporate stylized re-enactments, and Michael Moore 's Roger & Me place far more interpretive control with

5040-424: The leaders of the educational film industry. With the rise of social media , both corporations (such as PBS ) and private individuals post a wide variety of educational videos to sites like YouTube . Many of these are shown in classrooms or watched by students as part of their studies. Source: Film companies have produced films about geography and world culture. They concentrated on three treatment forms through

5120-414: The leading producers of educational films. ERPI had entered educational film production because it wanted to sell its equipment. The Eastman Kodak Company, meanwhile, had envisioned the films themselves as a profitable commercial venture. Neither company, however, enjoyed overwhelming success. Silent films created when other films sometimes had sound were less popular with audiences. During World War II and in

5200-447: The modern world; and that materials "thus taken from the raw" can be more real than the acted article. In this regard, Grierson's definition of documentary as "creative treatment of actuality" has gained some acceptance; however, this position is at variance with Soviet film-maker Dziga Vertov 's credos of provocation to present "life as it is" (that is, life filmed surreptitiously), and "life caught unawares" (life provoked or surprised by

5280-513: The political documentary And She Could Be Next , directed by Grace Lee and Marjan Safinia. The Times described the documentary not only as focusing on women in politics, but more specifically on women of color, their communities, and the significant changes they have wrought upon America. Box office analysts have noted that the documentary film genre has become increasingly successful in theatrical release with films such as Fahrenheit 9/11 , Super Size Me , Food, Inc. , Earth , March of

5360-415: The post-war years, many old and new companies increased the production of educational films, including Coronet, Vocational Guidance Films, Young America, McGraw-Hill Book Company, United World Films, Films Incorporated, Simmel-Misery and others. There are several notable educational film producers from the 1960s onward. Producers like Encyclopædia Britannica Films, Coronet Films, and Centron Corporation were

5440-449: The reports. This was shown to be linked mainly to the ability of the individual to control the speed of the delivery of information. When you read you can pause at any time, which was not possible with classroom-based TV and film. This has changed with the advent of online video, which can be paused and rewound easily. More recent studies now see no difference in memory retention between the two media, video and text. Research also examines

5520-453: The resident improv troupe. The show usually ended with music-based improvisation. In 2015 the cornerstone show was rebranded ”The TCS Improvazilla Show” and changed to an all-improv format. The standup performers now perform at several different venues around town, including through Standup Tokyo. The TCS Improvazilla Show now features a long-form montage based on audience responses to a monthly changing question, an audience member interview, or

5600-514: The roles African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, and women, focusing instead on wealthy industrialists or the Founding Fathers of the United States . Educational films often included painting, sculpture, architecture, and other "high" arts. In the 1920s and 1930s, filmmakers began to take advantage of the movie camera to capture the visual art in new ways, such as moving around a sculpture while filming it. This type of cinema became seen as

5680-400: The students to it physically. Similarly, when teaching a complex principal, such as cell division , a loop of video can demonstrate the processes involved as many times as the students need. Specific techniques, such as the close-up showing particulate forming in a chemical mixuture, can show fine detail in a process that would otherwise be difficult for a group of students to all see clearly in

5760-530: The style include following a person during a crisis with a moving, often handheld, camera to capture more personal reactions. There are no sit-down interviews, and the shooting ratio (the amount of film shot to the finished product) is very high, often reaching 80 to one. From there, editors find and sculpt the work into a film. The editors of the movement – such as Werner Nold , Charlotte Zwerin , Muffie Meyer , Susan Froemke , and Ellen Hovde  – are often overlooked, but their input to

5840-432: The use of portable camera and sound equipment allowed an intimate relationship between filmmaker and subject. The line blurs between documentary and narrative and some works are very personal, such as Marlon Riggs 's Tongues Untied (1989) and Black Is...Black Ain't (1995), which mix expressive, poetic, and rhetorical elements and stresses subjectivities rather than historical materials. Historical documentaries, such as

5920-410: The world and sold the footage to studios and distributors. The ethnological film featured different ethnicities, cultures, and social practices from around the world. It helped students and professors study anthropology, as it showed real-life footage of local events and daily life. Audiences could see how the featured group dressed, ate, and interacted socially. Typically, historical films from before

6000-494: The year of his last film, Doyen recorded more than 60 operations. Doyen said that his first films taught him how to correct professional errors he had been unaware of. For scientific purposes, after 1906, Doyen combined 15 of his films into three compilations, two of which survive, the six-film series Extirpation des tumeurs encapsulées (1906), and the four-film Les Opérations sur la cavité crânienne (1911). These and five other of Doyen's films survive. Between July 1898 and 1901,

6080-687: Was a newsreel series in the United States, commissioned by the government to convince the U.S. public that it was time to go to war. Constance Bennett and her husband Henri de la Falaise produced two feature-length documentaries, Legong: Dance of the Virgins (1935) filmed in Bali , and Kilou the Killer Tiger (1936) filmed in Indochina . In Canada, the Film Board , set up by John Grierson,

6160-528: Was coined by Scottish documentary filmmaker John Grierson in his review of Robert Flaherty 's film Moana (1926), published in the New York Sun on 8 February 1926, written by "The Moviegoer" (a pen name for Grierson). Grierson's principles of documentary were that cinema's potential for observing life could be exploited in a new art form; that the "original" actor and "original" scene are better guides than their fiction counterparts for interpreting

6240-436: Was normally divided into three main categories: instructional, educational, and scholastic. Educational films can be used to inform the public about social issues and raise public awareness. For example, an educational film, What About Prejudice? , published in 1959 discussed the prejudice of the white middle class. Land and Space to Grow , released in October 1960, was a story about a typical young American couple who pursue

6320-610: Was set up for the same propaganda reasons. It also created newsreels that were seen by their national governments as legitimate counter-propaganda to the psychological warfare of Nazi Germany orchestrated by Joseph Goebbels . In Britain, a number of different filmmakers came together under John Grierson. They became known as the Documentary Film Movement . Grierson, Alberto Cavalcanti , Harry Watt , Basil Wright , and Humphrey Jennings amongst others succeeded in blending propaganda, information, and education with

6400-425: Was shaped into a compelling soft-sell story that allows the audience to reflect on social issues. Educational films can be a powerful aid to teaching, bringing things that students may not be able to experience first-hand into the classroom, and thus improving teaching efficiency. For example, educational films can be used in the teaching of architectural subjects, giving a tour of a structure without needing to bring

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