Outline of film

What type of thing is film?

Film can be described as all of the following:

Art – aesthetic expression for presentation or performance, and the work produced from this activity.

One of the arts – as an art form, film is an outlet of human expression, that is usually influenced by culture and which in turn helps to change culture. Film is a physical manifestation of the internal human creative impulse.

One of the visual arts – visual arts is a class of art forms, including painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking and others, that focus on the creation of works which are primarily visual in nature.

One of the performing arts – art forms in which artists use their body, voice, or objects to convey artistic expression. Performing arts include a variety of disciplines but all take the form of a performance in front of an audience.

Fine art – in Western European academic traditions, fine art is art developed primarily for aesthetics, distinguishing it from applied art that also has to serve some practical function. The word "fine" here does not so much denote the quality of the artwork in question, but the purity of the discipline according to traditional Western European canons.

Show business – a means of providing employment for actors, screenwriters, artisans and technicians, regardless of whether the finished film was produced as a for-profit enterprise or as a not-for-profit public service.

Other names for film

Movies

Motion pictures

Pictures

Celluloid

Flicks (or flickers)

Photoplays

Picture shows

The cinema

The silver screen (talkie era); the silver sheet (silent era)

Videos

Essence of film

Filmmaking – process of making a film. Filmmaking involves a number of discrete stages including an initial story, idea, or commission, through scriptwriting, casting, shooting, editing, and screening the finished product before an audience that may result in a film release and exhibition. Filmmaking is both an art and an industry. Films were originally recorded onto plastic film which was shown through a movie projector onto a large screen (in other words, an analog recording process). The adoption of CGI-based special effects led to the use of digital intermediates. Most contemporary films are now fully digital through the entire process of production, distribution, and exhibition from start to finish.

By setting

Biography - portrays a real-life character in his or her real-life story

Crime - places its character within realm of criminal activity

Fantasy - films set in imaginary worlds, often with a swords and sorcery theme

Film noir - portrays its principal characters in a nihilistic and existentialist realm or manner

Historical - taking place in the past

Science fiction - placement of characters in an alternative reality, typically in the future or in outer space

Sports - sporting events and locations pertaining to a given sport

War - battlefields and locations pertaining to a time of war

Westerns - colonial period to modern era of the western United States

By mood

Action - generally involves a moral interplay between "good" and "bad" played out through violence or physical force

Adventure - involving danger, risk, and/or chance, often with a high degree of fantasy

Comedy - intended to provoke laughter

Drama - mainly focuses on character development

Erotic - sexuality or eroticism and sex acts, including love scenes

Horror - intended to provoke fear in audience

Mystery - the progression from the unknown to the known by discovering and solving a series of clues

Romance - dwelling on the elements of romantic love

Thrillers - intended to provoke excitement and/or nervous tension into audience

By format

Biographical - a biopic is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person, with varying degrees of basis in fact

Documentary - a factual following of an event or person to gain an understanding of a particular point or issue

Experimental (avant-garde) - created to test audience reaction or to expand the boundaries of film production/story exposition then generally at play

Musical - a film interspersed with singing by all or some of the characters

Silent - a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue

By production type

Live action - film using actors

Animation - illusion of motion by consecutive display of static images which have been created by hand or on a computer

Television - a film that is produced for and originally distributed by a television network

By length

Short - may strive to contain many of the elements of a "full-length" feature, in a shorter time-frame

Serial - similar to shorts, but forms a constant story arc

Feature film - film that is "full-length"

By age

Children's film - films for young children; as opposed to a family film, no special effort is made to make the film attractive for other audiences

Family - intended to be attractive for people of all ages and suitable for viewing by a young audience; examples of these are Disney films

Teen film - intended for and aimed towards teens although some teen films, such as the High School Musical series; may also be a family film; not all of these films are suitable for all teens, as some are rated R

Adult film - intended to be viewed only by an adult audience, content may include violence, disturbing themes, obscene language, or explicit normal or abnormal sexual behaviour, which also referred as "Abnormal films". This includes various forms of exploitation films. Adult film may also be used as a synonym for abnormal female objectification based sexism based abnormal sex based pornographic film. It is connected with a mental sickness called Paraphilia disorders.

History of film

Camera obscura

Thomas Edison

Intertitle – prior to the days of sound film, intertitles (cards with text inserted into the scene) represented dialogue or descriptive/narrative material

Magic lantern

Motion Picture Patents Company

Phantasmagoria

Silent film

Zoetrope – one of several pre-film animation devices which produced the illusion of movement, most popular in the mid- to late 1800s

General film concepts

Academy Awards – an American awards show hosted by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences which recognizes excellence in cinematic achievement, as voted for by the Academy itself. The statuettes handed out to winners are nicknamed "Oscars".

Actor

American Film Institute

Film director

Film studio

Movie projector

Photography

Set construction

Sound stage

Film formats

List of film formats

Films

List of films by title: #, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J-K, L, M, N-O, P, Q-R, S, T, U-V-W, & X-Y-Z

List of years in film

Films by origin

List of films by region and country of origin

Films by setting location

Lists of films based on location

Films by cost

List of most expensive films

List of most expensive non-English-language films

Films by success

Films that have been considered the greatest ever

List of 1 billion dollar grossing films

List of films considered the worst

List of highest-grossing films

List of movies that have won eight or more Academy Awards

Lists of box office number-one films

Film companies

List of film production companies

List of film production companies by country

List of film distributors by country

Majors (Big Six)

20th Century Fox – American film studio owned by 21st Century Fox, founded in 1935

Walt Disney Studios – American film studio owned by the The Walt Disney Company, founded in 1923

Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group (a subsidiary of Sony Pictures Entertainment) – American film studio owned by Sony, founded in 1924

Paramount Pictures (a subsidiary of Viacom) – American film studio owned by Viacom, founded in 1912

Universal Studios (a subsidiary of NBC Universal) – American film studio owned by Comcast, founded in 1912

Warner Bros. (another subsidiary of Time Warner) – American film studio owned by Time Warner, founded in 1923

Others

Lions Gate Entertainment

New Line Cinema (a subsidiary of Time Warner)

The Weinstein Company

MGM/UA Entertainment Co. (another subsidiary of Sony Pictures Entertainment)

Awards and festivals

List of film awards

List of film festivals

List of Academy Awards ceremonies

AFI 100 Years... series

List of Golden Globe Awards ceremonies

Notable people from the film industry

List of show business families

List of soundtrack composers

Film theorists

Rudolf Arnheim

André Bazin

Sergei Eisenstein

Siegfried Kracauer

Lev Kuleshov

Vsevolod Pudovkin

Famous film producers

George Lucas

David O. Selznick

Jerry Bruckheimer