Copyright © 2015 Bert N. Langford (Images may be subject to copyright. Please send feedback)
Welcome to Our Generation USA!
Below, we cover the genre"Movies/Films" that influenced generations starting in the 1950s through today, including those directors and creators with significant film contributions.
For the Highest Grossing Movies, click on the following blue hypelinks:
Popular Movie Franchises
Popular Movies by Decades
100 Greatest Movies of All-Time Based on Box Office
YouTube Video from the Movie "Exorcist" (1973)
Pictured: Julie Andrews in "Sound of Music" (1965) and Charlton Heston from "The Ten Commandments" (1956)
Box-Office Top 100 Films of All-Time according to AMC Filmsite: Rankings of both US (Domestic) and Worldwide Box-Office blockbusters have been compiled from various recent sources.
The domestic rankings, divided into unadjusted and adjusted for inflation, are based upon theatrical box office receipts (including some theatrical re-release receipts) and do not include video rentals, TV rights, international box office figures, or other revenues.
A few other sites post all-time box-office information, including: The Internet Movie DataBase, Boxoffice.com, Boxofficemojo.com, and The-numbers.com.
The 100 Greatest Films that have been selected at this site are identified throughout by a yellow star .
The domestic rankings, divided into unadjusted and adjusted for inflation, are based upon theatrical box office receipts (including some theatrical re-release receipts) and do not include video rentals, TV rights, international box office figures, or other revenues.
A few other sites post all-time box-office information, including: The Internet Movie DataBase, Boxoffice.com, Boxofficemojo.com, and The-numbers.com.
The 100 Greatest Films that have been selected at this site are identified throughout by a yellow star .
Action Movies
YouTube Video Dirty Harry (2/10) Movie CLIP - Do You Feel Lucky, Punk? (1971) HD
Pictured: Sylvester Stallone and Burgess Meredith from "Rocky" (1976) and Roy Scheider fighting off the Shark in "Jaws" (1975).
Action film is a film genre in which the protagonist or protagonists end up in a series of challenges that typically include violence, close combat, physical feats and frantic chases. Action films tend to feature a resourceful hero struggling against incredible odds, which include life-threatening situations, a villain, or a pursuit which generally concludes in victory for the hero.
Advancements in CGI have made it cheaper and easier to create action sequences and other visual effects that required the efforts of professional stunt crews in the past. However, reactions to action films containing significant amounts of CGI have been mixed as films that use computer animations to create unrealistic, highly unbelievable events are often met with criticism.
While action has long been a recurring component in films, the "action film" genre began to develop in the 1970s along with the increase of stunts and special effects.
The genre is closely associated with the thriller and adventure film genres, and it may also contain elements of spy fiction and espionage.
Advancements in CGI have made it cheaper and easier to create action sequences and other visual effects that required the efforts of professional stunt crews in the past. However, reactions to action films containing significant amounts of CGI have been mixed as films that use computer animations to create unrealistic, highly unbelievable events are often met with criticism.
While action has long been a recurring component in films, the "action film" genre began to develop in the 1970s along with the increase of stunts and special effects.
The genre is closely associated with the thriller and adventure film genres, and it may also contain elements of spy fiction and espionage.
Adventure Movies
YouTube Video from the Movie "The Titanic" (1997): hitting the Iceberg
Pictured: Rod Taylor sitting on "The Time Machine" (1960); and Sam Neill confronting dinosaurs in "Jurassic Park" (1993)
Adventure films are a genre of film. Unlike action films, they often use their action scenes preferably to display and explore exotic locations in an energetic way.
The sub-genres of adventure films include:
Main plot elements include: quests for lost continents, a jungle, mountain, island, ocean, city or desert settings,
Adventure movies can also include characters going on treasure hunts and heroic journeys for the unknown.
Adventure films are mostly set in a period background and may include adapted stories of historical or fictional adventure heroes within the historical context.
Kings, monarchies, battles, rebellion or piracy are commonly seen in adventure films.
Adventure films may also be combined with other movie genres such as, science fiction, fantasy, horror and sometimes war films or explorer films.
The sub-genres of adventure films include:
- swashbuckler film,
- Survival film,
- Western film,
- pirate film,
- disaster film,
- and historical drama
Main plot elements include: quests for lost continents, a jungle, mountain, island, ocean, city or desert settings,
Adventure movies can also include characters going on treasure hunts and heroic journeys for the unknown.
Adventure films are mostly set in a period background and may include adapted stories of historical or fictional adventure heroes within the historical context.
Kings, monarchies, battles, rebellion or piracy are commonly seen in adventure films.
Adventure films may also be combined with other movie genres such as, science fiction, fantasy, horror and sometimes war films or explorer films.
Most Popular "Coming of Age" American Movies
YouTube Video of Trailer for the Movie "American Graffiti (1973)*
*-- American Graffiti
Pictured: Coming-of-age Movies include LEFT: “Stand by Me” (1986); RIGHT: “The Breakfast Club (1985)
In film, coming of age is a genre of teen films.
Coming-of-age films focus on the psychological and moral growth or transition of a protagonist from youth to adulthood. Personal growth and change is an important characteristic of this genre, which relies on dialogue and emotional responses, rather than action.
The main character is typically male, around mid-teen and the story is often told in the form of a flashback. Less common to novels, themes of developing sexual identity and political opinions are often featured in coming-of-age films; so, too, is philosophical development. These sexual themes are often presented in a comic or humorous manner.
Click here for a listing of American "Coming of Age" Movies.
Coming-of-age films focus on the psychological and moral growth or transition of a protagonist from youth to adulthood. Personal growth and change is an important characteristic of this genre, which relies on dialogue and emotional responses, rather than action.
The main character is typically male, around mid-teen and the story is often told in the form of a flashback. Less common to novels, themes of developing sexual identity and political opinions are often featured in coming-of-age films; so, too, is philosophical development. These sexual themes are often presented in a comic or humorous manner.
Click here for a listing of American "Coming of Age" Movies.
Top 25 Highest Grossing Romance Movies
YouTube Video from Pretty Woman*
*- Pretty Woman (1990)
Pictured: Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze from "Ghost" (1990) and Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan from "When Harry Met Sally" (1989).
Included are the Top 25 Highest Grossing Romantic Movies.
The Ten Highest-grossing Science Fiction Movies
YouTube Video of E-T the Extra Terrestrial Original Trailer 1982
Pictured: LEFT: “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” (2015): RIGHT: “Avatar” (2009)
Fortune Magazine, March 6, 2015 Issue:
Here are the 10 highest-grossing sci-fi movies of all time.
These movies rarely win critical accolades, but science fiction movies aren’t made for the critics. They’re made for the fans.
Click here to view the ten highest-grossing science fiction movies of all time.
Here are the 10 highest-grossing sci-fi movies of all time.
These movies rarely win critical accolades, but science fiction movies aren’t made for the critics. They’re made for the fans.
Click here to view the ten highest-grossing science fiction movies of all time.
Comedy Movies
YouTube Video from "Animal House" (1978)
Pictured: LEFT: “The War of the Roses” (1989); RIGHT: “There’s Something About Mary” (1999)
Comedy is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement and most often work by exaggerating characteristics for humorous effect.
Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception).
One of the oldest genres in film, some of the very first silent movies were comedies, as slapstick comedy often relies on visual depictions, without requiring sound. When sound films became more prevalent during the 1920s, comedy films took another swing, as laughter could result from burlesque situations but also dialogue.
Comedy, compared to other film genres, puts much more focus on individual stars, with many former stand-up comics transitioning to the film industry due to their popularity. While many comic films are lighthearted stories with no intent other than to amuse, others contain political or social commentary (such as Wag the Dog and Man of the Year).
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for amplification:
Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception).
One of the oldest genres in film, some of the very first silent movies were comedies, as slapstick comedy often relies on visual depictions, without requiring sound. When sound films became more prevalent during the 1920s, comedy films took another swing, as laughter could result from burlesque situations but also dialogue.
Comedy, compared to other film genres, puts much more focus on individual stars, with many former stand-up comics transitioning to the film industry due to their popularity. While many comic films are lighthearted stories with no intent other than to amuse, others contain political or social commentary (such as Wag the Dog and Man of the Year).
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for amplification:
- By country
- Hybrid subgenres
- Romantic comedy
- Military comedy
- Comic science fiction
- Fantasy comedy
- Comedy thriller
- Comedy horror
- Action comedy
- See also
- External link
Crime Movies
YouTube Video from "Traffic" (2000) Starring Michael Douglas
Pictured: LEFT: “Rear Window” (1954); RIGHT: “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991)
Films dealing with crime and its detection are often based on plays rather than novels.
Agatha Christie's stage play Witness for the Prosecution (1953; based on her own short story, published in 1933) was adapted for the big screen by director Billy Wilder in 1957. The film starred Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton and is a classic example of a "courtroom drama".
In a courtroom drama, a charge is brought against one of the main characters, who says that they are innocent. Another major part is played by the lawyer representing the defendant in court and battling with the public prosecutor. He or she may enlist the services of a private investigator to find out what really happened and who the real perpetrator is. However, in most cases it is not clear at all whether the accused is guilty of the crime or not—this is how suspense is created.
Often, the private investigator storms into the courtroom at the very last minute in order to bring a new and crucial piece of information to the attention of the court. This type of literature lends itself to the literary genre of drama focused more on dialogue (the opening and closing statements, the witnesses' testimonies, etc.) and little or no necessity for a shift in scenery. The auditorium of the theater becomes an extension of the courtroom.
When a courtroom drama is filmed, the traditional device employed by screenwriters and directors is the frequent use of flashbacks, in which the crime and everything that led up to it is narrated and reconstructed from different angles.
Subgenres:
Crime films may fall under several different subgenres. These include:
See also:
Agatha Christie's stage play Witness for the Prosecution (1953; based on her own short story, published in 1933) was adapted for the big screen by director Billy Wilder in 1957. The film starred Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton and is a classic example of a "courtroom drama".
In a courtroom drama, a charge is brought against one of the main characters, who says that they are innocent. Another major part is played by the lawyer representing the defendant in court and battling with the public prosecutor. He or she may enlist the services of a private investigator to find out what really happened and who the real perpetrator is. However, in most cases it is not clear at all whether the accused is guilty of the crime or not—this is how suspense is created.
Often, the private investigator storms into the courtroom at the very last minute in order to bring a new and crucial piece of information to the attention of the court. This type of literature lends itself to the literary genre of drama focused more on dialogue (the opening and closing statements, the witnesses' testimonies, etc.) and little or no necessity for a shift in scenery. The auditorium of the theater becomes an extension of the courtroom.
When a courtroom drama is filmed, the traditional device employed by screenwriters and directors is the frequent use of flashbacks, in which the crime and everything that led up to it is narrated and reconstructed from different angles.
Subgenres:
Crime films may fall under several different subgenres. These include:
- Crime comedy - A hybrid of crime and comedy films. Mafia comedy looks at organized crime from a comical standpoint. Humor comes from the incompetence of the criminals and/or black comedy. Examples include:
- Crime thriller - A thriller in which the central characters are involved in crime, either in its investigation, as the perpetrator or, less commonly, a victim (generally, this is just a thriller). While some action films could be label as such for merely having criminality and thrills, the emphasis in this genre is the drama and the investigative/criminal methods. Examples include:
- Film noir - A genre popular in the 1940s and 1950s often fall into the crime and mystery genres. Private detectives hired to solve a crime are in such films as
- Heist film deals with a group of criminals attempting to perform a theft or robbery, as well as the possible consequences that follow. Heist films that are lighter in tone are called "Caper films". Examples include
- Hood film - Film dealing with African-American urban issues and culture. They do not always revolve around crime, but often criminal activity features heavily in the storyline. Examples include Menace II Society and Boyz n the Hood.
- Legal drama - Not usually concerned with the actual crime so much as the trial in the aftermath. A typical plot would involve a lawyer trying to prove the innocence of his or her client. Examples include 12 Angry Men and A Time To Kill.
- Mob film - Film which focuses on characters who are involved seriously with the Mafia or organized crime. Notable mob films include:
- Mystery film - Film which focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of a crime by means of clues, investigation, and clever deduction.
- Police procedural - Have remained a mainstay with:
- Heroic bloodshed - a Hong Kong action cinema crime film genre
- Mumbai underworld - an Indian cinema crime film genre
See also:
Famous Car Chase Scenes in Movies
YouTube Video of the Greatest Car Chase Scenes from the movie "Bullitt" (1968).
Pictured: LEFT: Car chase Scene from “The French Connection” (1971); RIGHT: Piled-up police cars from the movie “Blues Brothers” (1978)
Greatest Chase Scenes in Films: Although there are many different kinds of film chase scenes, the most frequent type of film chase is the car chase.
It is almost always between a protagonist/hero (or criminal) and the police (or authority figures), with more than a few vehicles involved in the most spectacular examples.
The fast-moving scenes of the car chase, typically found in action films, very often feature high-speed maneuvering, crashes, and point-of-view perspectives to enhance the action.
For variety, tanks, semi-trailer-trucks, snowmobiles, buses, and other unusually large vehicles have been employed. Having the characters move from one vehicle to another or fight atop the accelerating vehicles adds to the excitement.
To view movies with the greatest car chase scenes, click here.
It is almost always between a protagonist/hero (or criminal) and the police (or authority figures), with more than a few vehicles involved in the most spectacular examples.
The fast-moving scenes of the car chase, typically found in action films, very often feature high-speed maneuvering, crashes, and point-of-view perspectives to enhance the action.
For variety, tanks, semi-trailer-trucks, snowmobiles, buses, and other unusually large vehicles have been employed. Having the characters move from one vehicle to another or fight atop the accelerating vehicles adds to the excitement.
To view movies with the greatest car chase scenes, click here.
Movies Centered Around Buddies
YouTube Video of the Trailer for Movie: Odd Couple (1968) Movie starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau
Pictured: LEFT: “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969); RIGHT: “Thelma and Louise” (1991)
The buddy film is a film genre in which two (or on occasion, more than two) people, often both men, are put together.
The two often contrast in personality, which creates a different dynamic onscreen than a pairing of two people of the opposite gender. The contrast is sometimes accentuated by an ethnic difference between the two. The buddy film is commonplace in American cinema, unlike some other film genres, it endured through the 20th century with different pairings and different themes.
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The two often contrast in personality, which creates a different dynamic onscreen than a pairing of two people of the opposite gender. The contrast is sometimes accentuated by an ethnic difference between the two. The buddy film is commonplace in American cinema, unlike some other film genres, it endured through the 20th century with different pairings and different themes.
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Movies in which Sequels outperformed the Original Movies
YouTube Video from Rambo 2 -- First Blood (1985)
Pictured: LEFT: Lee Strasburg with Al Pacino in "Godfather Part II" (1974): the original Godfather (1972) Starring Marlon Brando 1972); RIGHT: Clint Eastwood in "Magnum Force" (1973: original "Dirty Harry" in 1971)
:
This is a list of film sequels that out-grossed their predecessors.
This list only includes North American grosses (United States and Canada), not worldwide totals.
Click here for a list of movie sequels that out-grossed their predecessor in terms of box office.
The list is not adjusted for inflation.
This list only includes North American grosses (United States and Canada), not worldwide totals.
Click here for a list of movie sequels that out-grossed their predecessor in terms of box office.
The list is not adjusted for inflation.
List of Historical Movies
YouTube Video from the Chariot Race in Ben Hur (1959)
Pictured: LEFT: Raquel Welch in "One Million B.C." (1966); RIGHT: Kevin Costner and Sean Connery in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" (1991)
The historical period drama is a film genre in which stories are based upon historical events and famous people.
Some historical dramas are docudramas, which attempt an accurate portrayal of a historical event or biography, to the degree that the available historical research will allow. Other historical dramas are fictionalized tales that are based on an actual person and their deeds, such as Braveheart, which is loosely based on the 13th-century knight William Wallace's fight for Scotland's independence.
Due to the sheer volume of films included in this genre and in the interest of continuity, this list is primarily focused on films pertaining to the history of Near Eastern and Western civilization. For films pertaining to the history of East Asia, Central Asia, and South Asia, please refer also to the list of Asian historical drama films.
Click here for the list of historical period movies.
Some historical dramas are docudramas, which attempt an accurate portrayal of a historical event or biography, to the degree that the available historical research will allow. Other historical dramas are fictionalized tales that are based on an actual person and their deeds, such as Braveheart, which is loosely based on the 13th-century knight William Wallace's fight for Scotland's independence.
Due to the sheer volume of films included in this genre and in the interest of continuity, this list is primarily focused on films pertaining to the history of Near Eastern and Western civilization. For films pertaining to the history of East Asia, Central Asia, and South Asia, please refer also to the list of Asian historical drama films.
Click here for the list of historical period movies.
Movies based on Television Series
YouTube Video from the 2005 Movie "Bewitched" starring Nicole Kidman
Pictured below:
LEFT: Casts from the original TV Series Charlie's Angels (1976-1981) Starring Kate Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, and Jaclyn Smith;
RIGHT: the (Movie) “Charlie’s Angels Full Throttle" (2000) Starring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu
This a list of television programs that were later adapted into movies.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for amplification and to see TV-to-Movie index.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for amplification and to see TV-to-Movie index.
- Programs with films which are prequels, sequels or based upon the series
- Episodes and pilots released as films
- Programs re-edited and released as feature-length films
- See also
- External links
Movies winning the Academy Award for "Best Picture" Oscar
YouTube Video from the Movie "Crash" (2004), The Car-jacking Scene
Pictured: George C. Scott at General Patton in the movie "Patton" (1970); and Clint Eastwood and Hilary Swank in "The Million Dollar Baby" (2004)
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually since the awards debuted in 1929, by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to producers working in the film industry and is the only category in which every member is eligible to submit a nomination.
Best Picture is considered the most important of the Academy Awards, as it represents all the directing, acting, music composing, writing, editing and other efforts put forth into a film. Best Picture is the final award of every Academy Awards ceremony.
The Grand Staircase columns at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, where the Academy Awards ceremonies have been held since 2002, showcase every film that has won the Best Picture title since the award's inception.
As of the 88th Academy Awards nominations, there have been 528 films nominated for Best Picture.
Best Picture is considered the most important of the Academy Awards, as it represents all the directing, acting, music composing, writing, editing and other efforts put forth into a film. Best Picture is the final award of every Academy Awards ceremony.
The Grand Staircase columns at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, where the Academy Awards ceremonies have been held since 2002, showcase every film that has won the Best Picture title since the award's inception.
As of the 88th Academy Awards nominations, there have been 528 films nominated for Best Picture.
The Best Slacker Movies according to AMC
YouTube Video from Pineapple Express (2008)
Pictured: LEFT: "The Big Lebowski" (1998) starring Jeff Bridges; RIGHT: "Reality Bites" (1994) starring Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke and Ben Stiller (who also directed).
AMC: "Our List, Your Rankings":
Slackers are those who are without ambition and motivation to do better in their life, outside of having a good time.
Click here to see those slacker movies that AMC considers the best of their genre!
Slackers are those who are without ambition and motivation to do better in their life, outside of having a good time.
Click here to see those slacker movies that AMC considers the best of their genre!
Stoner Movies (Movies about Cannabis)
YouTube Video by Craig Ferguson in "Saving Grace" (2000)
Pictured: LEFT: Cheech from "Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke" (1978); RIGHT: "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" (2004)
Stoner film is a subgenre of comedy films that revolve around the use of cannabis.
Typically, such movies show cannabis use in a comic and positive fashion. Generally, cannabis use is one of the main themes, and inspires much of the plot. They are often representative of cannabis culture.
They are often representative of cannabis culture. The series of movies in the 1970s starring Cheech & Chong are archetypal "stoner movies." The historic film Reefer Madness (1936) has also become popular as a "stoner movie" because its anti-drug message is seen by some modern viewers as so over the top that the film amounts to self-parody. High Times magazine regularly sponsors the Stony Awards to celebrate stoner films and television.
Many of these films do not fit the category of "stoner film" as a subgenre, but contain enough cannabis use to be deemed noteworthy by the periodical. Many stoner movies have certain elements and themes in common. The template involves a protagonist or protagonists (often two friends in a variation of the buddy film) who have or are attempting to find marijuana and have some task to complete.
Often stoner films involve evading authority figures, sometimes law enforcement agents, who are portrayed as comically inept, but also parents, coworkers, friends, and security guards who disapprove of the protagonists' marijuana usage usually out of a greater lack of acceptance of their lifestyle of leisure and innocence. Most serious moments are intended ironically, often to parody overwrought counterparts in mainstream cinema. The comic story arcs often approach or fall over the line into slapstick.
Typically, such movies show cannabis use in a comic and positive fashion. Generally, cannabis use is one of the main themes, and inspires much of the plot. They are often representative of cannabis culture.
They are often representative of cannabis culture. The series of movies in the 1970s starring Cheech & Chong are archetypal "stoner movies." The historic film Reefer Madness (1936) has also become popular as a "stoner movie" because its anti-drug message is seen by some modern viewers as so over the top that the film amounts to self-parody. High Times magazine regularly sponsors the Stony Awards to celebrate stoner films and television.
Many of these films do not fit the category of "stoner film" as a subgenre, but contain enough cannabis use to be deemed noteworthy by the periodical. Many stoner movies have certain elements and themes in common. The template involves a protagonist or protagonists (often two friends in a variation of the buddy film) who have or are attempting to find marijuana and have some task to complete.
Often stoner films involve evading authority figures, sometimes law enforcement agents, who are portrayed as comically inept, but also parents, coworkers, friends, and security guards who disapprove of the protagonists' marijuana usage usually out of a greater lack of acceptance of their lifestyle of leisure and innocence. Most serious moments are intended ironically, often to parody overwrought counterparts in mainstream cinema. The comic story arcs often approach or fall over the line into slapstick.
The 50 Greatest Movie Endings of All Time
YouTube Video: the Final Scene from the Movie "Carrie" (1976)
Pictured:
LEFT: "Godfather" (1972): The final scene makes it clear that “family” will always triumph when Michael (Al Pacino) gives his wife Kay (Diane Keaton) one chance to ask him about his affairs.
RIGHT: "Chinatown" (1974): Fictional P.I. Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson), hired to investigate the death of one of the LA reservoir project's chief engineers, causing him to be drawn deeper into the controversy as well as the beyond-dysfunctional family dynamics of the murder victim's wife, Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway).
Is there anything more frustrating than an otherwise great movie that botches the ending? Mistakes made in the early moments of a film will always be more easily forgiven than a terrible final minute. Remember the very ending of the otherwise excellent Gangs of New York? Remember the terrible time lapse vision of NYC rising from Manhattan accompanied by that shitty Bono song? That's a bad, bad ending.
All of the films discussed here stick the landing, and so have become some of the most memorable movies in the history of cinema. They're the kind of satisfying endings that ask one last question, that prompt the viewer to rethink everything that's come before, that just work. These are 50 greatest movie endings of all time.
All of the films discussed here stick the landing, and so have become some of the most memorable movies in the history of cinema. They're the kind of satisfying endings that ask one last question, that prompt the viewer to rethink everything that's come before, that just work. These are 50 greatest movie endings of all time.
Slapstick Comedy Movies
YouTube Video from "The Sleeper" (1973 movie)- The Orgasmatron (Starring Woody Allen and Diane Keaton)
Pictured: LEFT: Peter Sellers in "The Party" (1968): RIGHT: Cameron Diaz, Matt Dillon, Ben Stiller, Chris Elliott, and others in "There's Something about Mary" (1998)
Slapstick films are comedy films where physical comedy that includes pratfalls, tripping, falling, are highlighted over dialogue, plot and character development.
The physical comedy in these films contains a cartoonish style of violence that is predominantly harmless and goofy in tone.
Silent film had slapstick comedies that included the films starring Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, the Keystone Cops and Harold Lloyd.
These comedians often laced their slapstick with social commentary while comedians such as Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy and The Three Stooges did not contain these social messages.
There were less slapstick comedies produced at the advent of sound film. The genre resurfaced after the World War II in France with films by Jacques Tati and in the United States with films It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) and The Great Race (1965) as well as the films of comedians like Jerry Lewis.
The physical comedy in these films contains a cartoonish style of violence that is predominantly harmless and goofy in tone.
Silent film had slapstick comedies that included the films starring Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, the Keystone Cops and Harold Lloyd.
These comedians often laced their slapstick with social commentary while comedians such as Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy and The Three Stooges did not contain these social messages.
There were less slapstick comedies produced at the advent of sound film. The genre resurfaced after the World War II in France with films by Jacques Tati and in the United States with films It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) and The Great Race (1965) as well as the films of comedians like Jerry Lewis.
List of Religious Movies
YouTube Video from The Passion of the Christ (2004) Trailer
Pictured: LEFT: "The Bible: In The Beginning" (1966); RIGHT: "The Passion of Christ" (2004)
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Religious-based movies are listed by year and name. Can be any religion.
The Most Controversial Movies of All Time According to AMC
YouTube Video of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (1974)
Pictured: LEFT: "A Clockwork Orange" (1971); RIGHT: "Natural Born Killers" (1994)
Filmsite.org's Tim Dirk spotlights 100 movies that had moviegoers talking. Which one is really the most shocking to you?
List of Highest-grossing Movie Directors
YouTube Video of James Cameron receiving the Oscar for Best Director for Titantic (1998)
Pictured: LEFT: Steven Spielberg; RIGHT: Peter Jackson
List of movie directors with the highest-grossing movies of all time.
Top 20 Christmas Movies of All Time according to AMC
YouTube Video from "Home Alone" (1990)
Pictured: LEFT: James Stewart, Donna Reed and others from "It's Wonderful Life" (1946); RIGHT: Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo and Randy Quaid from "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" (1989)
From "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" (1989) to "Bad Santa" (2003) as rated by the American Movie Classics Channel (AMC).
Top Grossing Movies of All Times Adjusted for Inflation
YouTube Video from the 1939 Movie Trailer for "Gone With The Wind"
Pictured: LEFT: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937); RIGHT: “Avatar” (2009)
Top Movies Based on Inflation Adjusted World Wide Gross:
(Note: World Wide Gross revenues are estimates and can vary based on the source of the estimates so this list may not match other lists exactly. Also note that the top three movies were released several times over a long period so the inflation adjustment will be skewed higher because some of the later dollars will actually be worth less than the original dollars on an inflation adjusted basis.)
When adjusting movie box office receipts for inflation, the 1937 movie "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" realized $416.3 million in 1937. When adjusted for inflation, however, it would have earned the equivalent of $6,729 million in 2013, placing itself as the top grossing film of all-time, besting Avatar (2009 @ $2,782.3 Million vs. 2013@ $3,018.8 Million!)
War Movies including a List by Category
YouTube Video from "The Great Escape" (1963): Steve McQueen attempting to escape the POW camp on a motorcycle
Pictured Below:
LEFT:"The Bridge On the River Kwai" (1957: won Oscar for Best Picture) directed by David Lean and starring William Holden, Jack Hawkins, Alec Guinness, and Sessue Hayakawa.
RIGHT: "Apocalypse Now" (1979: napalm burning) directed by Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather trilogy), and starring Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, and Robert Duvall.
Click here for a List of War Movies by Category.
War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about naval, air, or land battles in the twentieth century, with combat scenes central to the drama.
The fateful nature of battle scenes means that war films often end with them. Themes explored include combat, survival and escape, sacrifice, the futility and inhumanity of battle, the effects of war on society, and the moral and human issues raised by war.
War films are often categorized by their milieu, such as the Korean War; the most popular subject is the Second World War. The stories told may be fiction, historical drama, or biographical. Critics have noted similarities between the Western and the war film.
Nations such as China, Indonesia, Japan, and Russia have their own traditions of war film, centred on their own revolutionary wars but taking varied forms, from action and historical drama to wartime romance.
Subgenres, not necessarily distinct, include anti-war, comedy, animated, propaganda, and documentary. There are similarly subgenres of the war film in specific theatres such as the western desert (North Africa), the Pacific in the Second World War, or Vietnam; and films set in specific domains of war, such as the infantry, the air, at sea, in submarines, or at prisoner of war camps.
War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about naval, air, or land battles in the twentieth century, with combat scenes central to the drama.
The fateful nature of battle scenes means that war films often end with them. Themes explored include combat, survival and escape, sacrifice, the futility and inhumanity of battle, the effects of war on society, and the moral and human issues raised by war.
War films are often categorized by their milieu, such as the Korean War; the most popular subject is the Second World War. The stories told may be fiction, historical drama, or biographical. Critics have noted similarities between the Western and the war film.
Nations such as China, Indonesia, Japan, and Russia have their own traditions of war film, centred on their own revolutionary wars but taking varied forms, from action and historical drama to wartime romance.
Subgenres, not necessarily distinct, include anti-war, comedy, animated, propaganda, and documentary. There are similarly subgenres of the war film in specific theatres such as the western desert (North Africa), the Pacific in the Second World War, or Vietnam; and films set in specific domains of war, such as the infantry, the air, at sea, in submarines, or at prisoner of war camps.
List of Western Movies
YouTube Video from The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)
Pictured below:
LEFT: Jane Fonda in "Cat Ballou" (1965) also starring Lee Marvin and others;
RIGHT: the movie "True Grit" (1969) starring John Wayne, Kim Darby, Glen Campbell, Robert Duvall, Jeff Corey, Dennis Hopper, Strother Martin, and John Fiedler.
This is a list of notable Western films and TV series, ordered by year and decade of release.
Many movies and television programs and series were filmed at movie ranches, primarily in Southern California, often within the 35-mile limit to avoid union travel stipends. Some were owned by the studios, but others were independent.
In the 1960s, Spaghetti Westerns grew in popularity. These films were produced by Italians and Spaniards and shot in their countries with big American stars like Clint Eastwood or Henry Fonda. Films such as those of Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy spawned numerous films of the same ilk and often similar titles, particularly from the mid- to late-1960s and early 1970s.
Click on any of the following time periods for movies released then:
Many movies and television programs and series were filmed at movie ranches, primarily in Southern California, often within the 35-mile limit to avoid union travel stipends. Some were owned by the studios, but others were independent.
In the 1960s, Spaghetti Westerns grew in popularity. These films were produced by Italians and Spaniards and shot in their countries with big American stars like Clint Eastwood or Henry Fonda. Films such as those of Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy spawned numerous films of the same ilk and often similar titles, particularly from the mid- to late-1960s and early 1970s.
Click on any of the following time periods for movies released then:
- List of Western films 1950–1954
- List of Western films 1955–1959
- List of Western films of the 1960s
- List of Western films of the 1970s
- List of Western films of the 1980s
- List of Western films of the 1990s
- List of Western films of the 2000s
- List of Western films of the 2010s
List of Cult Films
YouTube from The Rocky Horror Picture Show Movie CLIP - Sweet Transvestite (1975)
Pictured: From the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" (LEEFT) Tim Curry as "Rocky" and Rocky Fans in 'full dress
A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film with a cult following, obscure or unpopular with mainstream audiences, and often revolutionary or ironically enjoyed.
Sometimes, the definition is expanded to exclude films that have been released by major studios or have big budgets, try specifically to become cult films, or become accepted by mainstream audiences and critics.
Cult films are defined as much by audience reaction as they are content. Some studios, such as Troma Entertainment, specialize in making cult films.
Click here for an alphanumeric listing of Cult Films.
Sometimes, the definition is expanded to exclude films that have been released by major studios or have big budgets, try specifically to become cult films, or become accepted by mainstream audiences and critics.
Cult films are defined as much by audience reaction as they are content. Some studios, such as Troma Entertainment, specialize in making cult films.
Click here for an alphanumeric listing of Cult Films.
Movie Franchises including a List
YouTube Video from the Harry Potter Franchise
Pictured: Logos for two movie franchises in which Harrison Ford Starred
A film series (franchise) is more than one film, each depicting parts of a larger story. Sometimes the work is conceived from the beginning as a multiple-film work, for example the Three Colours series, but in most cases the success of the original film inspires further films to be made. Individual sequels are relatively common, but are not always successful enough to spawn further installments.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is the most highest grossing film series in unadjusted US Dollar figures surpassing the Harry Potter, Star Wars and James Bond series.
However Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings has the highest average box office intake.
Click on any of the following for amplification:
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is the most highest grossing film series in unadjusted US Dollar figures surpassing the Harry Potter, Star Wars and James Bond series.
However Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings has the highest average box office intake.
Click on any of the following for amplification:
- List of film series with two entries
- List of film series with three entries
- List of film series with four entries
- List of film series with five entries
- List of film series with six entries
- List of film series with seven entries
- List of film series with eight entries
- List of film series with nine entries
- List of film series with ten entries
- List of film series with more than ten entries
- List of film series with more than twenty entries
- List of highest-grossing franchises and film series
- List of character-based film series
- List of films based on television programs
- List of television programs based on films
- List of film series by director
- List of Indian film series
Movies that Rely on Computer-generated Imagery (CGI)
History of CGI
Timeline of CGI in Movies and Television
YouTube Video: How to make a CGI movie
Pictured: Example of CGI (left: actor, right: resulting computer-generated image) used in the making of movie “Avatar” (2009)
Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is the application of computer graphics to create or contribute to images in art, printed media, video games, films, television programs, shorts, commercials, videos, and simulators.
The visual scenes may be dynamic or static, and may be two-dimensional (2D), though the term "CGI" is most commonly used to refer to 3D computer graphics used for creating scenes or special effects in films and television.
Additionally, the use of 2D CGI is often mistakenly referred to as "traditional animation", most often in the case when dedicated animation software such as Adobe Flash or Toon Boom is not used or the CGI is hand drawn using a tablet and mouse.
The term 'CGI animation' refers to dynamic CGI rendered as a movie. The term virtual world refers to agent-based, interactive environments. Computer graphics software is used to make computer-generated imagery for films, etc.
Availability of CGI software and increased computer speeds have allowed individual artists and small companies to produce professional-grade films, games, and fine art from their home computers.
This has brought about an Internet subculture with its own set of global celebrities, clichés, and technical vocabulary. The evolution of CGI led to the emergence of virtual cinematography in the 1990s where runs of the simulated camera are not constrained by the laws of physics.
For further amplification, click on any of the hyperlinks below:
The visual scenes may be dynamic or static, and may be two-dimensional (2D), though the term "CGI" is most commonly used to refer to 3D computer graphics used for creating scenes or special effects in films and television.
Additionally, the use of 2D CGI is often mistakenly referred to as "traditional animation", most often in the case when dedicated animation software such as Adobe Flash or Toon Boom is not used or the CGI is hand drawn using a tablet and mouse.
The term 'CGI animation' refers to dynamic CGI rendered as a movie. The term virtual world refers to agent-based, interactive environments. Computer graphics software is used to make computer-generated imagery for films, etc.
Availability of CGI software and increased computer speeds have allowed individual artists and small companies to produce professional-grade films, games, and fine art from their home computers.
This has brought about an Internet subculture with its own set of global celebrities, clichés, and technical vocabulary. The evolution of CGI led to the emergence of virtual cinematography in the 1990s where runs of the simulated camera are not constrained by the laws of physics.
For further amplification, click on any of the hyperlinks below:
- Static images and landscapes
- Architectural scenes
- Anatomical models
- Generating cloth and skin images
- Interactive simulation and visualization
- Computer animation
- Virtual worlds
- In courtrooms
- See also
Listing of Movies having a Rock and Roll Musical Theme
YouTube Video from "The Last Waltz" Trailer - (1978) - HQ
Pictured: LEFT: "This is Spinal Tap" (1984); RIGHT: "Jersey Boys" (2014)
The films in this category are centered on the rock music theme, or have it play an important role in it.
List of Horror Movies
YouTube Video from the Movie "Carrie"* by Stephen King**: The Prom Blood Bath Scene
*-"Carrie" (1976)
**-- Stephen King
Pictured: From the Stephen King movie "The Shining" (1980)
Horror is a film genre seeking to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's primal fears.
Inspired by literature from authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and Mary Shelley, horror films have existed for more than a century. The macabre and the supernatural are frequent themes, and may overlap with the fantasy, supernatural fiction and thriller genres.
Horror films often deal with viewers' nightmares, fears, revulsions and terror of the unknown. Plots within the horror genre often involve the intrusion of an evil force, event, or personage into the everyday world.
Inspired by literature from authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and Mary Shelley, horror films have existed for more than a century. The macabre and the supernatural are frequent themes, and may overlap with the fantasy, supernatural fiction and thriller genres.
Horror films often deal with viewers' nightmares, fears, revulsions and terror of the unknown. Plots within the horror genre often involve the intrusion of an evil force, event, or personage into the everyday world.
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Film Rating System
Pictured: Different Ratings by the MPAA
The Motion Picture Association of America's (MPAA) film-rating system is used in the United States and its territories to rate a film's suitability for certain audiences, based on its content.
The MPAA rating system is a voluntary scheme that is not enforced by law; films can be exhibited without a rating, though many theaters refuse to exhibit non-rated or NC-17 rated films. Non-members of MPAA may also submit films for rating.
Other media (such as television programs and video games) may be rated by other entities.
The MPAA rating system is one of various motion picture rating systems that are used to help parents decide what films are appropriate for their children.
The MPAA's rating system is administered by the Classification & Ratings Administration (CARA), an independent division of the MPAA.
The MPAA rating system is a voluntary scheme that is not enforced by law; films can be exhibited without a rating, though many theaters refuse to exhibit non-rated or NC-17 rated films. Non-members of MPAA may also submit films for rating.
Other media (such as television programs and video games) may be rated by other entities.
The MPAA rating system is one of various motion picture rating systems that are used to help parents decide what films are appropriate for their children.
The MPAA's rating system is administered by the Classification & Ratings Administration (CARA), an independent division of the MPAA.
Blaxploitation Movies including a List
YouTube Video of the Trailer for the 1971 Movie "Shaft"*
* --Shaft 1971
Pictured: Blaxploitation Movie Theatrical Release Poster for LEFT: “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka” (1988); “Jackie Brown” (1997)
Blaxploitation or blacksploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film, emerging in the United States during the early 1970s. Blaxploitation films were originally made specifically for an urban black audience, but the genre's audience appeal soon broadened across racial and ethnic lines.
The Los Angeles National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) head and ex-film publicist Junius Griffin coined the term from the words "black" and "exploitation."
Blaxploitation films were the first to regularly feature soundtracks of funk and soul music and primarily black casts. Variety credited Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song and the less radical Hollywood-financed film Shaft (both released in 1971) with the invention of the blaxploitation genre.
For an alphabetical listing of blaxploitation movies, click here.
The Los Angeles National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) head and ex-film publicist Junius Griffin coined the term from the words "black" and "exploitation."
Blaxploitation films were the first to regularly feature soundtracks of funk and soul music and primarily black casts. Variety credited Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song and the less radical Hollywood-financed film Shaft (both released in 1971) with the invention of the blaxploitation genre.
For an alphabetical listing of blaxploitation movies, click here.
Fictional Movies with a Focus on Martial Arts, including a List
YouTube Video: Enter the Dragon (1/3) Movie CLIP - Lee vs. O'Hara (1973) HD
Pictured: Martial Arts Theatrical Release Posters for LEFT: “Enter the Dragon” (1973) starring Bruce Lee: RIGHT: “The Karate Kid” (2010) starring Jackie Chan
Martial arts movies, a subgenre of the action film, contain numerous martial arts fights between characters, usually as the films' primary appeal and entertainment value, and often as a method of storytelling and character expression and development.
Martial arts are frequently featured in training scenes and other sequences in addition to fights. Martial arts films commonly include other types of action, such as stuntwork, chases, and gunfights.
As with other action films, martial arts films are dominated by action to varying degrees; many martial arts films have only a minimal plot and amount of character development and focus almost exclusively on the action, while other martial arts films have more creative and complex plots and characters along with action scenes.
Films of the latter type are generally considered to be artistically superior films, but many films of the former type are commercially successful and well received by fans of the genre. One of the earliest Hollywood movies to deploy the use of martial arts was Bad Day at Black Rock.
Martial arts films contain many characters who are martial artists, and these roles are often played by actors who are real martial artists. If not, actors frequently train in preparation for their roles, or the action director may rely more on stylized action or film making tricks like camera angles, editing, doubles, time lapse, wire work, and computer-generated imagery. Trampolines and springboards can also be used to increase the height of jumps. These techniques are sometimes used by real martial artists as well, depending on the style of action in the film.
Click here for a listing of Martial Arts Movies.
Martial arts are frequently featured in training scenes and other sequences in addition to fights. Martial arts films commonly include other types of action, such as stuntwork, chases, and gunfights.
As with other action films, martial arts films are dominated by action to varying degrees; many martial arts films have only a minimal plot and amount of character development and focus almost exclusively on the action, while other martial arts films have more creative and complex plots and characters along with action scenes.
Films of the latter type are generally considered to be artistically superior films, but many films of the former type are commercially successful and well received by fans of the genre. One of the earliest Hollywood movies to deploy the use of martial arts was Bad Day at Black Rock.
Martial arts films contain many characters who are martial artists, and these roles are often played by actors who are real martial artists. If not, actors frequently train in preparation for their roles, or the action director may rely more on stylized action or film making tricks like camera angles, editing, doubles, time lapse, wire work, and computer-generated imagery. Trampolines and springboards can also be used to increase the height of jumps. These techniques are sometimes used by real martial artists as well, depending on the style of action in the film.
Click here for a listing of Martial Arts Movies.
Major Film Studios including a List
YouTube Video of Steven Spielberg*, who co-founded Dreamworks**
*-- Steve Spielberg
**-- Dreamworks
A major film studio is a production and film distributor that releases a substantial number of films annually and consistently commands a significant share of box office revenue in a given market.
In the North American, Western, and global markets, the major film studios, often simply known as the majors, are commonly regarded as the six diversified media conglomerates whose various film production and distribution subsidiaries collectively command approximately 80 to 85 percent of U.S. and Canadian box office revenue.
The term may also be applied more specifically to the primary motion picture business subsidiary of each respective conglomerate.
The "Big Six" majors, whose operations are based in or around the Los Angeles neighborhood of Hollywood, are all centered in film studios active during Hollywood's Golden Age of the 1930s and 1940s.
In three cases--20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., and Paramount—the studios were one of the "Big Five" majors during that era as well. In two cases--Columbia and Universal—the studios were also considered majors, but in the next tier down, part of the "Little Three".
In the sixth case, Walt Disney Studios was an independent production company during the Golden Age; it was an important Hollywood entity, but not a major. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, United Artists, and RKO were majors.
Today, Disney is the only member of the Big Six whose parent entity is still located near Los Angeles (actually, on Disney's studio lot and in the same building).
The five others report to conglomerates headquartered in New York City, Philadelphia, and Tokyo. Of the Big Six, Paramount is the only one still based in Hollywood, and Paramount and Fox are the only ones still located within the Los Angeles city limits, while Disney and Warner Bros. are located in Burbank, Columbia in Culver City, and Universal in the unincorporated area of Universal City.
Most of today's Big Six control subsidiaries with their own distribution networks that concentrate on arthouse pictures (e.g. Fox Searchlight Pictures) or genre films (e.g. Sony's Screen Gems); several of these specialty units were shut down or sold off between 2008 and 2010.
The six major studios are contrasted with smaller production and/or distribution companies, which are known as independents or "indies". The leading independent producer/distributors--Lionsgate Films, The Weinstein Company, and former major studio MGM—are sometimes referred to as "mini-majors".
From 1998 through 2005, DreamWorks SKG commanded a large enough market share to arguably qualify it as a seventh major, despite its relatively small output. In 2006, DreamWorks was acquired by Viacom, Paramount's corporate parent. In late 2008, DreamWorks once again became an independent production company; its films were distributed by Disney's Touchstone Pictures until 2016, at which point distribution switched to Universal.
The Big Six major studios are today primarily backers and distributors of films whose actual production is largely handled by independent companies—either long-running entities or ones created for and dedicated to the making of a specific film. The specialty divisions often simply acquire distribution rights to pictures in which the studio has had no prior involvement.
While the majors still do a modicum of true production, their activities are focused more in the areas of development, financing, marketing, and merchandising. Those business functions are still usually performed in or near Los Angeles, even though the runaway production phenomenon means that most films are now mostly or completely shot on location at places outside Los Angeles.
Since the dawn of filmmaking, the U.S. major film studios have dominated both American cinema and the global film industry. U.S. studios have benefited from a strong first-mover advantage in that they were the first to industrialize film-making and master the art of mass-producing and distributing high-quality films with broad cross-cultural appeal.
Today, the Big Six majors routinely distribute hundreds of films every year into all significant international markets (that is, where discretionary income is high enough for consumers to afford to watch films). It is very rare, if not impossible, for a film to reach a broad international audience on multiple continents and in multiple languages without first being picked up by one of the majors for distribution.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Film Studios:
In the North American, Western, and global markets, the major film studios, often simply known as the majors, are commonly regarded as the six diversified media conglomerates whose various film production and distribution subsidiaries collectively command approximately 80 to 85 percent of U.S. and Canadian box office revenue.
The term may also be applied more specifically to the primary motion picture business subsidiary of each respective conglomerate.
The "Big Six" majors, whose operations are based in or around the Los Angeles neighborhood of Hollywood, are all centered in film studios active during Hollywood's Golden Age of the 1930s and 1940s.
In three cases--20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., and Paramount—the studios were one of the "Big Five" majors during that era as well. In two cases--Columbia and Universal—the studios were also considered majors, but in the next tier down, part of the "Little Three".
In the sixth case, Walt Disney Studios was an independent production company during the Golden Age; it was an important Hollywood entity, but not a major. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, United Artists, and RKO were majors.
Today, Disney is the only member of the Big Six whose parent entity is still located near Los Angeles (actually, on Disney's studio lot and in the same building).
The five others report to conglomerates headquartered in New York City, Philadelphia, and Tokyo. Of the Big Six, Paramount is the only one still based in Hollywood, and Paramount and Fox are the only ones still located within the Los Angeles city limits, while Disney and Warner Bros. are located in Burbank, Columbia in Culver City, and Universal in the unincorporated area of Universal City.
Most of today's Big Six control subsidiaries with their own distribution networks that concentrate on arthouse pictures (e.g. Fox Searchlight Pictures) or genre films (e.g. Sony's Screen Gems); several of these specialty units were shut down or sold off between 2008 and 2010.
The six major studios are contrasted with smaller production and/or distribution companies, which are known as independents or "indies". The leading independent producer/distributors--Lionsgate Films, The Weinstein Company, and former major studio MGM—are sometimes referred to as "mini-majors".
From 1998 through 2005, DreamWorks SKG commanded a large enough market share to arguably qualify it as a seventh major, despite its relatively small output. In 2006, DreamWorks was acquired by Viacom, Paramount's corporate parent. In late 2008, DreamWorks once again became an independent production company; its films were distributed by Disney's Touchstone Pictures until 2016, at which point distribution switched to Universal.
The Big Six major studios are today primarily backers and distributors of films whose actual production is largely handled by independent companies—either long-running entities or ones created for and dedicated to the making of a specific film. The specialty divisions often simply acquire distribution rights to pictures in which the studio has had no prior involvement.
While the majors still do a modicum of true production, their activities are focused more in the areas of development, financing, marketing, and merchandising. Those business functions are still usually performed in or near Los Angeles, even though the runaway production phenomenon means that most films are now mostly or completely shot on location at places outside Los Angeles.
Since the dawn of filmmaking, the U.S. major film studios have dominated both American cinema and the global film industry. U.S. studios have benefited from a strong first-mover advantage in that they were the first to industrialize film-making and master the art of mass-producing and distributing high-quality films with broad cross-cultural appeal.
Today, the Big Six majors routinely distribute hundreds of films every year into all significant international markets (that is, where discretionary income is high enough for consumers to afford to watch films). It is very rare, if not impossible, for a film to reach a broad international audience on multiple continents and in multiple languages without first being picked up by one of the majors for distribution.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Film Studios:
- Majors
- Mini-majors
- History
- Organizational lineage
- See also:
- Seven sisters — the seven major studios during the 1980s through mid-2000s
- Hollywood history and culture
- Media conglomerate
- Big Three — the three major music corporations: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group; formerly the Big Six: before Universal acquired PolyGram in 1998 and merged with EMI in 2012, and Sony and BMG merged in 2004
Sundance Film Festival
YouTube Video: Robert Redford Discusses Sundance 2016
The Sundance Film Festival, a program of the Sundance Institute, is an American film festival that takes place annually in Park City, Utah.
With 46,660 attendees in 2016, it is the largest independent film festival in the United States.
Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new work from American and international independent filmmakers. The festival comprises competitive sections for American and international dramatic and documentary films, both feature films and short films, and a group of out-of-competition sections, including NEXT, New Frontier, Spotlight, Midnight, Premieres and Documentary Premieres. The 2017 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 19 to January 29, 2017.
Sundance began in Salt Lake City in August 1978, as the Utah/US Film Festival in an effort to attract more filmmakers to Utah. It was founded by Sterling Van Wagenen (then head of Wildwood, Robert Redford's company), John Earle, and Cirina Hampton Catania (both serving on the Utah Film Commission at the time).
The 1978 festival featured films such as:
With chairman Robert Redford, and the help of Utah Governor Scott M. Matheson, the goal of the festival was to showcase strictly American-made films, highlight the potential of independent film, and to increase visibility for film-making in Utah.
At the time, the main focus of the event was to conduct a competition for independent American films, present a series of retrospective films and filmmaker panel discussions, and to celebrate the Frank Capra Award. The festival also highlighted the work of regional filmmakers who worked outside the Hollywood system.
The jury of the 1978 festival was headed by Gary Allison, and included Verna Fields, Linwood G. Dunn, Katharine Ross, Charles E. Sellier Jr., Mark Rydell, and Anthea Sylbert.
In 1979, Sterling Van Wagenen left to head up the first-year pilot program of what was to become the Sundance Institute, and James W. (Jim) Ure took over briefly as executive director, followed by Cirina Hampton Catania as executive director.
More than 60 films were screened at the festival that year, and panels featured many well-known Hollywood filmmakers. Also that year, the first Frank Capra Award went to Jimmy Stewart. The festival also made a profit for the first time. In 1980, Catania left the festival to pursue a production career in Hollywood.
Several factors helped propel the growth of Utah/US Film Festival. First was the involvement of actor and Utah resident Robert Redford, who became the festival's inaugural chairman. By having Redford's name associated with the festival, it received great attention.
Secondly, the country was hungry for more venues that would celebrate American-made films as the only other festival doing so at the time was the USA Film Festival in Dallas (est. 1971). Response in Hollywood was unprecedented as major studios did all they could to contribute their resources.
In 1981, the festival moved to Park City, Utah, and changed the dates from September to January. The move from late summer to mid-winter was done by the Executive Director, [Susan Barrell] with the cooperation of Hollywood director Sydney Pollack, who suggested that running a film festival in a ski resort during winter would draw more attention from Hollywood. it was called the US Film and Video Festival.
In 1984, the now well-established Sundance Institute, headed by Sterling Van Wagenen, took over management of the US Film Festival. Gary Beer and Van Wagenen spearheaded production of the inaugural US Film Festival presented by Sundance Institute (1985), which included Program Director Tony Safford and Administrative Director Jenny Walz Selby.
The branding and marketing transition from the US Film Festival to the Sundance Film Festival was managed under the direction of Colleen Allen, Allen Advertising Inc., by appointment of Robert Redford. In 1991 the festival was officially renamed the Sundance Film Festival, after Redford's character The Sundance Kid from the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Sundance Film Festival:
With 46,660 attendees in 2016, it is the largest independent film festival in the United States.
Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new work from American and international independent filmmakers. The festival comprises competitive sections for American and international dramatic and documentary films, both feature films and short films, and a group of out-of-competition sections, including NEXT, New Frontier, Spotlight, Midnight, Premieres and Documentary Premieres. The 2017 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 19 to January 29, 2017.
Sundance began in Salt Lake City in August 1978, as the Utah/US Film Festival in an effort to attract more filmmakers to Utah. It was founded by Sterling Van Wagenen (then head of Wildwood, Robert Redford's company), John Earle, and Cirina Hampton Catania (both serving on the Utah Film Commission at the time).
The 1978 festival featured films such as:
- Deliverance,
- A Streetcar Named Desire,
- Midnight Cowboy,
- Mean Streets,
- and The Sweet Smell of Success.
With chairman Robert Redford, and the help of Utah Governor Scott M. Matheson, the goal of the festival was to showcase strictly American-made films, highlight the potential of independent film, and to increase visibility for film-making in Utah.
At the time, the main focus of the event was to conduct a competition for independent American films, present a series of retrospective films and filmmaker panel discussions, and to celebrate the Frank Capra Award. The festival also highlighted the work of regional filmmakers who worked outside the Hollywood system.
The jury of the 1978 festival was headed by Gary Allison, and included Verna Fields, Linwood G. Dunn, Katharine Ross, Charles E. Sellier Jr., Mark Rydell, and Anthea Sylbert.
In 1979, Sterling Van Wagenen left to head up the first-year pilot program of what was to become the Sundance Institute, and James W. (Jim) Ure took over briefly as executive director, followed by Cirina Hampton Catania as executive director.
More than 60 films were screened at the festival that year, and panels featured many well-known Hollywood filmmakers. Also that year, the first Frank Capra Award went to Jimmy Stewart. The festival also made a profit for the first time. In 1980, Catania left the festival to pursue a production career in Hollywood.
Several factors helped propel the growth of Utah/US Film Festival. First was the involvement of actor and Utah resident Robert Redford, who became the festival's inaugural chairman. By having Redford's name associated with the festival, it received great attention.
Secondly, the country was hungry for more venues that would celebrate American-made films as the only other festival doing so at the time was the USA Film Festival in Dallas (est. 1971). Response in Hollywood was unprecedented as major studios did all they could to contribute their resources.
In 1981, the festival moved to Park City, Utah, and changed the dates from September to January. The move from late summer to mid-winter was done by the Executive Director, [Susan Barrell] with the cooperation of Hollywood director Sydney Pollack, who suggested that running a film festival in a ski resort during winter would draw more attention from Hollywood. it was called the US Film and Video Festival.
In 1984, the now well-established Sundance Institute, headed by Sterling Van Wagenen, took over management of the US Film Festival. Gary Beer and Van Wagenen spearheaded production of the inaugural US Film Festival presented by Sundance Institute (1985), which included Program Director Tony Safford and Administrative Director Jenny Walz Selby.
The branding and marketing transition from the US Film Festival to the Sundance Film Festival was managed under the direction of Colleen Allen, Allen Advertising Inc., by appointment of Robert Redford. In 1991 the festival was officially renamed the Sundance Film Festival, after Redford's character The Sundance Kid from the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Sundance Film Festival:
List of Highest-grossing Movies
YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" (2015)*
* -- "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" (2015)
Pictured: The two highest-grossing movies are (L) Avatar (2009) (#1); and (R) Titanic (1997) (#2)
Films generate income from several revenue streams, including theatrical exhibition, home video, television broadcast rights and merchandising.
However, theatrical box office earnings are the primary metric for trade publications in assessing the success of a film, mostly because of the availability of the data compared to sales figures for home video and broadcast rights, but also because of historical practice.
Included on the list are charts of the top box office earners (ranked by both the nominal and real value of their revenue), a chart of high-grossing films by calendar year, a timeline showing the transition of the highest-grossing film record, and a chart of the highest-grossing film franchises and series. All charts are ranked by international theatrical box office performance where possible, excluding income derived from home video, broadcasting rights and merchandise.
Traditionally, war films, musicals and historical dramas have been the most popular genres, but franchise films have been among the best performers in the 21st century.
Seven Harry Potter films and five films from Peter Jackson's Middle-earth series are included in the nominal earnings chart, while the Jurassic Park, Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean franchises feature prominently.
There is also continued interest in the superhero genre: Batman and Superman from DC Comics and films based on the Marvel Comics brand, such as Spider-Man, X-Men and films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, have generally done well.
The only films in the top ten that are not adapted from a pre-existing property or a sequel are the top two, Avatar and Titanic, both directed by James Cameron.
Animated family films have performed consistently well, with Disney films enjoying lucrative re-releases prior to the home-video era. Disney also enjoyed later success with films such as Frozen (the highest-grossing animated film), Zootopia and The Lion King, as well as with its Pixar brand, of which the Toy Story and Finding Nemo films have been the best performers.
Beyond Pixar animation, the Shrek, Ice Age and Despicable Me series have met with the most success.
While inflation has eroded away the achievements of most films from the 1960s and 1970s, there are franchises originating from that period that are still active.
Besides the Superman franchise, James Bond, Planet of the Apes, Star Wars and Star Trek films are still being released periodically; all five are among the highest-grossing franchises.
Some of the older films that held the record of highest-grossing film still have respectable grosses by today's standards, but no longer compete numerically against today's top-earners in an era of much higher individual ticket prices.
When properly adjusted for inflation, however, on that comparative scale Gone with the Wind—which was the highest-grossing film outright for twenty-five years—is still the highest-grossing film of all-time. All grosses on the list are expressed in U.S. dollars at their nominal value, except where stated otherwise.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for a List of Highest Grossing Movies:
However, theatrical box office earnings are the primary metric for trade publications in assessing the success of a film, mostly because of the availability of the data compared to sales figures for home video and broadcast rights, but also because of historical practice.
Included on the list are charts of the top box office earners (ranked by both the nominal and real value of their revenue), a chart of high-grossing films by calendar year, a timeline showing the transition of the highest-grossing film record, and a chart of the highest-grossing film franchises and series. All charts are ranked by international theatrical box office performance where possible, excluding income derived from home video, broadcasting rights and merchandise.
Traditionally, war films, musicals and historical dramas have been the most popular genres, but franchise films have been among the best performers in the 21st century.
Seven Harry Potter films and five films from Peter Jackson's Middle-earth series are included in the nominal earnings chart, while the Jurassic Park, Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean franchises feature prominently.
There is also continued interest in the superhero genre: Batman and Superman from DC Comics and films based on the Marvel Comics brand, such as Spider-Man, X-Men and films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, have generally done well.
The only films in the top ten that are not adapted from a pre-existing property or a sequel are the top two, Avatar and Titanic, both directed by James Cameron.
Animated family films have performed consistently well, with Disney films enjoying lucrative re-releases prior to the home-video era. Disney also enjoyed later success with films such as Frozen (the highest-grossing animated film), Zootopia and The Lion King, as well as with its Pixar brand, of which the Toy Story and Finding Nemo films have been the best performers.
Beyond Pixar animation, the Shrek, Ice Age and Despicable Me series have met with the most success.
While inflation has eroded away the achievements of most films from the 1960s and 1970s, there are franchises originating from that period that are still active.
Besides the Superman franchise, James Bond, Planet of the Apes, Star Wars and Star Trek films are still being released periodically; all five are among the highest-grossing franchises.
Some of the older films that held the record of highest-grossing film still have respectable grosses by today's standards, but no longer compete numerically against today's top-earners in an era of much higher individual ticket prices.
When properly adjusted for inflation, however, on that comparative scale Gone with the Wind—which was the highest-grossing film outright for twenty-five years—is still the highest-grossing film of all-time. All grosses on the list are expressed in U.S. dollars at their nominal value, except where stated otherwise.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for a List of Highest Grossing Movies:
- Highest-grossing films
- Highest-grossing films adjusted for inflation
- High-grossing films by year
- Timeline of highest-grossing films
- Highest-grossing franchises and film series
American Film Institute including its List of AFI 100 Years... Series
YouTube Video of the 2014 AFI AWARDS 2014
The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership.
Membership:
The institute is composed of leaders from the film, entertainment, business and academic communities. A board of trustees chaired by Sir Howard Stringer and a board of directors chaired by Robert A. Daly guide the organization, which is led by President and CEO, film historian Bob Gazzale (as of October 2014). Prior leaders were founding director George Stevens, Jr. (from the organizations inception in 1967 until 1980) and Jean Picker Firstenberg (from 1980 to 2007).[
List of Programs, in Brief:
AFI educational and cultural programs include:
AFI Conservatory:
In 1969, the institute established the AFI Conservatory for Advanced Film Studies at Greystone, the Doheny Mansion in Beverly Hills, California.
The first class included filmmakers Terrence Malick, Caleb Deschanel and Paul Schrader. That program grew into the AFI Conservatory, an accredited graduate film school located in the hills above Hollywood, California, providing training in six filmmaking disciplines: cinematography, directing, editing, producing, production design and screenwriting.
Mirroring a professional production environment, Fellows collaborate to make more films than any other graduate level program. Admission to AFI Conservatory is highly selective, with a maximum of 140 graduates per year.
In 2013, Emmy and Oscar-winning director, producer and screenwriter James L. Brooks (As Good as It Gets, Broadcast News, Terms of Endearment) joined AFI as Artistic Director of the AFI Conservatory where he provides leadership for the film program. Brooks' artistic role at the AFI Conservatory has a rich legacy that includes Daniel Petrie, Jr., Robert Wise and Frank Pierson. Award-winning director Bob Mandel served as Dean of the AFI Conservatory for nine years. Jan Schuette took over as Dean in 2014.
Notable Alumni:
AFI Conservatory's alumni have careers in film, television and on the web. They have been recognized with all of the major industry awards – Academy Award, Emmy Award, guild awards, and the Tony Award.
Among the alumni of AFI are the following:
Click on any of the following for further information about the American Film Institute: ___________________________________________________________________________
AFI 100 Years....Series
The AFI's 100 Years… series is a series of lists and accompanying CBS television specials in which the American Film Institute celebrated 100 years of the greatest films in American cinema. The list is intended to ignite interest in classical Hollywood cinema.
List of Series Events:
See Also:
Membership:
The institute is composed of leaders from the film, entertainment, business and academic communities. A board of trustees chaired by Sir Howard Stringer and a board of directors chaired by Robert A. Daly guide the organization, which is led by President and CEO, film historian Bob Gazzale (as of October 2014). Prior leaders were founding director George Stevens, Jr. (from the organizations inception in 1967 until 1980) and Jean Picker Firstenberg (from 1980 to 2007).[
List of Programs, in Brief:
AFI educational and cultural programs include:
- AFI Catalog of Feature Films and AFI Archive – the written history of all feature films during the first 100 years of the art form – accessible free online;
- AFI Conservatory – a film school led by master filmmakers in a graduate level program;
- AFI Life Achievement Award – a tradition since 1973, a high honor for a career in film;
- AFI Awards – an honor celebrating the creative ensembles of the most outstanding motion picture and television programs of the year;
- AFI 100 Years... series – television events and movie reference lists;
- AFI's two film festivals – in Los Angeles, AFI Fest presented by Audi and in Silver Spring, Maryland, AFI Docs presented by Audi;
- AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center – an historic theater with year-round art house, first-run and classic film programming in Silver Spring, Maryland;
- American Film – an e-magazine that explores the art of new and historic film classics.
AFI Conservatory:
In 1969, the institute established the AFI Conservatory for Advanced Film Studies at Greystone, the Doheny Mansion in Beverly Hills, California.
The first class included filmmakers Terrence Malick, Caleb Deschanel and Paul Schrader. That program grew into the AFI Conservatory, an accredited graduate film school located in the hills above Hollywood, California, providing training in six filmmaking disciplines: cinematography, directing, editing, producing, production design and screenwriting.
Mirroring a professional production environment, Fellows collaborate to make more films than any other graduate level program. Admission to AFI Conservatory is highly selective, with a maximum of 140 graduates per year.
In 2013, Emmy and Oscar-winning director, producer and screenwriter James L. Brooks (As Good as It Gets, Broadcast News, Terms of Endearment) joined AFI as Artistic Director of the AFI Conservatory where he provides leadership for the film program. Brooks' artistic role at the AFI Conservatory has a rich legacy that includes Daniel Petrie, Jr., Robert Wise and Frank Pierson. Award-winning director Bob Mandel served as Dean of the AFI Conservatory for nine years. Jan Schuette took over as Dean in 2014.
Notable Alumni:
AFI Conservatory's alumni have careers in film, television and on the web. They have been recognized with all of the major industry awards – Academy Award, Emmy Award, guild awards, and the Tony Award.
Among the alumni of AFI are the following:
- Andrea Arnold,
- Darren Aronofsky
- Carl Colpaert
- Doug Ellin
- Todd Field
- Jack Fisk
- Carl Franklin
- Janusz Kamiński
- Matthew Libatique
- Noah,
- Black Swan,
- David Lynch
- Terrence Malick
- Victor Nuñez,
- Wally Pfister
- Robert Richardson
Click on any of the following for further information about the American Film Institute: ___________________________________________________________________________
AFI 100 Years....Series
The AFI's 100 Years… series is a series of lists and accompanying CBS television specials in which the American Film Institute celebrated 100 years of the greatest films in American cinema. The list is intended to ignite interest in classical Hollywood cinema.
List of Series Events:
- 1998: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies
- 1999: AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars
- 2000: AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs
- 2001: AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills
- 2002: AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions
- 2003: AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains
- 2004: AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs
- 2005: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes
- 2005: AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores (special event at the Hollywood Bowl; did not air on television)
- 2006: AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers
- 2006: AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals (special event at the Hollywood Bowl; did not air on television)
- 2007: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)
- 2008: AFI's 10 Top 10
See Also:
Movie Theaters in the United States including a List of Movie Theater Chains
YouTube Video: Watch How an IMAX Theater aim Enhances the Movie Experience
Pictured (L-R): A Drive-in Movie Theater; an IMAX Movie Theater
Click here for an alphabetical Listing of Movie Theater Chains in the United States
A movie theater or movie theatre (also called a cinema) is a building that contains an auditorium for viewing films (also called movies or cinemas), for entertainment. Most, but not all, theaters are commercial operations catering to the general public, who attend by purchasing a ticket. Some movie theaters, however, are operated by non-profit organizations or societies which charge members a membership fee to view films.
The film is projected with a movie projector onto a large projection screen at the front of the auditorium while the dialogue, sounds and music are played through a number of wall-mounted speakers. Since the 1970s, subwoofers have been used for low-pitched sounds. In the 2010s, most movie theaters are equipped for digital cinema projection, removing the need to create and transport a physical film print on a heavy reel.
A great variety of films are shown at cinemas, ranging from animated films for children, blockbusters for general audiences and documentaries for patrons who are interested in non-fiction topics. The smallest movie theaters have a single viewing room with a single screen.
In the 2010s, most movie theaters have multiple screens. The largest theater complexes, which are called multiplexes—a design developed in the U.S. in the 1960s—have up to 25 screens. The audience members typically sit on padded seats which in most theaters are set up on a sloped floor, with the highest part at the rear of the theater. Movie theaters typically sell soft drinks, popcorn and candy and some theaters also sell hot fast food. In some jurisdictions, movie theaters are licensed to sell alcoholic drinks.
A movie theater may also be referred to as a movie theatre, movie house, film house, film theater or picture house. In the US, theater has long been the preferred spelling, while in the UK, Canada and elsewhere it is theatre.
However, some US theaters opt to use the British spelling in their own names, a practice supported by the National Association of Theatre Owners, while apart from North America most English-speaking countries use the term cinema, alternatively spelled and pronounced kinema. The latter terms, as well as their derivative adjectives "cinematic" and "kinematic", ultimately derive from Greek κινῆμα, κινήματος (kinema, kinematos)—"movement", "motion". In the countries where those terms are used, the word "theatre" is usually reserved for live performance venues.
For more about Movie Theaters, click on any of the following blue hyperlinks:
A movie theater or movie theatre (also called a cinema) is a building that contains an auditorium for viewing films (also called movies or cinemas), for entertainment. Most, but not all, theaters are commercial operations catering to the general public, who attend by purchasing a ticket. Some movie theaters, however, are operated by non-profit organizations or societies which charge members a membership fee to view films.
The film is projected with a movie projector onto a large projection screen at the front of the auditorium while the dialogue, sounds and music are played through a number of wall-mounted speakers. Since the 1970s, subwoofers have been used for low-pitched sounds. In the 2010s, most movie theaters are equipped for digital cinema projection, removing the need to create and transport a physical film print on a heavy reel.
A great variety of films are shown at cinemas, ranging from animated films for children, blockbusters for general audiences and documentaries for patrons who are interested in non-fiction topics. The smallest movie theaters have a single viewing room with a single screen.
In the 2010s, most movie theaters have multiple screens. The largest theater complexes, which are called multiplexes—a design developed in the U.S. in the 1960s—have up to 25 screens. The audience members typically sit on padded seats which in most theaters are set up on a sloped floor, with the highest part at the rear of the theater. Movie theaters typically sell soft drinks, popcorn and candy and some theaters also sell hot fast food. In some jurisdictions, movie theaters are licensed to sell alcoholic drinks.
A movie theater may also be referred to as a movie theatre, movie house, film house, film theater or picture house. In the US, theater has long been the preferred spelling, while in the UK, Canada and elsewhere it is theatre.
However, some US theaters opt to use the British spelling in their own names, a practice supported by the National Association of Theatre Owners, while apart from North America most English-speaking countries use the term cinema, alternatively spelled and pronounced kinema. The latter terms, as well as their derivative adjectives "cinematic" and "kinematic", ultimately derive from Greek κινῆμα, κινήματος (kinema, kinematos)—"movement", "motion". In the countries where those terms are used, the word "theatre" is usually reserved for live performance venues.
For more about Movie Theaters, click on any of the following blue hyperlinks:
- History
- Design
- Programming
- Presentation
- Live broadcasting to movie theaters
- Pricing and admission
- Controversies
- Intimacy
- Cinema and movie theater chains
- See Also:
Filmmaking, including the Major Film Studios in America
YouTube Video: Top 10 Steven Spielberg Movies
(by WatchMojo)
Filmmaking (or, in an academic context, film production) is the process of making a film. Filmmaking involves a number of discrete stages including: an initial story, idea, or commission, through screenwriting, casting, shooting, sound recording and reproduction, editing, and screening the finished product before an audience that may result in a film release and exhibition.
Filmmaking takes place in many places around the world in a range of economic, social, and political contexts, and using a variety of technologies and cinematic techniques. Typically, it involves a large number of people, and can take from a few months to several years to complete.
Click on any of the following for more about Filmmaking:
The Big Eight (film studios):
Big Eight is sometimes used to refer to the eight corporations that own the Big Ten, the ten major Hollywood movie studios.
Filmmaking takes place in many places around the world in a range of economic, social, and political contexts, and using a variety of technologies and cinematic techniques. Typically, it involves a large number of people, and can take from a few months to several years to complete.
Click on any of the following for more about Filmmaking:
- Stages of production
- Independent filmmaking
- See also:
- 35 mm film
- Audiography
- Cinematic techniques
- Cinematography
- Film crew
- Film director
- Film editing
- Film title design
- Film industry
- Film producer
- Film school
- Film studies
- First look deal
- Glossary of motion picture terms
- List of film-related topics
- Movie production incentives in the United States
- Outline of film
- Post-production
- Pre-production
- Screenplay
- Screenwriter
- Filmmaking at DMOZ
- Internet Filmmaker's FAQ—frequently asked questions on filmmaking
- Filmmaker magazine
- Directors' Diaries: The Road to Their First Film
The Big Eight (film studios):
Big Eight is sometimes used to refer to the eight corporations that own the Big Ten, the ten major Hollywood movie studios.
- 20th Century Fox - now owned by 21st Century Fox
- Columbia Pictures - now owned by Sony.
- MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) - now owned by MGM Holdings.
- Paramount Pictures - now owned by Viacom.
- RKO Radio Pictures - defunct c. 1957
- United Artists - purchased by MGM, a subsidiary of MGM Holdings.
- Universal Studios - now a part of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast.
- Warner Bros. - a division of Time Warner.
Film Critics, including a List
YouTube Video of Siskel and Ebert film critique of Mrs. Doubfire (1993)
Pictured: Film Critic Roger Ebert with Co-host (L) Gene Siskel (1986-1999) then after Siskel’s Death, with Co-host Richard Roeper (2006-2010) appearing on “At the Movies” Television Show
For an alphabetical List of Film Critics, click here.
Film critique is the analysis and evaluation of films and the film medium. In general, film criticism can be divided into two categories: journalistic criticism found regularly in newspapers, magazines and other popular mass-media outlets; and academic criticism by film scholars who are informed by film theory and are published in academic journals.
Film critics working for newspapers, magazines, broadcast media, and online publications, mainly review new releases, although some reviewers include reviews of older "classic" films. The plot summary and description of a film that makes up the majority of the review can influence whether readers or listeners decide to see a film.
In the 2000s, the effect that reviews have on a film's box office performance and DVD rentals/sales have become a matter for debate. Some analysts argue that modern movie marketing, using pop culture convention appearances (e.g., Comicon) and social media along with traditional means of advertising, has led, in part, to a decline in the readership of many reviewers for newspapers and other print publications.
There are fewer film critics on television and radio in the last thirty years. Most film criticism in general does not hold the same place it once held with the general public.
Today, fan-run film analysis websites like Box Office Prophets and Box Office Guru routinely factor more into the opinions of the general public on films produced. These websites ensure that the content being put up to watch for the audience is well controlled, not violent, sexually abusing, sexist, racist or in general offensive.
Other websites, such as Rotten Tomatoes, combineall reviews on a specific film published online and in print to come up with an aggregated rating, which in the case of Rotten Tomatoes is known as a "freshness rate."
Some well-known journalistic critics have included:
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Film Critics:
Film critique is the analysis and evaluation of films and the film medium. In general, film criticism can be divided into two categories: journalistic criticism found regularly in newspapers, magazines and other popular mass-media outlets; and academic criticism by film scholars who are informed by film theory and are published in academic journals.
Film critics working for newspapers, magazines, broadcast media, and online publications, mainly review new releases, although some reviewers include reviews of older "classic" films. The plot summary and description of a film that makes up the majority of the review can influence whether readers or listeners decide to see a film.
In the 2000s, the effect that reviews have on a film's box office performance and DVD rentals/sales have become a matter for debate. Some analysts argue that modern movie marketing, using pop culture convention appearances (e.g., Comicon) and social media along with traditional means of advertising, has led, in part, to a decline in the readership of many reviewers for newspapers and other print publications.
There are fewer film critics on television and radio in the last thirty years. Most film criticism in general does not hold the same place it once held with the general public.
Today, fan-run film analysis websites like Box Office Prophets and Box Office Guru routinely factor more into the opinions of the general public on films produced. These websites ensure that the content being put up to watch for the audience is well controlled, not violent, sexually abusing, sexist, racist or in general offensive.
Other websites, such as Rotten Tomatoes, combineall reviews on a specific film published online and in print to come up with an aggregated rating, which in the case of Rotten Tomatoes is known as a "freshness rate."
Some well-known journalistic critics have included:
- James Agee (Time (magazine),
- The Nation);
- Vincent Canby (The New York Times);
- Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times, At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper);
- Mark Kermode (BBC, The Observer);
- James Berardinelli;
- Philip French (The Observer);
- Pauline Kael (The New Yorker);
- Manny Farber (The New Republic, Time, The Nation);
- Peter Bradshaw (The Guardian);
- Michael Phillips (Chicago Tribune);
- Andrew Sarris (The Village Voice);
- Joel Siegel (Good Morning America);
- and Jonathan Rosenbaum (Chicago Reader).
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Film Critics:
Beach Party Movies
YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for Beach Blanket Bingo*
*-Beach Blanket Bingo
Pictured: Beach Party (1963) was the first of several "beach party" films by American International Pictures
Beach party movies were an American subgenre of feature films produced and released between 1963 and 1968, created by American International Pictures (AIP), beginning with their surprise hit, Beach Party in July 1963. With this film, AIP is credited with creating the genre.
In addition to the AIP films, several contributions to the genre were produced and released by major and independent studios alike. According to various sources, the genre comprises over 30 films, with the lower-budget AIP films being the most profitable.
Generally comedies, the core elements of the AIP films consisted of a group of teenage and/or college-age characters as heroes; non-parental adult characters as villains and/or comic relief; simple, silly storylines that avoided any sober social consciousness; teen trends and interests (such as dancing, surfing, drag racing, custom cars, etc.); simple romantic arcs, original songs (presented in both the “Musical” genre style and as ”source music”); teen-oriented musical acts (frequently performing as themselves); and a tongue-in-cheek attitude toward the target audience.
The earliest films by AIP, as well as those by other studios, focused on surfing and beach culture. Although the genre is termed "beach party film", several subsequent films that appeared later in the genre, while keeping most of the core elements mentioned above, do not actually include surfing – or even scenes on a beach.
One of the earliest uses of the term in print is found several times in the June 1965 issue of Mad magazine in an article written by Larry Siegel. Commentators on the genre have used this term as well.
The term "beach party film" is distinguished from a “surf film” or “surf movie” in that the former refers to the comedies of the 1960s, whereas the latter terms refer to surf documentaries (such as The Endless Summer or Riding Giants), a still-active genre. Occasionally the term “surf movie” refers to a straightforward dramatic film that uses surfing as a backdrop or plot device, such as Big Wednesday or Blue Crush.
Click on any of the blue hyperlinks below for more about Beach Party Movies:
In addition to the AIP films, several contributions to the genre were produced and released by major and independent studios alike. According to various sources, the genre comprises over 30 films, with the lower-budget AIP films being the most profitable.
Generally comedies, the core elements of the AIP films consisted of a group of teenage and/or college-age characters as heroes; non-parental adult characters as villains and/or comic relief; simple, silly storylines that avoided any sober social consciousness; teen trends and interests (such as dancing, surfing, drag racing, custom cars, etc.); simple romantic arcs, original songs (presented in both the “Musical” genre style and as ”source music”); teen-oriented musical acts (frequently performing as themselves); and a tongue-in-cheek attitude toward the target audience.
The earliest films by AIP, as well as those by other studios, focused on surfing and beach culture. Although the genre is termed "beach party film", several subsequent films that appeared later in the genre, while keeping most of the core elements mentioned above, do not actually include surfing – or even scenes on a beach.
One of the earliest uses of the term in print is found several times in the June 1965 issue of Mad magazine in an article written by Larry Siegel. Commentators on the genre have used this term as well.
The term "beach party film" is distinguished from a “surf film” or “surf movie” in that the former refers to the comedies of the 1960s, whereas the latter terms refer to surf documentaries (such as The Endless Summer or Riding Giants), a still-active genre. Occasionally the term “surf movie” refers to a straightforward dramatic film that uses surfing as a backdrop or plot device, such as Big Wednesday or Blue Crush.
Click on any of the blue hyperlinks below for more about Beach Party Movies:
- AIP's creation of the genre
- The AIP “formula”
- Music geared to a teenage audience
Teen freedom, fun, and sexuality
"Frankie & Annette”
Success
- Music geared to a teenage audience
- The complete AIP series
- AIP casts
- Stock actors
Comedic guest stars
Recurring cast and guest stars
Musical guest stars
- Stock actors
- Contributions to the genre by other studios
- Major studios
- Columbia
Twentieth Century-Fox
Paramount Pictures
Warner Bros.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
United Artists
Universal Studios
- Columbia
- Independent studios
- Musical stars of the genre
- End of the genre
- Legacy
- Influence on popular culture
- Mad magazine
Television
Music
Film
- Mad magazine
- See also:
Surfing Movies, including a List by Category
YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for "Blue Crush" (2002)*
*- Blue Crush
Pictured (L-R): "Gidget" (1959) and "The Endless Summer" (1966)
Click here for a List of Surfing Movies by Category
Surf movies fall into three distinct genres:
Surfing Documentaries:
The sporting documentary was pioneered by Bud Browne (e.g. "Hawaiian Holiday") in the 1940s and early 1950s, and later popularized by Bruce Brown (e.g. The Endless Summer) in the late 1950s and early 1960s, then later perfected by Greg MacGillivray and Jim Freeman (e.g. Five Summer Stories) in the 1970s and beyond (MacGillivray and Freeman later went on to film IMAX movies such as To Fly! and Speed).
The surfing genre in itself has been defined by surfers, traveling with their friends and documenting the experience on film. In the 'heyday' of Bruce Brown, Greg Noll, Bud Brown, John Severson, films were projected for rambunctious fans in music halls, civic centers and high school auditoriums.
During the 1980s, the market for surf films surged with the release of more affordable video cameras.
By the 1990s, the surfing market became saturated with low and medium budget surf films, many with sound tracks that reflected the mass media driven music culture. VHS and eventually DVDs made the surf film viewing experience an "at home" affair and the 'heyday' of joing your friends or taking a girl to "surf movie night" at the local high school soon quickly vanished.
Furthermore, large surf brands began making surf films under their marketing budgets to promote clothing and product sales. Titles like Sonny Miller's, "The Search" for Rip Curl redefined the genre with exotic locales, big budgets and name surfers, such as Tom Curren.
In the late 1990s to the present, there has been a revival of the "independent surf film."
Artists, like The Malloys, Jack Johnson and Jason Baffa have reinvented the genre by shooting self-financed 16mm motion picture film and utilizing indy music bands like G. Love, Alexi Murdoch, Mojave 3, White Buffalo and Donavon Frankenreiter, creating what the surf media has called, "modern classics." Backed by grass roots screening tours, inspired by the surf film forefathers, stoked groms and now dads can once again see the newest flick on the big screen.
Beach Party Movies:
The second type of surf movie would be the campy entertainment feature, also termed "beach party films" or "surfploitation flicks" by true surfers, having little to do with the authentic sport and culture of surfing and representing movies that attempted to cash in on the growing popularity of surfing among youth in the early 1960s.
Narrative Surfing Movies:
Surfing is occasionally portrayed more realistically within fictional storylines, or use surfing as backdrop, or side theme.
For further amplification, click on any of the following blue hyperlinks:
Surf movies fall into three distinct genres:
- the surfing documentary - targeting the surfing enthusiast
- the 1960s beach party films - targeting the broader community and
- fictional feature films with a focus on the reality of surfing
Surfing Documentaries:
The sporting documentary was pioneered by Bud Browne (e.g. "Hawaiian Holiday") in the 1940s and early 1950s, and later popularized by Bruce Brown (e.g. The Endless Summer) in the late 1950s and early 1960s, then later perfected by Greg MacGillivray and Jim Freeman (e.g. Five Summer Stories) in the 1970s and beyond (MacGillivray and Freeman later went on to film IMAX movies such as To Fly! and Speed).
The surfing genre in itself has been defined by surfers, traveling with their friends and documenting the experience on film. In the 'heyday' of Bruce Brown, Greg Noll, Bud Brown, John Severson, films were projected for rambunctious fans in music halls, civic centers and high school auditoriums.
During the 1980s, the market for surf films surged with the release of more affordable video cameras.
By the 1990s, the surfing market became saturated with low and medium budget surf films, many with sound tracks that reflected the mass media driven music culture. VHS and eventually DVDs made the surf film viewing experience an "at home" affair and the 'heyday' of joing your friends or taking a girl to "surf movie night" at the local high school soon quickly vanished.
Furthermore, large surf brands began making surf films under their marketing budgets to promote clothing and product sales. Titles like Sonny Miller's, "The Search" for Rip Curl redefined the genre with exotic locales, big budgets and name surfers, such as Tom Curren.
In the late 1990s to the present, there has been a revival of the "independent surf film."
Artists, like The Malloys, Jack Johnson and Jason Baffa have reinvented the genre by shooting self-financed 16mm motion picture film and utilizing indy music bands like G. Love, Alexi Murdoch, Mojave 3, White Buffalo and Donavon Frankenreiter, creating what the surf media has called, "modern classics." Backed by grass roots screening tours, inspired by the surf film forefathers, stoked groms and now dads can once again see the newest flick on the big screen.
Beach Party Movies:
The second type of surf movie would be the campy entertainment feature, also termed "beach party films" or "surfploitation flicks" by true surfers, having little to do with the authentic sport and culture of surfing and representing movies that attempted to cash in on the growing popularity of surfing among youth in the early 1960s.
Narrative Surfing Movies:
Surfing is occasionally portrayed more realistically within fictional storylines, or use surfing as backdrop, or side theme.
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Movies about Jesus Christ, including a List
YouTube Video of "The Greatest Story Ever Told" Official Trailer #1
YouTube Video of "The Greatest Story Ever Told" Official Trailer #2
Pictured (L-R): "The Robe" (1953); "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965)
Click here for a List of Christian Movies.
The Christian film industry is an umbrella term for films containing a Christian themed message or moral, produced by Christian filmmakers to a Christian audience, and films produced by non-Christians with Christian audiences in mind. They are often interdenominational films, but can also be films targeting a specific denomination of Christianity.
Popular mainstream studio productions of films with strong Christian messages or Biblical stories (like the following) are not specifically part of the Christian film industry, being more agnostic about their audiences' religious beliefs:
Many films from the Christian film industry are produced by openly confessing Christians in independent companies mainly targeting a Christian audience.
This has been on the rise since the success of Sherwood Pictures' Fireproof, which was the highest grossing independent film of 2008. The success of Fireproof may have been due in part to a door opened by the box office success of The Passion of the Christ.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about "Christian Movies":
The Christian film industry is an umbrella term for films containing a Christian themed message or moral, produced by Christian filmmakers to a Christian audience, and films produced by non-Christians with Christian audiences in mind. They are often interdenominational films, but can also be films targeting a specific denomination of Christianity.
Popular mainstream studio productions of films with strong Christian messages or Biblical stories (like the following) are not specifically part of the Christian film industry, being more agnostic about their audiences' religious beliefs:
- Ben-Hur,
- The Ten Commandments,
- The Passion of the Christ,
- The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion,
- the Witch and the Wardrobe,
- The Book of Eli,
- and Machine Gun Preacher .
Many films from the Christian film industry are produced by openly confessing Christians in independent companies mainly targeting a Christian audience.
This has been on the rise since the success of Sherwood Pictures' Fireproof, which was the highest grossing independent film of 2008. The success of Fireproof may have been due in part to a door opened by the box office success of The Passion of the Christ.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about "Christian Movies":
- History
- See also:
Francis Ford Coppola
YouTube Video: The Godfather Trilogy: Francis-Ford Coppola's Notebook
Pictured: Francis Ford Coppola with LEFT: Marlon Brando in “The Godfather” (1972); and RIGHT: Martin Sheen in “Apocalypse Now” (1979)
Francis Ford Coppola (born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He was part of the New Hollywood wave of film-making.
After directing The Rain People (1969), he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as co-writer, with Edmund H. North, of Patton in 1970. His directorial prominence was cemented with the release in 1972 of The Godfather, a film which revolutionized movie-making in the gangster genre, earning praise from both critics and the public before winning three Academy Awards—including his second Oscar (Best Adapted Screenplay, with Mario Puzo), Best Picture, and his first nomination for Best Director.
He followed with The Godfather Part II in 1974, which became the first sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Highly regarded by critics, it brought him three more Academy Awards: Best Adapted Screenplay,Best Director and Best Picture, and made him the second director, after Billy Wilder, to be honored three times for the same film.
The Conversation, which he directed, produced and wrote, was released that same year, winning the Palme d'Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival.
He next directed 1979's Apocalypse Now. Notorious for its over-long and strenuous production, the film was nonetheless critically acclaimed for its vivid and stark depiction of the Vietnam War, winning the Palme d'Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival.
In 1990, he directed the second Godfather sequel, The Godfather Part III, which he considers to be the series' epilogue. Coppola is one of only eight filmmakers to win two Palme d'Or awards.
While a number of Coppola's ventures in the 1980s and 1990s were critically lauded, he has never quite achieved the same commercial success with films as in the 1970s.
His most well-known films released since the 1980s are the dramas The Outsiders and Rumble Fish (both 1983), the crime-drama The Cotton Club (1984), and the horror film Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992).
Click here for more about Francis Ford Coppola.
After directing The Rain People (1969), he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as co-writer, with Edmund H. North, of Patton in 1970. His directorial prominence was cemented with the release in 1972 of The Godfather, a film which revolutionized movie-making in the gangster genre, earning praise from both critics and the public before winning three Academy Awards—including his second Oscar (Best Adapted Screenplay, with Mario Puzo), Best Picture, and his first nomination for Best Director.
He followed with The Godfather Part II in 1974, which became the first sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Highly regarded by critics, it brought him three more Academy Awards: Best Adapted Screenplay,Best Director and Best Picture, and made him the second director, after Billy Wilder, to be honored three times for the same film.
The Conversation, which he directed, produced and wrote, was released that same year, winning the Palme d'Or at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival.
He next directed 1979's Apocalypse Now. Notorious for its over-long and strenuous production, the film was nonetheless critically acclaimed for its vivid and stark depiction of the Vietnam War, winning the Palme d'Or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival.
In 1990, he directed the second Godfather sequel, The Godfather Part III, which he considers to be the series' epilogue. Coppola is one of only eight filmmakers to win two Palme d'Or awards.
While a number of Coppola's ventures in the 1980s and 1990s were critically lauded, he has never quite achieved the same commercial success with films as in the 1970s.
His most well-known films released since the 1980s are the dramas The Outsiders and Rumble Fish (both 1983), the crime-drama The Cotton Club (1984), and the horror film Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992).
Click here for more about Francis Ford Coppola.
Billy Wilder
Click Here for YouTube Video from "The Apartment" (1960) Directed by Billy Wilder featuring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine
Pictured: Billy Wilder with: LEFT Gloria Swanson during filming of “Sunset Boulevard” (1950); and RIGHT: with Marilyn Monroe in “The Seven Year Itch” (1955)
Billy Wilder (June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an Austrian-born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist and journalist, whose career spanned more than fifty years and sixty films.
He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age. With The Apartment, Wilder became the first person to win Academy Awards as producer, director and screenwriter for the same film.
Wilder became a screenwriter in the late 1920s while living in Berlin. After the rise of the Nazi Party, Wilder, who was Jewish, left for Paris, where he made his directorial debut.
He moved to Hollywood in 1933, and in 1939 he had a hit when he co-wrote the screenplay for the screwball comedy Ninotchka.
Wilder established his directorial reputation with Double Indemnity (1944), a film noir he co-wrote with crime novelist Raymond Chandler. Wilder earned the Best Director and Best Screenplay Academy Awards for the adaptation of a Charles R. Jackson story The Lost Weekend (1945), about alcoholism. In 1950, Wilder co-wrote and directed the critically acclaimed Sunset Boulevard.
From the mid-1950s on, Wilder made mostly comedies. Among the classics Wilder created in this period are:
He directed fourteen different actors in Oscar-nominated performances. Wilder was recognized with the American Film Institute (AFI) Life Achievement Award in 1986.
In 1988, Wilder was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. In 1993, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
Click here for more about Billy Wilder.
He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age. With The Apartment, Wilder became the first person to win Academy Awards as producer, director and screenwriter for the same film.
Wilder became a screenwriter in the late 1920s while living in Berlin. After the rise of the Nazi Party, Wilder, who was Jewish, left for Paris, where he made his directorial debut.
He moved to Hollywood in 1933, and in 1939 he had a hit when he co-wrote the screenplay for the screwball comedy Ninotchka.
Wilder established his directorial reputation with Double Indemnity (1944), a film noir he co-wrote with crime novelist Raymond Chandler. Wilder earned the Best Director and Best Screenplay Academy Awards for the adaptation of a Charles R. Jackson story The Lost Weekend (1945), about alcoholism. In 1950, Wilder co-wrote and directed the critically acclaimed Sunset Boulevard.
From the mid-1950s on, Wilder made mostly comedies. Among the classics Wilder created in this period are:
- the farces The Seven Year Itch (1955) and Some Like It Hot (1959),
- satires such as The Apartment (1960),
- and the romantic comedy-drama Sabrina (1954).
He directed fourteen different actors in Oscar-nominated performances. Wilder was recognized with the American Film Institute (AFI) Life Achievement Award in 1986.
In 1988, Wilder was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. In 1993, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
Click here for more about Billy Wilder.
George Lucas
YouTube Video of a biography of George Lucas by mojo.com: From Star Wars To Indiana Jones
Pictured: George Lucas LEFT: directing the original “Star Wars” Movie (1977); RIGHT: a more recent photo.
George Walton Lucas, Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker and entrepreneur.
He is best known as the creator of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, as well as the founder of Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic. He led Lucasfilm as chairman and chief executive before selling it to The Walt Disney Company in 2012.
Upon graduating from the University of Southern California in 1967, Lucas co-founded American Zoetrope with fellow filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola.
He wrote and directed THX 1138 (1971), based on his earlier student short Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, which was a critical success but a financial failure.
Lucas's next work as a writer-director was the film American Graffiti (1973), inspired by his teen years in early 1960s Modesto, California, and produced through the newly founded Lucasfilm. The film was critically and commercially successful, and received five Academy Award nominations including Best Picture.
Lucas's next film, an epic space opera titled Star Wars (1977), went through a troubled production process, but was a surprise hit, becoming the highest-grossing film at the time as well as a winner of six Academy Awards and a cultural phenomenon.
Following the first Star Wars film, Lucas produced and co-wrote the following installments in the trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983).
Along with Steven Spielberg, he co-created and wrote the Indiana Jones films Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Temple of Doom (1984), and The Last Crusade (1989). Lucas also produced and/or wrote a variety of films through Lucasfilm in the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1997, Lucas re-released the original Star Wars trilogy as part of a Special Edition, where he made several alterations to the films. These were followed by further changes for home media releases in 2004 and 2011.
Lucas also returned to directing with the Star Wars prequel trilogy, consisting of The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002), and Revenge of the Sith (2005).
He later collaborated on the story for the Indiana Jones sequel Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), and served as the story writer and executive producer for the war film Red Tails (2012).
Five of Lucas's seven features are among the 100 highest-grossing movies at the North American box office, adjusted for ticket-price inflation. Lucas is one of the American film industry's most financially successful filmmakers, and has been personally nominated for four Academy Awards. He is also considered a significant figure in the New Hollywood era.
Click here for more about George Lucas.
He is best known as the creator of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, as well as the founder of Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic. He led Lucasfilm as chairman and chief executive before selling it to The Walt Disney Company in 2012.
Upon graduating from the University of Southern California in 1967, Lucas co-founded American Zoetrope with fellow filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola.
He wrote and directed THX 1138 (1971), based on his earlier student short Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, which was a critical success but a financial failure.
Lucas's next work as a writer-director was the film American Graffiti (1973), inspired by his teen years in early 1960s Modesto, California, and produced through the newly founded Lucasfilm. The film was critically and commercially successful, and received five Academy Award nominations including Best Picture.
Lucas's next film, an epic space opera titled Star Wars (1977), went through a troubled production process, but was a surprise hit, becoming the highest-grossing film at the time as well as a winner of six Academy Awards and a cultural phenomenon.
Following the first Star Wars film, Lucas produced and co-wrote the following installments in the trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983).
Along with Steven Spielberg, he co-created and wrote the Indiana Jones films Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Temple of Doom (1984), and The Last Crusade (1989). Lucas also produced and/or wrote a variety of films through Lucasfilm in the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1997, Lucas re-released the original Star Wars trilogy as part of a Special Edition, where he made several alterations to the films. These were followed by further changes for home media releases in 2004 and 2011.
Lucas also returned to directing with the Star Wars prequel trilogy, consisting of The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002), and Revenge of the Sith (2005).
He later collaborated on the story for the Indiana Jones sequel Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), and served as the story writer and executive producer for the war film Red Tails (2012).
Five of Lucas's seven features are among the 100 highest-grossing movies at the North American box office, adjusted for ticket-price inflation. Lucas is one of the American film industry's most financially successful filmmakers, and has been personally nominated for four Academy Awards. He is also considered a significant figure in the New Hollywood era.
Click here for more about George Lucas.
Steven Spielberg
YouTube Video from Saving Private Ryan: How Spielberg Constructs A Battle Scene
Pictured: Steven Spielberg L-R: (in a publicity stunt) in the mouth of "Jaws" (1975); talking to Tom Hanks in “Saving Private Ryan” (1998); and receiving the Oscar for Best Director for "Schlindler’s List" (1993)
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE OMRI (born December 18, 1946) is an American director, producer, screenwriter, and editor. He is considered one of the founding pioneers of the New Hollywood era, as well as being viewed as one of the most popular directors and producers in film history. He is also one of the co-founders of DreamWorks Studios.
In a prolific career spanning more than four decades, Spielberg's films have spanned many themes and genres.
Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as archetypes of modern Hollywood escapist filmmaking, including;
In later years, his films began addressing humanistic issues such as the Holocaust, the transatlantic slave trade, civil rights, war, and terrorism in such films as,
His other films include Jurassic Park (1993), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), and War of the Worlds (2005).
Spielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director for Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, as well as receiving five other nominations.
Three of Spielberg's films--Jaws, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Jurassic Park—achieved box office records, originated and came to epitomize the blockbuster film.
The unadjusted gross of all Spielberg-directed films exceeds $9 billion worldwide, making him the highest-grossing director in history.
His personal net worth is estimated to be more than $3 billion.
He is also known for his long-standing associations with several actors, producers, and technicians, most notably composer John Williams, who has composed music for all but two of Spielberg's feature films.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for further amplification:
In a prolific career spanning more than four decades, Spielberg's films have spanned many themes and genres.
Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as archetypes of modern Hollywood escapist filmmaking, including;
- Jaws (1975),
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977),
- Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981),
- and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982),
In later years, his films began addressing humanistic issues such as the Holocaust, the transatlantic slave trade, civil rights, war, and terrorism in such films as,
- The Color Purple (1985),
- Empire of the Sun (1987),
- Schindler's List (1993),
- Amistad (1997),
- Saving Private Ryan (1998),
- Munich (2005),
- War Horse (2011),
- Lincoln (2012),
- and Bridge of Spies (2015).
His other films include Jurassic Park (1993), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), and War of the Worlds (2005).
Spielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director for Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, as well as receiving five other nominations.
Three of Spielberg's films--Jaws, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Jurassic Park—achieved box office records, originated and came to epitomize the blockbuster film.
The unadjusted gross of all Spielberg-directed films exceeds $9 billion worldwide, making him the highest-grossing director in history.
His personal net worth is estimated to be more than $3 billion.
He is also known for his long-standing associations with several actors, producers, and technicians, most notably composer John Williams, who has composed music for all but two of Spielberg's feature films.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for further amplification:
- Early life
- Career
- Themes
- Frequent collaborators
- Personal life
- Awards and honors
- Filmography
- Praise and criticism
- See also:
Martin Scorsese
YouTube Video: Top 10 Martin Scorsese Movies by WatchMojo
Martin Charles Scorsese born November 17, 1942) is an American director, producer, screenwriter, and film historian, whose career spans more than 50 years. Scorsese's body of work addresses such themes as Sicilian-American identity, Roman Catholic concepts of guilt and redemption, faith, machismo, modern crime, and gang conflict. Many of his films are also known for their depiction of violence and liberal use of profanity.
Part of the New Hollywood wave of film-making, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant and influential filmmakers in cinematic history. In 1990, he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation. He is a recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award for his contributions to the cinema, and has won an Academy Award, a Palme d'Or, Cannes Film Festival Best Director Award, Silver Lion, Grammy Award, Emmys, Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and DGA Awards.
He has directed works such as the following:
Scorsese has also been noted for his successful collaborations with actor Leonardo DiCaprio, having directed him in five films, beginning with Gangs of New York (2002) and most recently The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). Their third film together, The Departed (2006), won Scorsese the Academy Award for Best Director in addition to the film winning the award for Best Picture. Their collaborations have resulted in numerous Academy Award nominations for both as well as them winning several other prestigious awards.
Scorsese's other film work includes the concert film The Last Waltz (1978), the biographical drama The Aviator (2004), the psychological thriller Shutter Island (2010), the historical adventure drama Hugo (2011) and the religious epic Silence (2016).
Scorsese's work in television includes the pilot episode of the HBO series Boardwalk Empire and Vinyl, the latter of which he also co-created. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for the crime drama The Departed (2006). With eight Best Director nominations, he is the most nominated living director and is tied with Billy Wilder for the second most nominations overall.
Click here for more about Martin Scorsese.
Part of the New Hollywood wave of film-making, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant and influential filmmakers in cinematic history. In 1990, he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation. He is a recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award for his contributions to the cinema, and has won an Academy Award, a Palme d'Or, Cannes Film Festival Best Director Award, Silver Lion, Grammy Award, Emmys, Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and DGA Awards.
He has directed works such as the following:
- crime film Mean Streets (1973),
- the vigilante-thriller Taxi Driver (1976),
- the biographical sports drama Raging Bull (1980),
- the black comedies:
- The King of Comedy (1983),
- and After Hours (1985),
- the religious epic drama The Last Temptation of Christ (1988),
- the crime film Goodfellas (1990),
- the psychological thriller Cape Fear (1991)
- and the crime film Casino (1995), some of which he collaborated on with actor and close friend Robert De Niro.
Scorsese has also been noted for his successful collaborations with actor Leonardo DiCaprio, having directed him in five films, beginning with Gangs of New York (2002) and most recently The Wolf of Wall Street (2013). Their third film together, The Departed (2006), won Scorsese the Academy Award for Best Director in addition to the film winning the award for Best Picture. Their collaborations have resulted in numerous Academy Award nominations for both as well as them winning several other prestigious awards.
Scorsese's other film work includes the concert film The Last Waltz (1978), the biographical drama The Aviator (2004), the psychological thriller Shutter Island (2010), the historical adventure drama Hugo (2011) and the religious epic Silence (2016).
Scorsese's work in television includes the pilot episode of the HBO series Boardwalk Empire and Vinyl, the latter of which he also co-created. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for the crime drama The Departed (2006). With eight Best Director nominations, he is the most nominated living director and is tied with Billy Wilder for the second most nominations overall.
Click here for more about Martin Scorsese.
Peter Jackson
YouTube Video: Peter Jackson Top 10 Movies
Sir Peter Robert Jackson ONZ KNZM (born 31 October 1961) is a New Zealand film director, screenwriter and film producer. He is best known as the director, writer, and producer of The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–03) and The Hobbit trilogy (2012–14), both of which are adapted from the novels of the same name by J. R. R. Tolkien.
Other notable films by Jacksons include the following:
Jacksone also produced District 9 (2009), The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011), West of Memphis (2012) and Mortal Engines (2018).
Jackson began his career with the "splatstick" horror comedy Bad Taste (1987) and the black comedy Meet the Feebles (1989) before filming the zombie comedy Braindead (1992).
Jackson shared a nomination for Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay with his partner Fran Walsh for Heavenly Creatures, which brought him to mainstream prominence in the film industry.
Jackson has been awarded three Academy Awards in his career, including the award for Best Director in 2003. He has also received a Golden Globe, four Saturn Awards and three BAFTAs among others.
His production company is Wingnut Films, and his most regular collaborators are co-writers and producers Walsh and Philippa Boyens. Jackson was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2002. He was later knighted (as a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit) by Anand Satyanand, the Governor-General of New Zealand, at a ceremony in Wellington in April 2010. In December 2014, Jackson was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Click here for more about Peter Jackson.
Other notable films by Jacksons include the following:
- critically lauded drama Heavenly Creatures (1994),
- the mockumentary film Forgotten Silver (1995),
- the horror comedy The Frighteners (1996),
- the epic monster remake film King Kong (2005),
- and the supernatural drama film The Lovely Bones (2009).
Jacksone also produced District 9 (2009), The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011), West of Memphis (2012) and Mortal Engines (2018).
Jackson began his career with the "splatstick" horror comedy Bad Taste (1987) and the black comedy Meet the Feebles (1989) before filming the zombie comedy Braindead (1992).
Jackson shared a nomination for Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay with his partner Fran Walsh for Heavenly Creatures, which brought him to mainstream prominence in the film industry.
Jackson has been awarded three Academy Awards in his career, including the award for Best Director in 2003. He has also received a Golden Globe, four Saturn Awards and three BAFTAs among others.
His production company is Wingnut Films, and his most regular collaborators are co-writers and producers Walsh and Philippa Boyens. Jackson was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2002. He was later knighted (as a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit) by Anand Satyanand, the Governor-General of New Zealand, at a ceremony in Wellington in April 2010. In December 2014, Jackson was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Click here for more about Peter Jackson.
New Hollywood Wave in Cinema
YouTube Video: What is NEW HOLLYWOOD?
Pictured: (Clockwise from upper left) Easy Rider (1969); Bonnie & Clyde (1967); Cleopatra (1963); and Taxi Driver (1976)
New Hollywood, sometimes referred to as the "American New Wave", usually refers to a movement in American film history from the mid-to-late 1960s (Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate and Easy Rider) to the early 1980s (Heaven's Gate, One from the Heart) when a new generation of young filmmakers came to prominence in the United States, influencing the types of films produced, their production and marketing, and the way major studios approached film-making. In New Hollywood films, the film director, rather than the studio, took on a key authorial role.
The definition of New Hollywood varies, depending on the author, with some of them defining it as a movement and others as a period. The span of the period is also a subject of debate, as well as its integrity, as some authors, such as Thomas Schatz, argue that the New Hollywood consist of several different movements. The films made in this movement are stylistically characterized in that their narrative often strongly deviated from classical norms.
After the demise of the studio system and the rise of television, the commercial success of films was diminished. The "New Hollywood" period, spanning the mid-1960s and early 1980s, was a period of revival.
Background and Overview:
Following the Paramount Case (which ended block booking and ownership of theater chains by film studios) and the advent of television, both of which severely weakened the traditional studio system, Hollywood studios initially used spectacle to retain profitability.
Technicolor developed a far more widespread use, while widescreen processes and technical improvements, such as CinemaScope, stereo sound and others, such as 3-D, were invented in order to retain the dwindling audience and compete with television. However, these were generally unsuccessful in increasing profits. By 1957 Life magazine called the 1950s "the horrible decade" for Hollywood.
The 1950s and early 1960s saw a Hollywood dominated by musicals, historical epics, and other films that benefited from the larger screens, wider framing and improved sound. Hence, as early as 1957, the era was dubbed a "New Hollywood".
However, audience share continued to dwindle, and had reached alarmingly low levels by the mid-1960s. Several costly flops, including Tora! Tora! Tora!, and Hello, Dolly!, and failed attempts to replicate the success of The Sound of Music, put great strain on the studios.
By the time the baby boomer generation was coming of age in the 1960s, 'Old Hollywood' was rapidly losing money; the studios were unsure how to react to the much changed audience demographics.
The change in market during the period went from a middle aged high school educated audience in the mid 1960s, to a younger, more affluent, college-educated demographic: by the mid 1970s, 76% of all movie-goers were under 30, 64% of whom had gone to college.
European films, both art house and commercial (especially the Commedia all'italiana, the French New Wave, and the Spaghetti Western) and Japanese cinema were making a splash in United States — the huge market of disaffected youth seemed to find relevance and artistic meaning in movies like Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup, with its oblique narrative structure and full-frontal female nudity.
The desperation felt by studios during this period of economic downturn, and after the losses from expensive movie flops, led to innovation and risk-taking, allowing greater control by younger directors and producers.
Therefore, in an attempt to capture that audience which found a connection to the "art films" of Europe, the studios hired a host of young filmmakers (many of whom were mentored by Roger Corman) and allowed them to make their films with relatively little studio control. This, together with the breakdown of the Production Code in 1966 and the new ratings system in 1968 (reflecting growing market segmentation) set the scene for New Hollywood.
Characteristics of New Hollywood films:
This new generation of Hollywood filmmaker was most importantly, from the point of view of the studios, young, therefore able to reach the youth audience they were losing. This group of young filmmakers--actors, writers and directors—dubbed the "New Hollywood" by the press, briefly changed the business from the producer-driven Hollywood system of the past.
Todd Berliner has written about the period's unusual narrative practices.
The 1970s, Berliner says, marks Hollywood’s most significant formal transformation since the conversion to sound film and is the defining period separating the storytelling modes of the studio era and contemporary Hollywood. New Hollywood films deviate from classical narrative norms more than Hollywood films from any other era or movement. Their narrative and stylistic devices threaten to derail an otherwise straightforward narration. Berliner argues that five principles govern the narrative strategies characteristic of Hollywood films of the 1970s:
Thomas Schatz points to another difference with the Hollywood Golden Age, which deals with the relationship of characters and plot. He argues that plot in classical Hollywood films (and some of the earlier New Hollywood films like The Godfather) "tended to emerge more organically as a function of the drives, desires, motivations, and goals of the central characters". However, beginning with mid-1970s, he points to a trend that "characters became plot functions".
During the height of the studio system, films were made almost exclusively on set in isolated studios. The content of films was limited by the Motion Picture Production Code, and though golden-age film-makers found loopholes in its rules, the discussion of more taboo content through film was effectively prevented. The shift towards a "new realism" was made possible when the Motion Picture Association of America film rating system was introduced and location shooting was becoming more viable.
Because of breakthroughs in film technology (e.g. the Panavision Panaflex camera, introduced in 1972), the New Hollywood filmmakers could shoot 35mm camera film in exteriors with relative ease. Since location shooting was cheaper (no sets need to be built) New Hollywood filmmakers rapidly developed the taste for location shooting, resulting in more naturalistic approach to filmmaking, especially when compared to the mostly stylized approach of classical Hollywood musicals and spectacles made to compete with television during the 1950s and early 1960s.
However, in editing New Hollywood filmmakers adhered to realism more liberally than most of their classical Hollywood predecessors, often using editing for artistic purposes rather than for continuity alone, a practice inspired by European art films and classical Hollywood directors such as D. W. Griffith and Alfred Hitchcock. Films with unorthodox editing included Easy Rider’s use of editing to foreshadow the climax of the movie, as well as subtler uses, such as editing to reflect the feeling of frustration in Bonnie and Clyde and the subjectivity of the protagonist in The Graduate.
The end of the production code enabled New Hollywood films to feature anti-establishment political themes, the use of rock music, and sexual freedom deemed "counter-cultural" by the studios. The youth movement of the 1960s turned anti-heroes like Bonnie and Clyde and Cool Hand Luke into pop culture idols, and Life magazine called the characters in Easy Rider "part of the fundamental myth central to the counterculture of the late 1960s." Easy Rider also affected the way studios looked to reach the youth market.
The success of Midnight Cowboy, in spite of its X rating, was evidence for the interest in controversial themes at the time and also showed the weakness of the rating system and segmentation of the audience.
Bonnie and Clyde:
A defining film of the New Hollywood generation was Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Produced by and starring Warren Beatty and directed by Arthur Penn, its combination of graphic violence and humor, as well as its theme of glamorous disaffected youth, was a hit with audiences. The film won Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress (Estelle Parsons) and Best Cinematography.
When Jack L. Warner, then-CEO of Warner Bros., first saw a rough cut of Bonnie and Clyde in the summer of 1967, he hated it. Distribution executives at Warner Brothers agreed, giving the film a low-key premiere and limited release. Their strategy appeared justified when Bosley Crowther, middlebrow film critic at The New York Times, gave the movie a scathing review. "It is a cheap piece of bald-faced slapstick comedy," he wrote, "that treats the hideous depredations of that sleazy, moronic pair as though they were as full of fun and frolic as the jazz-age cut-ups in Thoroughly Modern Millie..." Other notices, including those from Time and Newsweek magazines, were equally dismissive.
Its portrayal of violence and ambiguity in regard to moral values, and its startling ending, divided critics. Following one of the negative reviews, Time magazine received letters from fans of the movie, and according to journalist Peter Biskind, the impact of critic Pauline Kael in her positive review of the film (October 1967, New Yorker) led other reviewers to follow her lead and re-evaluate the film (notably Newsweek and Time).
Kael drew attention to the innocence of the characters in the film and the artist merit of the contrast of that with the violence in the film: "In a sense, it is the absence of sadism — it is the violence without sadism — that throws the audience off balance at Bonnie and Clyde.
The brutality that comes out of this innocence is far more shocking than the calculated brutalities of mean killers." Kael also noted the reaction of audiences to the violent climax of the movie, and the potential to empathise with the gang of criminals in terms of their naiveté and innocence reflecting a change in expectations of American cinema.
The cover story in Time magazine in December 1967, celebrated the movie and innovation in American New Wave cinema. This influential article by Stefan Kanfer claimed that Bonnie and Clyde represented a "New Cinema" through its blurred genre lines, and disregard for honoured aspects of plot and motivation, and that "In both conception and execution, Bonnie and Clyde is a watershed picture, the kind that signals a new style, a new trend."
Biskind states that this review and turnaround by some critics allowed the film to be re-released, thus proving its commercial success and reflecting the move to New Hollywood. The impact of this film is important in understanding the rest of the American New Wave, as well as the conditions that were necessary for it.
These initial successes paved the way for the studio to relinquish almost complete control to these innovative young filmmakers. In the mid-1970s, idiosyncratic, startling original films such as Paper Moon, Dog Day Afternoon, Chinatown, and Taxi Driver among others (see below), enjoyed enormous critical and commercial success. These successes by the members of New Hollywood led each of them in turn to make more and more extravagant demands, both on the studio and eventually on the audience.
Interpretations on defining the movement:
For Peter Biskind, the new wave was foreshadowed by Bonnie and Clyde and began in earnest with Easy Rider. Biskind's book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls argues that the New Hollywood movement marked a significant shift towards independently produced and innovative works by a new wave of directors, but that this shift began to reverse itself when the commercial success of Jaws and Star Wars led to the realization by studios of the importance of blockbusters, advertising and control over production.
Writing in 1968, critic Pauline Kael argued that the importance of The Graduate was in its social significance in relation to a new young audience, and the role of mass media, rather than any artistic aspects. Kael argued that college students identifying with The Graduate were not too different from audiences identifying with characters in dramas of the previous decade.
John Belton points to the changing demographic to even younger, more conservative audiences in the mid 1970s (50% aged 12–20) and the move to less politically subversive themes in mainstream cinema.
Thomas Schatz sees the mid to late 1970s as the decline of the art cinema movement as a significant industry force with its peak in 1974–75 with Nashville and Chinatown. Geoff King sees the period as an interim movement in American cinema where a conjunction of forces lead to a measure of freedom in filmmaking.
Todd Berliner says that seventies cinema resists the efficiency and harmony that normally characterize classical Hollywood cinema and tests the limits of Hollywood's classical model.
In a Los Angeles Times article, film critic Manohla Dargis described it as the 'halcyon age' of the decade's filmmaking that "was less revolution than business as usual, with rebel hype".
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the New Hollywood Wave:
The definition of New Hollywood varies, depending on the author, with some of them defining it as a movement and others as a period. The span of the period is also a subject of debate, as well as its integrity, as some authors, such as Thomas Schatz, argue that the New Hollywood consist of several different movements. The films made in this movement are stylistically characterized in that their narrative often strongly deviated from classical norms.
After the demise of the studio system and the rise of television, the commercial success of films was diminished. The "New Hollywood" period, spanning the mid-1960s and early 1980s, was a period of revival.
Background and Overview:
Following the Paramount Case (which ended block booking and ownership of theater chains by film studios) and the advent of television, both of which severely weakened the traditional studio system, Hollywood studios initially used spectacle to retain profitability.
Technicolor developed a far more widespread use, while widescreen processes and technical improvements, such as CinemaScope, stereo sound and others, such as 3-D, were invented in order to retain the dwindling audience and compete with television. However, these were generally unsuccessful in increasing profits. By 1957 Life magazine called the 1950s "the horrible decade" for Hollywood.
The 1950s and early 1960s saw a Hollywood dominated by musicals, historical epics, and other films that benefited from the larger screens, wider framing and improved sound. Hence, as early as 1957, the era was dubbed a "New Hollywood".
However, audience share continued to dwindle, and had reached alarmingly low levels by the mid-1960s. Several costly flops, including Tora! Tora! Tora!, and Hello, Dolly!, and failed attempts to replicate the success of The Sound of Music, put great strain on the studios.
By the time the baby boomer generation was coming of age in the 1960s, 'Old Hollywood' was rapidly losing money; the studios were unsure how to react to the much changed audience demographics.
The change in market during the period went from a middle aged high school educated audience in the mid 1960s, to a younger, more affluent, college-educated demographic: by the mid 1970s, 76% of all movie-goers were under 30, 64% of whom had gone to college.
European films, both art house and commercial (especially the Commedia all'italiana, the French New Wave, and the Spaghetti Western) and Japanese cinema were making a splash in United States — the huge market of disaffected youth seemed to find relevance and artistic meaning in movies like Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup, with its oblique narrative structure and full-frontal female nudity.
The desperation felt by studios during this period of economic downturn, and after the losses from expensive movie flops, led to innovation and risk-taking, allowing greater control by younger directors and producers.
Therefore, in an attempt to capture that audience which found a connection to the "art films" of Europe, the studios hired a host of young filmmakers (many of whom were mentored by Roger Corman) and allowed them to make their films with relatively little studio control. This, together with the breakdown of the Production Code in 1966 and the new ratings system in 1968 (reflecting growing market segmentation) set the scene for New Hollywood.
Characteristics of New Hollywood films:
This new generation of Hollywood filmmaker was most importantly, from the point of view of the studios, young, therefore able to reach the youth audience they were losing. This group of young filmmakers--actors, writers and directors—dubbed the "New Hollywood" by the press, briefly changed the business from the producer-driven Hollywood system of the past.
Todd Berliner has written about the period's unusual narrative practices.
The 1970s, Berliner says, marks Hollywood’s most significant formal transformation since the conversion to sound film and is the defining period separating the storytelling modes of the studio era and contemporary Hollywood. New Hollywood films deviate from classical narrative norms more than Hollywood films from any other era or movement. Their narrative and stylistic devices threaten to derail an otherwise straightforward narration. Berliner argues that five principles govern the narrative strategies characteristic of Hollywood films of the 1970s:
- Seventies films show a perverse tendency to integrate, in narratively incidental ways, story information and stylistic devices counterproductive to the films’ overt and essential narrative purposes.
- Hollywood filmmakers of the 1970s often situate their film-making practices in between those of classical Hollywood and those of European and Asian art cinema.
- Seventies films prompt spectator responses more uncertain and discomforting than those of more typical Hollywood cinema.
- Seventies narratives place an uncommon emphasis on irresolution, particularly at the moment of climax or in epilogues, when more conventional Hollywood movies busy themselves tying up loose ends.
- Seventies cinema hinders narrative linearity and momentum and scuttles its potential to generate suspense and excitement.
Thomas Schatz points to another difference with the Hollywood Golden Age, which deals with the relationship of characters and plot. He argues that plot in classical Hollywood films (and some of the earlier New Hollywood films like The Godfather) "tended to emerge more organically as a function of the drives, desires, motivations, and goals of the central characters". However, beginning with mid-1970s, he points to a trend that "characters became plot functions".
During the height of the studio system, films were made almost exclusively on set in isolated studios. The content of films was limited by the Motion Picture Production Code, and though golden-age film-makers found loopholes in its rules, the discussion of more taboo content through film was effectively prevented. The shift towards a "new realism" was made possible when the Motion Picture Association of America film rating system was introduced and location shooting was becoming more viable.
Because of breakthroughs in film technology (e.g. the Panavision Panaflex camera, introduced in 1972), the New Hollywood filmmakers could shoot 35mm camera film in exteriors with relative ease. Since location shooting was cheaper (no sets need to be built) New Hollywood filmmakers rapidly developed the taste for location shooting, resulting in more naturalistic approach to filmmaking, especially when compared to the mostly stylized approach of classical Hollywood musicals and spectacles made to compete with television during the 1950s and early 1960s.
However, in editing New Hollywood filmmakers adhered to realism more liberally than most of their classical Hollywood predecessors, often using editing for artistic purposes rather than for continuity alone, a practice inspired by European art films and classical Hollywood directors such as D. W. Griffith and Alfred Hitchcock. Films with unorthodox editing included Easy Rider’s use of editing to foreshadow the climax of the movie, as well as subtler uses, such as editing to reflect the feeling of frustration in Bonnie and Clyde and the subjectivity of the protagonist in The Graduate.
The end of the production code enabled New Hollywood films to feature anti-establishment political themes, the use of rock music, and sexual freedom deemed "counter-cultural" by the studios. The youth movement of the 1960s turned anti-heroes like Bonnie and Clyde and Cool Hand Luke into pop culture idols, and Life magazine called the characters in Easy Rider "part of the fundamental myth central to the counterculture of the late 1960s." Easy Rider also affected the way studios looked to reach the youth market.
The success of Midnight Cowboy, in spite of its X rating, was evidence for the interest in controversial themes at the time and also showed the weakness of the rating system and segmentation of the audience.
Bonnie and Clyde:
A defining film of the New Hollywood generation was Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Produced by and starring Warren Beatty and directed by Arthur Penn, its combination of graphic violence and humor, as well as its theme of glamorous disaffected youth, was a hit with audiences. The film won Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress (Estelle Parsons) and Best Cinematography.
When Jack L. Warner, then-CEO of Warner Bros., first saw a rough cut of Bonnie and Clyde in the summer of 1967, he hated it. Distribution executives at Warner Brothers agreed, giving the film a low-key premiere and limited release. Their strategy appeared justified when Bosley Crowther, middlebrow film critic at The New York Times, gave the movie a scathing review. "It is a cheap piece of bald-faced slapstick comedy," he wrote, "that treats the hideous depredations of that sleazy, moronic pair as though they were as full of fun and frolic as the jazz-age cut-ups in Thoroughly Modern Millie..." Other notices, including those from Time and Newsweek magazines, were equally dismissive.
Its portrayal of violence and ambiguity in regard to moral values, and its startling ending, divided critics. Following one of the negative reviews, Time magazine received letters from fans of the movie, and according to journalist Peter Biskind, the impact of critic Pauline Kael in her positive review of the film (October 1967, New Yorker) led other reviewers to follow her lead and re-evaluate the film (notably Newsweek and Time).
Kael drew attention to the innocence of the characters in the film and the artist merit of the contrast of that with the violence in the film: "In a sense, it is the absence of sadism — it is the violence without sadism — that throws the audience off balance at Bonnie and Clyde.
The brutality that comes out of this innocence is far more shocking than the calculated brutalities of mean killers." Kael also noted the reaction of audiences to the violent climax of the movie, and the potential to empathise with the gang of criminals in terms of their naiveté and innocence reflecting a change in expectations of American cinema.
The cover story in Time magazine in December 1967, celebrated the movie and innovation in American New Wave cinema. This influential article by Stefan Kanfer claimed that Bonnie and Clyde represented a "New Cinema" through its blurred genre lines, and disregard for honoured aspects of plot and motivation, and that "In both conception and execution, Bonnie and Clyde is a watershed picture, the kind that signals a new style, a new trend."
Biskind states that this review and turnaround by some critics allowed the film to be re-released, thus proving its commercial success and reflecting the move to New Hollywood. The impact of this film is important in understanding the rest of the American New Wave, as well as the conditions that were necessary for it.
These initial successes paved the way for the studio to relinquish almost complete control to these innovative young filmmakers. In the mid-1970s, idiosyncratic, startling original films such as Paper Moon, Dog Day Afternoon, Chinatown, and Taxi Driver among others (see below), enjoyed enormous critical and commercial success. These successes by the members of New Hollywood led each of them in turn to make more and more extravagant demands, both on the studio and eventually on the audience.
Interpretations on defining the movement:
For Peter Biskind, the new wave was foreshadowed by Bonnie and Clyde and began in earnest with Easy Rider. Biskind's book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls argues that the New Hollywood movement marked a significant shift towards independently produced and innovative works by a new wave of directors, but that this shift began to reverse itself when the commercial success of Jaws and Star Wars led to the realization by studios of the importance of blockbusters, advertising and control over production.
Writing in 1968, critic Pauline Kael argued that the importance of The Graduate was in its social significance in relation to a new young audience, and the role of mass media, rather than any artistic aspects. Kael argued that college students identifying with The Graduate were not too different from audiences identifying with characters in dramas of the previous decade.
John Belton points to the changing demographic to even younger, more conservative audiences in the mid 1970s (50% aged 12–20) and the move to less politically subversive themes in mainstream cinema.
Thomas Schatz sees the mid to late 1970s as the decline of the art cinema movement as a significant industry force with its peak in 1974–75 with Nashville and Chinatown. Geoff King sees the period as an interim movement in American cinema where a conjunction of forces lead to a measure of freedom in filmmaking.
Todd Berliner says that seventies cinema resists the efficiency and harmony that normally characterize classical Hollywood cinema and tests the limits of Hollywood's classical model.
In a Los Angeles Times article, film critic Manohla Dargis described it as the 'halcyon age' of the decade's filmmaking that "was less revolution than business as usual, with rebel hype".
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the New Hollywood Wave:
- List of important figures of the movement
- List of notable films
- See also:
- Counterculture of the 1960s
- Golden Age of Television (2000s-present)-similar to New Hollywood in content
- A Decade Under the Influence (film)-the 2003 documentary about New Hollywood
- Easy Riders, Raging Bulls-Peter Biskind's controversial account of this era of filmmaking.
- Cinephilia
Ridley Scott, Director and Producer
YouTube Video by Ridley Scott: "How to Become a Director"
Sir Ridley Scott (born 30 November 1937) is an English film director and producer. Following his commercial breakthrough with the science-fiction horror film Alien (1979), his best known works include the neo-noir dystopian science fiction film Blade Runner (1982), historical drama and Best Picture Oscar winner Gladiator (2000), and science fiction film The Martian (2015).
Scott is known for his atmospheric, highly concentrated visual style. Though his films range widely in setting and period, they frequently showcase memorable imagery of urban environments, whether,
Scott's films are also known for their strong female characters.
Scott has been nominated for three Academy Awards for Directing (for Thelma & Louise, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down).
In 1995, both Ridley and his brother Tony received a BAFTA for Outstanding British Contribution To Cinema.
In 2003, Scott was knighted for his "services to the British film industry".
In a 2004 BBC poll Scott was named the tenth most influential person in British culture. In 2015 he received an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art in London.
Click here for more about Ridley Scott.
Scott is known for his atmospheric, highly concentrated visual style. Though his films range widely in setting and period, they frequently showcase memorable imagery of urban environments, whether,
- 2nd century Rome (Gladiator),
- 12th century Jerusalem (Kingdom of Heaven),
- Medieval England (Robin Hood),
- contemporary Mogadishu (Black Hawk Down),
- the future cityscapes of Blade Runner,
- or the distant planets in Alien, Prometheus, The Martian and Alien: Covenant.
Scott's films are also known for their strong female characters.
Scott has been nominated for three Academy Awards for Directing (for Thelma & Louise, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down).
In 1995, both Ridley and his brother Tony received a BAFTA for Outstanding British Contribution To Cinema.
In 2003, Scott was knighted for his "services to the British film industry".
In a 2004 BBC poll Scott was named the tenth most influential person in British culture. In 2015 he received an honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art in London.
Click here for more about Ridley Scott.
Steven Soderbergh
YouTube Video: Steven Soderbergh - Highest Grossing Movies
Steven Andrew Soderbergh (born January 14, 1963) is an American film producer, director, screenwriter, cinematographer, and editor. His indie drama Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989) won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and became a worldwide commercial success, making the then-26-year-old Soderbergh the youngest director to win the festival's top award. Film critic Roger Ebert dubbed Soderbergh the "poster boy of the Sundance generation".
He is best known for directing Hollywood films including the following:
He has also directed smaller, less conventional works, such as:
Soderbergh also directed, photographed and edited all episodes of the television drama The Knick. In addition, he has produced numerous film and television programs, and provided cinematography and editing on various projects.
For more about Steven Soderbergh, click here.
He is best known for directing Hollywood films including the following:
- the crime comedy Out of Sight (1998),
- the biographical film Erin Brockovich (2000),
- the crime drama film Traffic (2000) (for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director),
- the 2001 remake of the comedy heist film Ocean's Eleven and its two sequels—known collectively as the Ocean's Trilogy,
- the medical thriller Contagion (2011),
- the comedy-drama Magic Mike (2012),
- and another heist comedy, Logan Lucky (2017).
He has also directed smaller, less conventional works, such as:
- the mystery thriller Kafka (1991);
- the experimental comedy film Schizopolis (1996), which has a non-linear narrative;
- Bubble (2005), which uses no script and non-professional actors;
- the experimental drama film The Girlfriend Experience (2009), which starred the then-active pornographic actress Sasha Grey;
- and the biopic about Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Che (2008).
Soderbergh also directed, photographed and edited all episodes of the television drama The Knick. In addition, he has produced numerous film and television programs, and provided cinematography and editing on various projects.
For more about Steven Soderbergh, click here.
Movie Studios
YouTube Video: Top 10 Movies of All Time by WatchMojo
A film studio (also known as movie studio or simply studio) is a major entertainment company or motion picture company that has its own privately owned studio facility or facilities that are used to make films, which is handled by the production company. The majority of firms in the entertainment industry have never owned their own studios, but have rented space from other companies.
There are also independently owned studio facilities, who have never produced a motion picture of their own because they are not entertainment companies or motion picture companies; they are companies who sell only studio space.
Background:
In 1893, Thomas Edison built the first movie studio in the United States when he constructed the Black Maria, a tarpaper-covered structure near his laboratories in West Orange, New Jersey, and asked circus, vaudeville, and dramatic actors to perform for the camera. He distributed these movies at vaudeville theaters, penny arcades, wax museums, and fairgrounds.
The pioneering Thanhouser film studio was founded in New Rochelle, New York in 1909 by American theatrical impresario Edwin Thanhouser. The company produced and released 1,086 films between 1910 and 1917, successfully distributing them around the world. The first film serial ever, The Million Dollar Mystery, was released by the Thanhouser company in 1914.
In the early 1900s, companies started moving to Los Angeles, California. Although electric lights were by then widely available, none were yet powerful enough to adequately expose film; the best source of illumination for motion picture production was natural sunlight.
Some movies were shot on the roofs of buildings in Downtown Los Angeles. Early movie producers also relocated to Southern California to escape Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company, which controlled almost all the patents relevant to movie production at the time.
The first movie studio in the Hollywood area was Nestor Studios, opened in 1911 by Al Christie for David Horsley. In the same year, another 15 independents settled in Hollywood. Other production companies eventually settled in the Los Angeles area in places such as Culver City, Burbank, and what would soon become known as Studio City in the San Fernando Valley.
The Major Studios:
For more details on this topic, see Major film studio.
The Big 5:
By the mid-1920s, the evolution of a handful of American production companies into wealthy motion picture industry conglomerates that owned their own studios, distribution divisions, and theaters, and contracted with performers and other filmmaking personnel, led to the sometimes confusing equation of "studio" with "production company" in industry slang.
The following five large companies came to be known as the "Big Five," the "majors," or "the Studios" in trade publications such as Variety, and their management structures and practices collectively came to be known as the "studio system". They are,
The Little 3:
Although they owned few or no theaters to guarantee sales of their films, Universal Pictures, Columbia Pictures, and United Artists also fell under these rubrics, making a total of eight generally recognized "major studios". United Artists, although its controlling partners owned not one but two production studios during the Golden Age, had an often-tenuous hold on the title of "major" and operated mainly as a backer and distributor of independently produced films.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Movie Studios:
There are also independently owned studio facilities, who have never produced a motion picture of their own because they are not entertainment companies or motion picture companies; they are companies who sell only studio space.
Background:
In 1893, Thomas Edison built the first movie studio in the United States when he constructed the Black Maria, a tarpaper-covered structure near his laboratories in West Orange, New Jersey, and asked circus, vaudeville, and dramatic actors to perform for the camera. He distributed these movies at vaudeville theaters, penny arcades, wax museums, and fairgrounds.
The pioneering Thanhouser film studio was founded in New Rochelle, New York in 1909 by American theatrical impresario Edwin Thanhouser. The company produced and released 1,086 films between 1910 and 1917, successfully distributing them around the world. The first film serial ever, The Million Dollar Mystery, was released by the Thanhouser company in 1914.
In the early 1900s, companies started moving to Los Angeles, California. Although electric lights were by then widely available, none were yet powerful enough to adequately expose film; the best source of illumination for motion picture production was natural sunlight.
Some movies were shot on the roofs of buildings in Downtown Los Angeles. Early movie producers also relocated to Southern California to escape Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company, which controlled almost all the patents relevant to movie production at the time.
The first movie studio in the Hollywood area was Nestor Studios, opened in 1911 by Al Christie for David Horsley. In the same year, another 15 independents settled in Hollywood. Other production companies eventually settled in the Los Angeles area in places such as Culver City, Burbank, and what would soon become known as Studio City in the San Fernando Valley.
The Major Studios:
For more details on this topic, see Major film studio.
The Big 5:
By the mid-1920s, the evolution of a handful of American production companies into wealthy motion picture industry conglomerates that owned their own studios, distribution divisions, and theaters, and contracted with performers and other filmmaking personnel, led to the sometimes confusing equation of "studio" with "production company" in industry slang.
The following five large companies came to be known as the "Big Five," the "majors," or "the Studios" in trade publications such as Variety, and their management structures and practices collectively came to be known as the "studio system". They are,
The Little 3:
Although they owned few or no theaters to guarantee sales of their films, Universal Pictures, Columbia Pictures, and United Artists also fell under these rubrics, making a total of eight generally recognized "major studios". United Artists, although its controlling partners owned not one but two production studios during the Golden Age, had an often-tenuous hold on the title of "major" and operated mainly as a backer and distributor of independently produced films.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Movie Studios:
- The independents
- Typical major film studio components
- Film to television
- Today
- Independent film and the studios
- Notable film studios
- See also:
- Film
- Film producer
- Film release
- History of film
- Major film studio
- Outline of film
- Prestige picture
- Production company
- Who built the first film studio in the United States?
- Columbia Pictures Production Crew Contract 1945
- A Film Studio for the Age of Virtual Reality. "A Montreal-based film studio is making movies that you’ll watch with a virtual-reality headset, pointing the way to a whole new form of entertainment." Rachel Metz, MIT Technology Review
Movies Featuring Music, including a List of Musical Movies by Year
YouTube Video: Top 10 Dancing Scenes by WatchMojo
YouTube Video of the Top 10 Funniest Dance Scenes in Movies by WatchMojo
Movie Posters for Musical Films (L-R): The Wizard of Oz (1939), Top Hat (1935), and Grease (1978)
Click here for a Chronological List of Musical Films.
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing.
The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate "production numbers".
The musical film was a natural development of the stage musical after the emergence of sound film technology. Typically, the biggest difference between film and stage musicals is the use of lavish background scenery and locations that would be impractical in a theater.
Musical films characteristically contain elements reminiscent of theater; performers often treat their song and dance numbers as if there is a live audience watching. In a sense, the viewer becomes the diegetic audience, as the performer looks directly into the camera and performs to it.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Musical Films:
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing.
The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate "production numbers".
The musical film was a natural development of the stage musical after the emergence of sound film technology. Typically, the biggest difference between film and stage musicals is the use of lavish background scenery and locations that would be impractical in a theater.
Musical films characteristically contain elements reminiscent of theater; performers often treat their song and dance numbers as if there is a live audience watching. In a sense, the viewer becomes the diegetic audience, as the performer looks directly into the camera and performs to it.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Musical Films:
Filmmaking, including Film Production
YouTube Video: Make YouTube video with Youtube Movie Maker
Pictured Below: Low-Budget Documentary Filmmaking Gear Check-List
Filmmaking (or, in an academic context, film production) is the process of making a film, generally in the sense of films intended for extensive theatrical exhibition. Filmmaking involves a number of discrete stages including an initial story, idea, or commission, through screenwriting, casting, shooting, sound recording and reproduction, editing and screening the finished product before an audience that may result in a film release and exhibition.
Filmmaking takes place in many places around the world in a range of economic, social, and political contexts, and using a variety of technologies and cinematic techniques. Typically, it involves a large number of people, and can take from a few months to several years to complete.
Stages of Production:
Film production consists of five major stages:
Development:
In this stage, the project producer selects a story, which may come from any of the following:
After identifying a theme or underlying message, the producer works with writers to prepare a synopsis.
Next they produce a step outline, which breaks the story down into one-paragraph scenes that concentrate on dramatic structure. Then, they prepare a treatment, a 25-to-30-page description of the story, its mood, and characters. This usually has little dialogue and stage direction, but often contains drawings that help visualize key points. Another way is to produce a scriptment once a synopsis is produced.
Next, a screenwriter writes a screenplay over a period of several months. The screenwriter may rewrite it several times to improve dramatization, clarity, structure, characters, dialogue, and overall style. However, producers often skip the previous steps and develop submitted screenplays which investors, studios, and other interested parties assess through a process called script coverage.
A film distributor may be contacted at an early stage to assess the likely market and potential financial success of the film.
Hollywood distributors adopt a hard-headed no approach and consider factors such as the film genre, the target audience and assumed audience, the historical success of similar films, the actors who might appear in the film, and potential directors. All these factors imply a certain appeal of the film to a possible audience. Not all films make a profit from the theatrical release alone, so film companies take DVD sales and worldwide distribution rights into account.
The producer and screenwriter prepare a film pitch, or treatment, and present it to potential financiers. They will also pitch the film to actors and directors (especially so-called bankable stars) in order to "attach" them to the project (that is, obtain a binding promise to work on the film if financing is ever secured).
Many projects fail to move beyond this stage and enter so-called development hell. If a pitch succeeds, a film receives a "green light", meaning someone offers financial backing: typically a major film studio, film council, or independent investor. The parties involved negotiate a deal and sign contracts.
Once all parties have met and the deal has been set, the film may proceed into the pre-production period. By this stage, the film should have a clearly defined marketing strategy and target audience.
Development of animated films differs slightly in that it is the director who develops and pitches a story to an executive producer on the basis of rough storyboards, and it is rare for a full-length screenplay to already exist at that point in time. If the film is green-lighted for further development and pre-production, then a screenwriter is later brought in to prepare the screenplay.
Analogous to most any business venture, financing of a film project deals with the study of filmmaking as the management and procurement of investments. It includes the dynamics of assets that are required to fund the filmmaking and liabilities incurred during the filmmaking over the time period from early development through the management of profits and losses after distribution under conditions of different degrees of uncertainty and risk.
The practical aspects of filmmaking finance can also be defined as the science of the money management of all phases involved in filmmaking. Film finance aims to price assets based on their risk level and their expected rate of return based upon anticipated profits and protection against losses.
Pre-production:
Main article: Pre-production
In pre-production, every step of actually creating the film is carefully designed and planned. The production company is created and a production office established. The film is pre-visualized by the director, and may be storyboarded with the help of illustrators and concept artists. A production budget is drawn up to plan expenditures for the film. For major productions, insurance is procured to protect against accidents.
The nature of the film, and the budget, determine the size and type of crew used during filmmaking. Many Hollywood blockbusters employ a cast and crew of hundreds, while a low-budget, independent film may be made by a skeleton crew of eight or nine (or fewer).
These are typical crew positions:
Production:
See also: Cinematography, Audiography, and Principal photography
In production, the film is created and shot. More crew will be recruited at this stage, such as the property master, script supervisor, assistant directors, stills photographer, picture editor, and sound editors. These are just the most common roles in filmmaking; the production office will be free to create any unique blend of roles to suit the various responsibilities possible during the production of a film.
A typical day's shooting begins with the crew arriving on the set/location by their call time.
Actors usually have their own separate call times. Since set construction, dressing and lighting can take many hours or even days, they are often set up in advance.
The grip, electric and production design crews are typically a step ahead of the camera and sound departments: for efficiency's sake, while a scene is being filmed, they are already preparing the next one.
While the crew prepare their equipment, the actors do their costumes and attend the hair and make-up departments. The actors rehearse the script and blocking with the director, and the camera and sound crews rehearse with them and make final tweaks. Finally, the action is shot in as many takes as the director wishes. Most American productions follow a specific procedure:
A take is over when the director calls "cut!", and camera and sound stop recording. The script supervisor will note any continuity issues and the sound and camera teams log technical notes for the take on their respective report sheets. If the director decides additional takes are required, the whole process repeats. Once satisfied, the crew moves on to the next camera angle or "setup," until the whole scene is "covered." When shooting is finished for the scene, the assistant director declares a "wrap" or "moving on," and the crew will "strike," or dismantle, the set for that scene.
At the end of the day, the director approves the next day's shooting schedule and a daily progress report is sent to the production office. This includes the report sheets from continuity, sound, and camera teams. Call sheets are distributed to the cast and crew to tell them when and where to turn up the next shooting day. Later on, the director, producer, other department heads, and, sometimes, the cast, may gather to watch that day or yesterday's footage, called dailies, and review their work.
With workdays often lasting 14 or 18 hours in remote locations, film production tends to create a team spirit. When the entire film is in the can, or in the completion of the production phase, it is customary for the production office to arrange a wrap party, to thank all the cast and crew for their efforts.
For the production phase on live-action films, synchronizing work schedules of key cast and crew members is very important, since for many scenes, several cast members and most of the crew must be physically present at the same place at the same time (and bankable stars may need to rush from one project to another).
Animated films have different workflow at the production phase, in that voice talent can record their takes in the recording studio at different times and may not see one another until the film's premiere, while most physical live-action tasks are either unnecessary or are simulated by various types of animators.
Post-production:
Main article: Post-production
Here the video/film is assembled by the film editor. The shot film material is edited. The production sound (dialogue) is also edited; music tracks and songs are composed and recorded if a film is sought to have a score; sound effects are designed and recorded. Any computer-graphic visual effects are digitally added by an artist. Finally, all sound elements are mixed into "stems", which are then married to picture, and the film is fully completed ("locked").
Distribution:
Main articles: Film distribution and Film promotion
This is the final stage, where the film is released to cinemas or, occasionally, directly to consumer media (VHS, VCD, DVD, Blu-ray) or direct download from a digital media provider. The film is duplicated as required (either onto film or hard disk drives) and distributed to cinemas for exhibition (screening).
Press kits, posters, and other advertising materials are published, and the film is advertised and promoted. A B-roll clip may be released to the press based on raw footage shot for a "making of" documentary, which may include making-of clips as well as on-set interviews.
Film distributors usually release a film with a launch party, a red-carpet premiere, press releases, interviews with the press, press preview screenings, and film festival screenings.
Most films are also promoted with their own special website separate from those of the production company or distributor. For major films, key personnel are often contractually required to participate in promotional tours in which they appear at premieres and festivals, and sit for interviews with many TV, print, and online journalists. The largest productions may require more than one promotional tour, in order to rejuvenate audience demand at each release window.
Since the advent of home video in the early 1980s, most major films have followed a pattern of having several distinct release windows. A film may first be released to a few select cinemas, or if it tests well enough, may go directly into wide release. Next, it is released, normally at different times several weeks (or months) apart, into different market segments like rental, retail, pay-per-view, in-flight entertainment, cable, satellite, or free-to-air broadcast television.
The distribution rights for the film are also usually sold for worldwide distribution. The distributor and the production company share profits and manage losses.
Independent Filmmaking:
Main article: Independent film
Filmmaking also takes place outside of the mainstream and is commonly called independent filmmaking. Since the introduction of DV technology, the means of production have become more democratized.
Filmmakers can conceivably shoot and edit a film, create and edit the sound and music, and mix the final cut on a home computer. However, while the means of production may be democratized, financing, traditional distribution, and marketing remain difficult to accomplish outside the traditional system.
In the past, most independent filmmakers have relied on film festivals (such as Sundance, Venice, Cannes and Toronto film festivals) to get their films noticed and sold for distribution and production.
However, the Internet has allowed for relatively inexpensive distribution of independent films on websites such as YouTube. As a result, several companies have emerged to assist filmmakers in getting independent movies seen and sold via mainstream internet marketplaces, often adjacent to popular Hollywood titles.
With internet movie distribution, independent filmmakers who choose to forgo a traditional distribution deal now have the ability to reach global audiences.
See also:
Filmmaking takes place in many places around the world in a range of economic, social, and political contexts, and using a variety of technologies and cinematic techniques. Typically, it involves a large number of people, and can take from a few months to several years to complete.
Stages of Production:
Film production consists of five major stages:
- Development: The first stage in which the ideas for the film are created, rights to books/plays are bought etc., and the screenplay is written. Financing for the project has to be sought and obtained.
- Pre-production: Arrangements and preparations are made for the shoot, such as hiring cast and film crew, selecting locations and constructing sets.
- Production: The raw footage and other elements for the film are recorded during the film shoot.
- Post-production: The images, sound, and visual effects of the recorded film are edited and combined into a finished product.
- Distribution: The completed film is distributed, marketed, and screened in cinemas and/or released to home video.
Development:
In this stage, the project producer selects a story, which may come from any of the following:
- book,
- play,
- another film,
- true story,
- video game,
- comic book,
- graphic novel,
- or an original idea, etc.
After identifying a theme or underlying message, the producer works with writers to prepare a synopsis.
Next they produce a step outline, which breaks the story down into one-paragraph scenes that concentrate on dramatic structure. Then, they prepare a treatment, a 25-to-30-page description of the story, its mood, and characters. This usually has little dialogue and stage direction, but often contains drawings that help visualize key points. Another way is to produce a scriptment once a synopsis is produced.
Next, a screenwriter writes a screenplay over a period of several months. The screenwriter may rewrite it several times to improve dramatization, clarity, structure, characters, dialogue, and overall style. However, producers often skip the previous steps and develop submitted screenplays which investors, studios, and other interested parties assess through a process called script coverage.
A film distributor may be contacted at an early stage to assess the likely market and potential financial success of the film.
Hollywood distributors adopt a hard-headed no approach and consider factors such as the film genre, the target audience and assumed audience, the historical success of similar films, the actors who might appear in the film, and potential directors. All these factors imply a certain appeal of the film to a possible audience. Not all films make a profit from the theatrical release alone, so film companies take DVD sales and worldwide distribution rights into account.
The producer and screenwriter prepare a film pitch, or treatment, and present it to potential financiers. They will also pitch the film to actors and directors (especially so-called bankable stars) in order to "attach" them to the project (that is, obtain a binding promise to work on the film if financing is ever secured).
Many projects fail to move beyond this stage and enter so-called development hell. If a pitch succeeds, a film receives a "green light", meaning someone offers financial backing: typically a major film studio, film council, or independent investor. The parties involved negotiate a deal and sign contracts.
Once all parties have met and the deal has been set, the film may proceed into the pre-production period. By this stage, the film should have a clearly defined marketing strategy and target audience.
Development of animated films differs slightly in that it is the director who develops and pitches a story to an executive producer on the basis of rough storyboards, and it is rare for a full-length screenplay to already exist at that point in time. If the film is green-lighted for further development and pre-production, then a screenwriter is later brought in to prepare the screenplay.
Analogous to most any business venture, financing of a film project deals with the study of filmmaking as the management and procurement of investments. It includes the dynamics of assets that are required to fund the filmmaking and liabilities incurred during the filmmaking over the time period from early development through the management of profits and losses after distribution under conditions of different degrees of uncertainty and risk.
The practical aspects of filmmaking finance can also be defined as the science of the money management of all phases involved in filmmaking. Film finance aims to price assets based on their risk level and their expected rate of return based upon anticipated profits and protection against losses.
Pre-production:
Main article: Pre-production
In pre-production, every step of actually creating the film is carefully designed and planned. The production company is created and a production office established. The film is pre-visualized by the director, and may be storyboarded with the help of illustrators and concept artists. A production budget is drawn up to plan expenditures for the film. For major productions, insurance is procured to protect against accidents.
The nature of the film, and the budget, determine the size and type of crew used during filmmaking. Many Hollywood blockbusters employ a cast and crew of hundreds, while a low-budget, independent film may be made by a skeleton crew of eight or nine (or fewer).
These are typical crew positions:
- Storyboard artist: creates visual images to help the director and production designer communicate their ideas to the production team.
- Director: is primarily responsible for the storytelling, creative decisions and acting of the film.
- Assistant director (AD): manages the shooting schedule and logistics of the production, among other tasks. There are several types of AD, each with different responsibilities.
- Film producer: hires the film's crew.
- Unit production manager: manages the production budget and production schedule. They also report, on behalf of the production office, to the studio executives or financiers of the film.
- Location manager: finds and manages film locations. Nearly all pictures feature segments that are shot in the controllable environment of a studio sound stage, while outdoor sequences call for filming on location.
- Unit production manager: manages the production budget and production schedule. They also report, on behalf of the production office, to the studio executives or financiers of the film.
- Production designer: the one who creates the visual conception of the film, working with the art director, who manages the art department, which makes production sets.
- Costume designer: creates the clothing for the characters in the film working closely with the actors, as well as other departments.
- Makeup and hair designer: works closely with the costume designer in order to create a certain look for a character.
- Casting director: finds actors to fill the parts in the script. This normally requires that actors audition.
- Choreographer: creates and coordinates the movement and dance - typically for musicals. Some films also credit a fight choreographer.
- Director of photography (DP): the head of the photography of the entire film, supervises all cinematographers and Camera Operators.
- Production sound mixer: the head of the sound department during the production stage of filmmaking. They record and mix the audio on set - dialogue, presence and sound effects in mono and ambience in stereo. They work with the boom operator, Director, DA, DP, and First AD.
- Sound designer: creates the aural conception of the film, working with the supervising sound editor. On Bollywood-style Indian productions the sound designer plays the role of a director of audiography.
- Composer: creates new music for the film. (usually not until post-production)
Production:
See also: Cinematography, Audiography, and Principal photography
In production, the film is created and shot. More crew will be recruited at this stage, such as the property master, script supervisor, assistant directors, stills photographer, picture editor, and sound editors. These are just the most common roles in filmmaking; the production office will be free to create any unique blend of roles to suit the various responsibilities possible during the production of a film.
A typical day's shooting begins with the crew arriving on the set/location by their call time.
Actors usually have their own separate call times. Since set construction, dressing and lighting can take many hours or even days, they are often set up in advance.
The grip, electric and production design crews are typically a step ahead of the camera and sound departments: for efficiency's sake, while a scene is being filmed, they are already preparing the next one.
While the crew prepare their equipment, the actors do their costumes and attend the hair and make-up departments. The actors rehearse the script and blocking with the director, and the camera and sound crews rehearse with them and make final tweaks. Finally, the action is shot in as many takes as the director wishes. Most American productions follow a specific procedure:
- The assistant director (AD) calls "picture is up!" to inform everyone that a take is about to be recorded, and then "quiet, everyone!" Once everyone is ready to shoot, the AD calls "roll sound" (if the take involves sound), and the production sound mixer will start their equipment, record a verbal slate of the take's information, and announce "sound speed", or just "speed", when they are ready.
- The AD follows with "roll camera", answered by "speed!" by the camera operator once the camera is recording. The clapper, who is already in front of the camera with the clapperboard, calls "marker!" and slaps it shut. If the take involves extras or background action, the AD will cue them ("action background!"), and last is the director, telling the actors "action!". The AD may echo "action" louder on large sets.
A take is over when the director calls "cut!", and camera and sound stop recording. The script supervisor will note any continuity issues and the sound and camera teams log technical notes for the take on their respective report sheets. If the director decides additional takes are required, the whole process repeats. Once satisfied, the crew moves on to the next camera angle or "setup," until the whole scene is "covered." When shooting is finished for the scene, the assistant director declares a "wrap" or "moving on," and the crew will "strike," or dismantle, the set for that scene.
At the end of the day, the director approves the next day's shooting schedule and a daily progress report is sent to the production office. This includes the report sheets from continuity, sound, and camera teams. Call sheets are distributed to the cast and crew to tell them when and where to turn up the next shooting day. Later on, the director, producer, other department heads, and, sometimes, the cast, may gather to watch that day or yesterday's footage, called dailies, and review their work.
With workdays often lasting 14 or 18 hours in remote locations, film production tends to create a team spirit. When the entire film is in the can, or in the completion of the production phase, it is customary for the production office to arrange a wrap party, to thank all the cast and crew for their efforts.
For the production phase on live-action films, synchronizing work schedules of key cast and crew members is very important, since for many scenes, several cast members and most of the crew must be physically present at the same place at the same time (and bankable stars may need to rush from one project to another).
Animated films have different workflow at the production phase, in that voice talent can record their takes in the recording studio at different times and may not see one another until the film's premiere, while most physical live-action tasks are either unnecessary or are simulated by various types of animators.
Post-production:
Main article: Post-production
Here the video/film is assembled by the film editor. The shot film material is edited. The production sound (dialogue) is also edited; music tracks and songs are composed and recorded if a film is sought to have a score; sound effects are designed and recorded. Any computer-graphic visual effects are digitally added by an artist. Finally, all sound elements are mixed into "stems", which are then married to picture, and the film is fully completed ("locked").
Distribution:
Main articles: Film distribution and Film promotion
This is the final stage, where the film is released to cinemas or, occasionally, directly to consumer media (VHS, VCD, DVD, Blu-ray) or direct download from a digital media provider. The film is duplicated as required (either onto film or hard disk drives) and distributed to cinemas for exhibition (screening).
Press kits, posters, and other advertising materials are published, and the film is advertised and promoted. A B-roll clip may be released to the press based on raw footage shot for a "making of" documentary, which may include making-of clips as well as on-set interviews.
Film distributors usually release a film with a launch party, a red-carpet premiere, press releases, interviews with the press, press preview screenings, and film festival screenings.
Most films are also promoted with their own special website separate from those of the production company or distributor. For major films, key personnel are often contractually required to participate in promotional tours in which they appear at premieres and festivals, and sit for interviews with many TV, print, and online journalists. The largest productions may require more than one promotional tour, in order to rejuvenate audience demand at each release window.
Since the advent of home video in the early 1980s, most major films have followed a pattern of having several distinct release windows. A film may first be released to a few select cinemas, or if it tests well enough, may go directly into wide release. Next, it is released, normally at different times several weeks (or months) apart, into different market segments like rental, retail, pay-per-view, in-flight entertainment, cable, satellite, or free-to-air broadcast television.
The distribution rights for the film are also usually sold for worldwide distribution. The distributor and the production company share profits and manage losses.
Independent Filmmaking:
Main article: Independent film
Filmmaking also takes place outside of the mainstream and is commonly called independent filmmaking. Since the introduction of DV technology, the means of production have become more democratized.
Filmmakers can conceivably shoot and edit a film, create and edit the sound and music, and mix the final cut on a home computer. However, while the means of production may be democratized, financing, traditional distribution, and marketing remain difficult to accomplish outside the traditional system.
In the past, most independent filmmakers have relied on film festivals (such as Sundance, Venice, Cannes and Toronto film festivals) to get their films noticed and sold for distribution and production.
However, the Internet has allowed for relatively inexpensive distribution of independent films on websites such as YouTube. As a result, several companies have emerged to assist filmmakers in getting independent movies seen and sold via mainstream internet marketplaces, often adjacent to popular Hollywood titles.
With internet movie distribution, independent filmmakers who choose to forgo a traditional distribution deal now have the ability to reach global audiences.
See also:
- 35 mm film
- Audiography
- Cinematic techniques
- Cinematography
- Director of audiography (Bollywood-style filmmaking in India)
- Drive-in theater
- Film crew
- Film director
- Film editing
- Film title design
- Film industry
- Film poster
- Film producer
- Film school
- Film studies
- Film trailer
- First look deal
- Glossary of motion picture terms
- List of film-related topics
- Motion Picture Association of America
- Motion picture content rating system
- Movie production incentives in the United States
- Movie theater
- Outline of film
- Screenplay
- Screenwriter
- Internet Filmmaker's FAQ—frequently asked questions on filmmaking
- Filmmaker magazine
- Directors' Diaries: The Road to Their First Film
Greatest Film Directors of Our Time
YouTube Video of the Shower Scene from Alfred Hitchcock's Movie "Psycho"
Pictured: Alfred Hitchcock & Woody Allen
Timeline of Advancements in Movie Making Technology
YouTube Video of Top 10 Landmark CGI Movie Effects
Pictured: Filmmaking Technology as:
Top: analog (film) camera vs. digital camera
Bottom: James Cameron directing the CGI movie phenomenon “Avatar” (2009)
The history of film technology traces the development of film technology from the initial development of "moving pictures" at the end of 19th century to the present time. Motion pictures were initially exhibited as a fairground novelty and developed into one of the most important tools of communication and entertainment in the 20th century
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for further amplification about Advancements in Filmmaking Technology:
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for further amplification about Advancements in Filmmaking Technology:
IMAX Film Format, including a List of IMAX Theaters in the United States
YouTube Video of How the IMAX 3D experience is created
Click here for a list of IMAX Theaters in the United States.
IMAX is a 70 mm motion picture film format and a set of cinema projection standards developed in Canada in the late 1960s and early 1970s by Graeme Ferguson, Roman Kroitor, Robert Kerr, and William C. Shaw.
IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution (detail) than conventional film systems. Unlike conventional projectors, the film is run horizontally so that the image width is greater than the width of the film.
Since 2002, some feature films have been converted (or upgraded) into IMAX format for displaying in IMAX theatres and some have also been partially shot in IMAX. IMAX is the most widely used system for special-venue film presentations.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about IMAX Film Technology:
IMAX is a 70 mm motion picture film format and a set of cinema projection standards developed in Canada in the late 1960s and early 1970s by Graeme Ferguson, Roman Kroitor, Robert Kerr, and William C. Shaw.
IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution (detail) than conventional film systems. Unlike conventional projectors, the film is run horizontally so that the image width is greater than the width of the film.
Since 2002, some feature films have been converted (or upgraded) into IMAX format for displaying in IMAX theatres and some have also been partially shot in IMAX. IMAX is the most widely used system for special-venue film presentations.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about IMAX Film Technology:
- History
- Technical aspects
- Variations
- Films
- In space
- Awards
- Other uses
- Technical specifications
- Gallery
- Competitors
- See also:
- List of IMAX DMR films
- List of IMAX films
- List of IMAX venues
- List of IMAX-based rides
- RealD Cinema
- IMAX.com, the official Web site
- Large Formats: Describes the differences between the three different "large-format" or "giant-screen" formats, the IMAX Digital format, and the conventional formats.
- IMAX Soundtracks Database
Production Company
YouTube Video: How a TV Show Gets Made
YouTube Video: How Technicolor changed movies
Pictured below: the List of Production Companies in Los Angeles
A production company, production house, production studio, or a production team provides the physical basis for works in the realms of the following:
Production teams are a group of technical staff who produce the media, generally the term refers to all individuals responsible for the technical aspects of creating of a particular product, regardless of where in the process their expertise is required, or how long they are involved in the project.
For example, in a theatrical performance, the production team includes not only the running crew, but also the theatrical producer, designers and theater direction.
Tasks and Functions:
The production company may be directly responsible for fundraising for the production or may accomplish this through a parent company, partner, or private investor. It handles budgeting, scheduling, scripting, the supply with talent and resources, the organization of staff, the production itself, post-production, distribution, and marketing.
Production companies are often either owned or under contract with a media conglomerate, film studio, entertainment company, or Motion Picture Company, who act as the production company's partner or parent company. This has become known as the "studio system".
Independent studios usually prefer production house (see Lionsgate), and sometimes as a production studio or production team (see Amazon Studios or Rooster Teeth). In the case of television, a production company would serve under a television network. Production companies can work together in co-productions.
In music, the term production team typically refers to a group of individuals filling the role of "record producer" usually reserved for one individual. Some examples of musical production teams include Matmos and D-Influence.
Type:
Entertainment companies operate as mini conglomerates, operating many divisions or subsidiaries in many different industries. Warner Bros. Entertainment and Lionsgate Entertainment are two companies with this corporate structure.
It allows for a single company to maintain control over seemingly unrelated companies that fall within the ranges of entertainment, which increases and centralises the revenue into one company (example: a film production company, TV production company, video game company, and comic book company are all owned by a single entertainment company).
A motion picture company, such as Paramount Pictures, specializing "only" in motion pictures is only connected with its other counterpart industries through its parent company. Instead of performing a corporate reorganization, many motion picture companies often have sister companies they collaborate with in other industries that are subsidiaries owned by their parent company and is often not involved in the making of products that are not motion picture related.
A film production company can either operate as an affiliate (under a contract) or as a subsidiary for an entertainment company, motion picture company, television network, or all, and are generally smaller than the company they are partnered with.
Book to film unit:
A book to film unit is a unit of a book publishing company for the purposes of getting books that they published adapted into film.
Background:
Films have been using books as a prime source for films for years. In 2012, six out of the nine best picture Oscar nominees were originally books. Previously, publishers did not develop their books into movie nor receive any of the profits. Neither Scholastic or Little Brown, get any box office revenue from the Harry Potter and Twilight movies just through book sales.
As the publishers faced decreasing revenue due to increased competition from self-published e-books, or Amazon.com moving into the publishing field, publishers have started to enter the film and TV production business to boost their net income with Amazon attempting to compete there too.
More screenwriters are turning to book publishers to get their screenplay published as a book, so as to have a boost in their attempt to have the screenplay turned into a movie, given that it is a known product after the book.
History:
Publisher Simon & Schuster has been owned by media companies lately by CBS Corporation while the publisher is not involved with film and TV, S&S shares with CBS for possible film or TV deals.
Alloy Entertainment, while not a unit of a publisher, started using a book packaging to film model of film and TV development by developing the property in-house, hire authors for the books and films, so as to own the property.
Random House was the first big six book publisher to establish a book to film unit, Random House Films, in 2005 with a Focus Features deal under a development and co-finance plan.
Macmillan Films was launched by Thomas Dunne Books in October 2010 under the packaging model similar to Alloy while also moving to get film rights from Dunne's published author. Also that year, Random House changed their strategy to film development and packaging only.
Condé Nast Entertainment was started by Magazine publisher Conde Nast in October 2012. In 2013, Macmillan Films became Macmillan Entertainment with an expansion to look at other divisions' book for possible films.
Operation and Profit:
A production company is usually run by a producer or director, but can also be run by a career executive. In entertainment, a production company relies highly on talent or a well known entertainment franchise to raise the value of an entertainment project and draw out larger audiences.
This gives the entertainment industry a democratized power structure to ensure that both the companies and talent receive their fair share of pay and recognition for work done on a production.
The entertainment industry is centered on funding (studio investments, private investments, or self investments either from earnings from previous productions or personal wealth), projects (scripts and entertainment franchises), and talent (actors, directors, screenwriters, and crew).
Production companies are judged and ranked based on the amount of funding it has, as well the productions it has completed or been involved with in the past. If a production company has major funding either through earnings, studio investors, or private investors, and has done or been involved with big budget productions in the past, it is considered to be a major production company.
These companies often work with well-known and expensive talent. If a production company does not have much funding and has not done or been involved with any big budget productions, it is considered to be a small production company. These companies often work with up and coming talent. Small production companies will either grow to become a major production company, a subsidiary completely owned by another company, or remain small.
The success of an entertainment production company is centered on the projects it produces, the talent it can acquire, and the performance of the talent. Marketing is also a major factor.
All films, as a tradition, are often marketed around the image and the performance of the actors; with an option of marketing the behind the scenes crew such as the directors and screenwriters.
Unlike many other businesses, a production company does not rely on an ongoing revenue stream, they operate on ongoing investments; this often requires a parent company or a private corporate investment entity (see Legendary Pictures). Their only source of profit comes from the productions they produce. Because entertainment and media are currently in "high demand", a production company can profit if its management is capable of using its resources to supply good quality products and services to the public.
Many entertainment production companies brand their entertainment projects. An entertainment project can either become a "one time hit" or an ongoing "entertainment franchise" that can be continued, remade, rebooted, or expanded into other sister industries; such as the video game industry (see Star Wars, Star Trek).
Entertainment projects can be either an original or an adaptation from another industry.
In rare occasional cases, a few troubled major studios would also shed their distribution and/or marketing staffs, mainly due to reduced resources, and resort to co-investing and/or co-distributing film projects with larger studios, operating as virtual, production-only movie studios.
Notable examples include:
Staffing, Funds and Entertainment:
Because a production company is only operational when a production is being produced and most of the talent and crew are freelancers, many production companies are only required to hire management staff that helps to oversee the company's daily activities.
In some cases, a production company can be run by only a handful of people. The company's funds are mainly committed towards employing talent, crew, and acquiring new updated production equipment on a regular basis.
Many productions often require at least one to two cameras and lighting equipment for on location shooting. Production equipment is either leased or purchased from another production company or directly from the manufacturer.
In the entertainment industry, in order to secure experienced professional talent and crew, production companies often become a signatory company to that talent or crew members "guild". By becoming a signatory company, it agrees to abide by the guild regulations.
All big budget guild productions are exclusive to guild members and non guild members are not allowed to participate in these productions unless authorized by the guild. Productions with smaller budgets are allowed to use both guild talent and talent from the public.
The majority of the talent and crew working in the entertainment industry are members of their professions guild. Most productions in the entertainment industry are guild productions.
Production:
A production company is responsible for the development and filming of a specific production or media broadcast.
In entertainment, the production process begins with the development of a specific project.
Once a final script has been produced by the screenwriters, the production enters into the pre-production phase, most productions never reach this phase for financing or talent reasons.
In pre-production, the actors are signed on and prepared for their roles, crew is signed on, shooting locations are found, sets are built or acquired, and the proper shooting permits are acquired for on location shooting.
Actors and crew are hand picked by the producer, director, and casting director, who often use collaborators or referenced personnel to prevent untrusted or unwelcomed people from gaining access to a specific production and compromising the entire production through leaks.
Once a production enters into principal photography, it begins filming. Productions are almost never cancelled once they reach this phase. Codenames are often used on bigger productions during filming to conceal the production's shooting locations for both privacy and safety reasons.
In many cases, the director, producers, and the leading actors are often the only people with access to a full or majority of a single script. Supporting actors, background actors, and crew often never receive a full copy of a specific script to prevent leaks. Productions are often shot in secured studios, with limited to no public access, but they are also shot on location on secured sets or locations.
Due to the exposure, when shooting in public locations, major productions often employ security to ensure the protection of the talent and crew working on a specific production.
After filming is completed, the production enters into post production, which is handled by a post production company and overseen by the production company. The editing, musical score, visual effects, re-recording of the dialog, and sound effects are "mixed" to create the final film, which is then screened at the final screening.
Marketing is also launched during this phase, such as the release of trailers and posters. Once a final film has been approved, the film is taken over by the distributors, who then release the film.
Other Details:
For legal reasons, it is common within the entertainment industry for production companies not to accept unsolicited materials from any other company, talent, or the general public. It is also common for filmmakers or producers to become entrepreneurs and open their own production companies so that they can have more control over their careers and pay, while acting as an "in-house" creative and business driving force for their company but continuing to freelance as an artist for other companies, if desired.
Deals:
See Also:
- performing arts,
- new media art,
- film,
- television,
- radio,
- comics,
- interactive arts,
- video games,
- websites,
- and video.
Production teams are a group of technical staff who produce the media, generally the term refers to all individuals responsible for the technical aspects of creating of a particular product, regardless of where in the process their expertise is required, or how long they are involved in the project.
For example, in a theatrical performance, the production team includes not only the running crew, but also the theatrical producer, designers and theater direction.
Tasks and Functions:
The production company may be directly responsible for fundraising for the production or may accomplish this through a parent company, partner, or private investor. It handles budgeting, scheduling, scripting, the supply with talent and resources, the organization of staff, the production itself, post-production, distribution, and marketing.
Production companies are often either owned or under contract with a media conglomerate, film studio, entertainment company, or Motion Picture Company, who act as the production company's partner or parent company. This has become known as the "studio system".
Independent studios usually prefer production house (see Lionsgate), and sometimes as a production studio or production team (see Amazon Studios or Rooster Teeth). In the case of television, a production company would serve under a television network. Production companies can work together in co-productions.
In music, the term production team typically refers to a group of individuals filling the role of "record producer" usually reserved for one individual. Some examples of musical production teams include Matmos and D-Influence.
Type:
Entertainment companies operate as mini conglomerates, operating many divisions or subsidiaries in many different industries. Warner Bros. Entertainment and Lionsgate Entertainment are two companies with this corporate structure.
It allows for a single company to maintain control over seemingly unrelated companies that fall within the ranges of entertainment, which increases and centralises the revenue into one company (example: a film production company, TV production company, video game company, and comic book company are all owned by a single entertainment company).
A motion picture company, such as Paramount Pictures, specializing "only" in motion pictures is only connected with its other counterpart industries through its parent company. Instead of performing a corporate reorganization, many motion picture companies often have sister companies they collaborate with in other industries that are subsidiaries owned by their parent company and is often not involved in the making of products that are not motion picture related.
A film production company can either operate as an affiliate (under a contract) or as a subsidiary for an entertainment company, motion picture company, television network, or all, and are generally smaller than the company they are partnered with.
Book to film unit:
A book to film unit is a unit of a book publishing company for the purposes of getting books that they published adapted into film.
Background:
Films have been using books as a prime source for films for years. In 2012, six out of the nine best picture Oscar nominees were originally books. Previously, publishers did not develop their books into movie nor receive any of the profits. Neither Scholastic or Little Brown, get any box office revenue from the Harry Potter and Twilight movies just through book sales.
As the publishers faced decreasing revenue due to increased competition from self-published e-books, or Amazon.com moving into the publishing field, publishers have started to enter the film and TV production business to boost their net income with Amazon attempting to compete there too.
More screenwriters are turning to book publishers to get their screenplay published as a book, so as to have a boost in their attempt to have the screenplay turned into a movie, given that it is a known product after the book.
History:
Publisher Simon & Schuster has been owned by media companies lately by CBS Corporation while the publisher is not involved with film and TV, S&S shares with CBS for possible film or TV deals.
Alloy Entertainment, while not a unit of a publisher, started using a book packaging to film model of film and TV development by developing the property in-house, hire authors for the books and films, so as to own the property.
Random House was the first big six book publisher to establish a book to film unit, Random House Films, in 2005 with a Focus Features deal under a development and co-finance plan.
Macmillan Films was launched by Thomas Dunne Books in October 2010 under the packaging model similar to Alloy while also moving to get film rights from Dunne's published author. Also that year, Random House changed their strategy to film development and packaging only.
Condé Nast Entertainment was started by Magazine publisher Conde Nast in October 2012. In 2013, Macmillan Films became Macmillan Entertainment with an expansion to look at other divisions' book for possible films.
Operation and Profit:
A production company is usually run by a producer or director, but can also be run by a career executive. In entertainment, a production company relies highly on talent or a well known entertainment franchise to raise the value of an entertainment project and draw out larger audiences.
This gives the entertainment industry a democratized power structure to ensure that both the companies and talent receive their fair share of pay and recognition for work done on a production.
The entertainment industry is centered on funding (studio investments, private investments, or self investments either from earnings from previous productions or personal wealth), projects (scripts and entertainment franchises), and talent (actors, directors, screenwriters, and crew).
Production companies are judged and ranked based on the amount of funding it has, as well the productions it has completed or been involved with in the past. If a production company has major funding either through earnings, studio investors, or private investors, and has done or been involved with big budget productions in the past, it is considered to be a major production company.
These companies often work with well-known and expensive talent. If a production company does not have much funding and has not done or been involved with any big budget productions, it is considered to be a small production company. These companies often work with up and coming talent. Small production companies will either grow to become a major production company, a subsidiary completely owned by another company, or remain small.
The success of an entertainment production company is centered on the projects it produces, the talent it can acquire, and the performance of the talent. Marketing is also a major factor.
All films, as a tradition, are often marketed around the image and the performance of the actors; with an option of marketing the behind the scenes crew such as the directors and screenwriters.
Unlike many other businesses, a production company does not rely on an ongoing revenue stream, they operate on ongoing investments; this often requires a parent company or a private corporate investment entity (see Legendary Pictures). Their only source of profit comes from the productions they produce. Because entertainment and media are currently in "high demand", a production company can profit if its management is capable of using its resources to supply good quality products and services to the public.
Many entertainment production companies brand their entertainment projects. An entertainment project can either become a "one time hit" or an ongoing "entertainment franchise" that can be continued, remade, rebooted, or expanded into other sister industries; such as the video game industry (see Star Wars, Star Trek).
Entertainment projects can be either an original or an adaptation from another industry.
In rare occasional cases, a few troubled major studios would also shed their distribution and/or marketing staffs, mainly due to reduced resources, and resort to co-investing and/or co-distributing film projects with larger studios, operating as virtual, production-only movie studios.
Notable examples include:
- Legendary studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which, after many years of box office flops (mostly with low budgets), bad management and distribution, and bankruptcy, was restructured at the end of 2010 under new management and currently struck deals with some of the Big Six studios (most notably the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group and Warner Bros.);
- Miramax, which was downsized by former owner Disney into a smaller division after the Weinstein brothers' 2005 divestment and, after 17 years under Disney ownership, was sold to a group of investors at the end of 2010 who eventually struck deals to co-finance the studio's projects with other independent companies;
- and DreamWorks Pictures, the independently-run live action studio, which currently releases many projects through Universal Pictures and formerly released their projects through Disney after spinning off from Paramount Pictures (which purchased the studio in 2006 and stripped it of its independent distributor status) in 2008.
Staffing, Funds and Entertainment:
Because a production company is only operational when a production is being produced and most of the talent and crew are freelancers, many production companies are only required to hire management staff that helps to oversee the company's daily activities.
In some cases, a production company can be run by only a handful of people. The company's funds are mainly committed towards employing talent, crew, and acquiring new updated production equipment on a regular basis.
Many productions often require at least one to two cameras and lighting equipment for on location shooting. Production equipment is either leased or purchased from another production company or directly from the manufacturer.
In the entertainment industry, in order to secure experienced professional talent and crew, production companies often become a signatory company to that talent or crew members "guild". By becoming a signatory company, it agrees to abide by the guild regulations.
All big budget guild productions are exclusive to guild members and non guild members are not allowed to participate in these productions unless authorized by the guild. Productions with smaller budgets are allowed to use both guild talent and talent from the public.
The majority of the talent and crew working in the entertainment industry are members of their professions guild. Most productions in the entertainment industry are guild productions.
Production:
A production company is responsible for the development and filming of a specific production or media broadcast.
In entertainment, the production process begins with the development of a specific project.
Once a final script has been produced by the screenwriters, the production enters into the pre-production phase, most productions never reach this phase for financing or talent reasons.
In pre-production, the actors are signed on and prepared for their roles, crew is signed on, shooting locations are found, sets are built or acquired, and the proper shooting permits are acquired for on location shooting.
Actors and crew are hand picked by the producer, director, and casting director, who often use collaborators or referenced personnel to prevent untrusted or unwelcomed people from gaining access to a specific production and compromising the entire production through leaks.
Once a production enters into principal photography, it begins filming. Productions are almost never cancelled once they reach this phase. Codenames are often used on bigger productions during filming to conceal the production's shooting locations for both privacy and safety reasons.
In many cases, the director, producers, and the leading actors are often the only people with access to a full or majority of a single script. Supporting actors, background actors, and crew often never receive a full copy of a specific script to prevent leaks. Productions are often shot in secured studios, with limited to no public access, but they are also shot on location on secured sets or locations.
Due to the exposure, when shooting in public locations, major productions often employ security to ensure the protection of the talent and crew working on a specific production.
After filming is completed, the production enters into post production, which is handled by a post production company and overseen by the production company. The editing, musical score, visual effects, re-recording of the dialog, and sound effects are "mixed" to create the final film, which is then screened at the final screening.
Marketing is also launched during this phase, such as the release of trailers and posters. Once a final film has been approved, the film is taken over by the distributors, who then release the film.
Other Details:
For legal reasons, it is common within the entertainment industry for production companies not to accept unsolicited materials from any other company, talent, or the general public. It is also common for filmmakers or producers to become entrepreneurs and open their own production companies so that they can have more control over their careers and pay, while acting as an "in-house" creative and business driving force for their company but continuing to freelance as an artist for other companies, if desired.
Deals:
- Overall deal where a distributor has the rights to all the output of a production company.
- First look deal where a network has the right of refusal to all the output of a production company, after which the production company is free to shop the project to other distributors.
See Also:
- Directors Guild
- Executive producer
- Film crew; Production team; Television crew
- Film distributor; Broadcast syndication
- Filmmaking; Video production
- Hip hop production
- Impresario
- International Cinematographers Guild
- List of film production companies
- List of television production companies
- Outline of film
- Movie studio; Television studio
- Screen Actors Guild
- Stagecraft; Theatrical producer; Television producer; Film Producer
- Writers Guild
The Coen Brothers
YouTube Video from The Big Lebowski - Best Quotes
Pictured: Coen Brothers Movies from Left to Right: John Goodman as Walter Sobchak in "The Big Lebowski" (1998), George Clooney in “Hail Caesar!” (2016), Frances McDormand in "Fargo (1996)
YouTube Video from The Big Lebowski - Best Quotes
Pictured: Coen Brothers Movies from Left to Right: John Goodman as Walter Sobchak in "The Big Lebowski" (1998), George Clooney in “Hail Caesar!” (2016), Frances McDormand in "Fargo (1996)
Joel David Coen (born November 29, 1954) and Ethan Jesse Coen (born September 21, 1957), collectively referred to as the Coen Brothers, are American filmmakers. They have directed more than 15 films together, that are often characterized as being "genre-busting", having covered comedy, crime, the Western, horror, thriller, gangster, drama, romance, adventure, and features of neo-noir.
Their films include
The brothers write, direct, and produce their films jointly, although until The Ladykillers (2004), Joel received sole credit for directing and Ethan for producing. They often alternate top billing for their screenplays while sharing film credits for editor under the alias Roderick Jaynes.
They have been nominated for thirteen Academy Awards together, plus one individual nomination for each, winning Best Original Screenplay for Fargo and Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for No Country for Old Men.
They have written a number of films neither of the brothers directed. These films include the biographical war drama Unbroken (2014), and the historical drama thriller Bridge of Spies (2015), as well as more obscure and unsuccessful comedy films such as Crimewave (1985), The Naked Man (1998), and Gambit (2012).
Ethan is also a writer of short stories, theater, and poetry.
Click here for more about the Coen Brothers.
Their films include
- Blood Simple (1984),
- Raising Arizona (1987),
- Miller's Crossing (1990),
- Barton Fink (1991),
- Fargo (1996),
- The Big Lebowski (1998),
- O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000),
- No Country for Old Men (2007),
- Burn After Reading (2008),
- A Serious Man (2009),
- True Grit (2010),
- Inside Llewyn Davis (2013),
- and Hail, Caesar! (2016).
The brothers write, direct, and produce their films jointly, although until The Ladykillers (2004), Joel received sole credit for directing and Ethan for producing. They often alternate top billing for their screenplays while sharing film credits for editor under the alias Roderick Jaynes.
They have been nominated for thirteen Academy Awards together, plus one individual nomination for each, winning Best Original Screenplay for Fargo and Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for No Country for Old Men.
They have written a number of films neither of the brothers directed. These films include the biographical war drama Unbroken (2014), and the historical drama thriller Bridge of Spies (2015), as well as more obscure and unsuccessful comedy films such as Crimewave (1985), The Naked Man (1998), and Gambit (2012).
Ethan is also a writer of short stories, theater, and poetry.
Click here for more about the Coen Brothers.
List of Films based on Video Games
- YouTube Video of the Top 10 Movies based on Video Games (WatchMojo)
- YouTube Video: Top 10 Amazing Fan Made Video Game Movies (Watch Mojo)
- YouTube Video: VIDEO GAMES : THE MOVIE Trailer (2014)
This page is a list of film adaptations of video games. These include local, international, direct-to-video and TV releases, and (in certain cases) online releases. They include:
Also included are short films, cut-scene films (made up of cutscenes and cinematics from the actual games), documentaries with video games as their subjects and films in which video games play a large part (such as Tron or WarGames).
Films based on video games have garnered a negative reputation for their poor execution and poor grasp at the source material of the game each film is based on, and have traditionally garnered rotten Tomatometer rankings on Rotten Tomatoes.
Currently, Pokémon Detective Pikachu and The Angry Birds Movie 2 are the only films on Rotten Tomatoes's Video Game Movies Ranked Worst to Best list to have received a fresh Tomatometer rating.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Movies adapted from Video Games:
- their scores on Rotten Tomatoes,
- the region in which they were released (for foreign adaptations),
- approximate budget,
- their approximate box office revenue (for theatrical releases),
- distributor of the film,
- and the publisher of the original game at the time the film was made (this means that publishers may change between two adaptations of the same game or game series, such as Mortal Kombat).
Also included are short films, cut-scene films (made up of cutscenes and cinematics from the actual games), documentaries with video games as their subjects and films in which video games play a large part (such as Tron or WarGames).
Films based on video games have garnered a negative reputation for their poor execution and poor grasp at the source material of the game each film is based on, and have traditionally garnered rotten Tomatometer rankings on Rotten Tomatoes.
Currently, Pokémon Detective Pikachu and The Angry Birds Movie 2 are the only films on Rotten Tomatoes's Video Game Movies Ranked Worst to Best list to have received a fresh Tomatometer rating.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Movies adapted from Video Games:
- Theatrical releases
- Television films
- Direct-to-video
- Short films
- Documentaries on video games
- Films with plots centered on video games
- See also:
Academy Awards (Oscars), including the 93rd Academy Awards
- YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for Nomadland
- YouTube Video of the Movie "Father" Starring Anthony Hopkins
- YouTube Video: 2021 Oscars Best Picture Nominee Trailers | Movieclips Trailers
The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in the film industry. They are regarded as the most famous and prestigious awards in the entertainment industry around the world.
Given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the awards are an international recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements, as assessed by the Academy's voting membership.
The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette as a trophy, officially called the "Academy Award of Merit", although more commonly referred to by its nickname, the "Oscar". The statuette depicts a knight rendered in the Art Deco style.
The award was originally sculpted by George Stanley from a design sketch by Cedric Gibbons. AMPAS first presented it in 1929 at a private dinner hosted by Douglas Fairbanks in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in what would become known as the 1st Academy Awards.
The Academy Awards ceremony was first broadcast by radio in 1930 and was televised for the first time in 1953. It is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony and is now televised live worldwide. It is also the oldest of the four major annual American entertainment awards; its equivalents – the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music – are modeled after the Academy Awards. They are widely cited as the most famous and prestigious competitive awards in the field of entertainment.
See below for 93rd Academy Awards awarded on April 25, 2021.
Click here for more about the Academy Awards in General.
___________________________________________________________________________
The 93rd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2020 and early 2021. It took place in Los Angeles at both Union Station and the Dolby Theatre, on April 25, 2021 – two months later than planned, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cinema. Nominations had been announced on March 15, 2021.
Nomadland won three awards, the most of the night, including Best Picture.
The following movies won 2 awards each:
The following movies won one award each:
The ceremony marked the first time since the 78th Academy Awards in 2006 that no film won more than three awards and the first time since the 44th Academy Awards in 1972 – when the show ended with an Academy Honorary Award to Charlie Chaplin – that the ceremony did not end with the award for Best Picture (it ended with Best Actress and Actor).
According to Nielsen estimates (which began in 1974), this ceremony was the least-viewed Academy Awards telecast on record in the United States, with 10.4 million viewers.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the 93rd Annual Academy Awards:
Given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the awards are an international recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements, as assessed by the Academy's voting membership.
The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette as a trophy, officially called the "Academy Award of Merit", although more commonly referred to by its nickname, the "Oscar". The statuette depicts a knight rendered in the Art Deco style.
The award was originally sculpted by George Stanley from a design sketch by Cedric Gibbons. AMPAS first presented it in 1929 at a private dinner hosted by Douglas Fairbanks in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in what would become known as the 1st Academy Awards.
The Academy Awards ceremony was first broadcast by radio in 1930 and was televised for the first time in 1953. It is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony and is now televised live worldwide. It is also the oldest of the four major annual American entertainment awards; its equivalents – the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music – are modeled after the Academy Awards. They are widely cited as the most famous and prestigious competitive awards in the field of entertainment.
See below for 93rd Academy Awards awarded on April 25, 2021.
Click here for more about the Academy Awards in General.
___________________________________________________________________________
The 93rd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2020 and early 2021. It took place in Los Angeles at both Union Station and the Dolby Theatre, on April 25, 2021 – two months later than planned, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cinema. Nominations had been announced on March 15, 2021.
Nomadland won three awards, the most of the night, including Best Picture.
The following movies won 2 awards each:
The following movies won one award each:
- Another Round,
- Colette,
- If Anything Happens I Love You,
- Minari,
- My Octopus Teacher,
- Promising Young Woman,
- Tenet,
- and Two Distant Strange
The ceremony marked the first time since the 78th Academy Awards in 2006 that no film won more than three awards and the first time since the 44th Academy Awards in 1972 – when the show ended with an Academy Honorary Award to Charlie Chaplin – that the ceremony did not end with the award for Best Picture (it ended with Best Actress and Actor).
According to Nielsen estimates (which began in 1974), this ceremony was the least-viewed Academy Awards telecast on record in the United States, with 10.4 million viewers.
Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the 93rd Annual Academy Awards:
- Background
- Winners and nominees
- Presenters and performers
- Film trailers
- Ceremony information
- In Memoriam
- See also: