Overview and topical guide to film
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to film:
Film refers to motion pictures as individual projects and to the field in general. The name came from the fact that photographic film (also called filmstock) has historically been the primary medium for recording and displaying motion pictures.
What type of thing is film?
Film can be described as all of the following:
- Art – aesthetic expression for presentation or performance, and the work produced from this activity.
- One of the arts – as an art form, film is an outlet of human expression, that is usually influenced by culture and which in turn helps to change culture. Film is a physical manifestation of the internal human creative impulse.
- One of the visual arts – visual arts is a class of art forms, including painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking and others, that focus on the creation of works which are primarily visual in nature.
- One of the performing arts – art forms in which artists use their body, voice, or objects to convey artistic expression. Performing arts include a variety of disciplines but all take the form of a performance in front of an audience.
- Fine art – in Western European academic traditions, fine art is art developed primarily for aesthetics, distinguishing it from applied art that also has to serve some practical function. The word "fine" here does not so much denote the quality of the artwork in question, but the purity of the discipline according to traditional Western European canons.
- Show business – a means of providing employment for actors, screenwriters, artisans and technicians, regardless of whether the finished film was produced as a for-profit enterprise or as a not-for-profit public service.
Other names for film
- Movies
- Motion pictures
- Talking pictures
- Pictures
- Celluloid
- Flicks (or flickers)
- Photoplays
- Picture shows
- The cinema
- The silver screen (talkie era); the silver sheet (silent era)
- Videos
