Portal:Film
The Film Portal
Film is an important art form; films entertain, educate, enlighten, and inspire audiences. The visual elements of cinema need no translation, giving the motion picture a universal power of communication. Films are also artifacts created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and in turn, affect them.
Traditional films are made up of a series of individual images called frames. When these images are shown rapidly in succession, a viewer has the illusion that motion is occurring. The viewer cannot see the flickering between frames due to a combination of physiological and psychological effects. One is known as persistence of vision—whereby the eye retains a visual image for a fraction of a second after the source has been removed. Viewers also perceive motion due to psychological effects called beta movement and the phi phenomenon.
The origin of the name "film" comes from the fact that photographic film (also called film stock) has historically been the primary medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for an individual motion picture, including picture, picture show, photo-play, flick, and most commonly, movie. Additional terms for the field in general include the big screen, the silver screen, the cinema, and the movies.
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Grauman's Chinese Theatre is a movie theatre located at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California. The Chinese Theatre was commissioned following the success of the nearby Grauman's Egyptian Theatre which opened in 1922.
Did you know...
- ...that the 1932 comedy Pojkarna på Storholmen, starring Fridolf Rhudin, is one of the most successful Swedish films in history?
- ...that the title of the movie I Married a Communist was so unappealing to audiences that their response led the film to be re-released under the title The Woman on Pier 13?
- ...that Mohamed Camara's 1997 film Dakan was the first West African film to explore homosexuality?
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