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....Film

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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"Movie" and "Moving picture" redirect here. For other uses, see Movie, Moving Pictures and Film

Semi-protected

World cinema

     * African cinema

    * Asian cinema

     East Asian cinema

    South Asian cinema

    Southeast Asian cinema

    West Asian cinema

 

    * European cinema

    * Latin American cinema

    * North American cinema

    * Oceanian cinema

 A 16 mm spring-wound Bolex H16 Reflex camera, a popular introductory camera in film schools

 Film encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or special effects.

 Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them. Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment and a powerful method for educating — or indoctrinating — citizens. The visual elements of cinema gives motion pictures a universal power of communication. Some films have become popular worldwide attractions by using dubbing or subtitles that translate the dialogue.

 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 an effect 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 perceive motion due to a psychological effect called beta movement.

 The origin of the name "film" comes from the fact that photographic film (also called film stock) had 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.

Contents

    * 1 History

    * 2 Theory

          o 2.1 Language

          o 2.2 Montage

          o 2.3 Criticism

    * 3 Industry

    * 4 Associated fields

    * 5 Terminology used regarding film

          o 5.1 Preview

          o 5.2 Trailer

          o 5.3 Film, or other art form?

    * 6 Education and Propaganda

    * 7 Production

          o 7.1 Crew

          o 7.2 Technology

          o 7.3 Independent

          o 7.4 Open content film

          o 7.5 Fan film

    * 8 Animation

    * 9 Venues

    * 10 Future state

    * 11 See also

    * 12 Notes

    * 13 References

    * 14 External links

 History

     Main article: History of film

 Preceding film by thousands of years, plays and dances had elements common to film, scripts, sets, costumes, production, direction, actors, audiences, storyboards, and scores. Much terminology later used in film theory and criticism applied, such as mise en scene (roughly, the entire visual picture at any one time). Moving visual and aural images were not recorded for replaying as in film.

 Near the year 1600, the camera obscura was perfected by della Porta. Light is inverted through a small hole or lens from outside, and projected onto a surface or screen, creating a moving image, but it is not preserved in a recording.

 In the 1860s, mechanisms for producing artificially created, two-dimensional images in motion were demonstrated with devices such as the zoetrope and the praxinoscope. These machines were outgrowths of simple optical devices (such as magic lanterns) and would display sequences of still pictures at sufficient speed for the images on the pictures to appear to be moving, a phenomenon called persistence of vision. Naturally the images needed to be carefully designed to achieve the desired effect, and the underlying principle became the basis for the development of film animation.

A frame from Roundhay Garden Scene, the world's earliest film, by Louis Le Prince, 1888

 With the development of celluloid film for still photography, it became possible to directly capture objects in motion in real time. Early versions of the technology sometimes required a person to look into a viewing machine to see the pictures which were separate paper prints attached to a drum turned by a handcrank. The pictures were shown at a variable speed of about 5 to 10 pictures per second, depending on how rapidly the crank was turned. Some of these machines were coin operated. By the 1880s the development of the motion picture camera allowed the individual component images to be captured and stored on a single reel, and led quickly to the development of a motion picture projector to shine light through the processed and printed film and magnify these "moving picture shows" onto a screen for an entire audience. These reels, so exhibited, came to be known as "motion pictures". Early motion pictures were static shots that showed an event or action with no editing or other cinematic techniques.

 Ignoring Dickson's early sound experiments (1894), commercial motion pictures were purely visual art through the late 19th century, but these innovative silent films had gained a hold on the public imagination. Around the turn of the twentieth century, films began developing a narrative structure by stringing scenes together to tell narratives. The scenes were later broken up into multiple shots of varying sizes and angles. Other techniques such as camera movement were realized as effective ways to portray a story on film. Rather than leave the audience in silence, theater owners would hire a pianist or organist or a full orchestra to play music fitting the mood of the film at any given moment. By the early 1920s, most films came with a prepared list of sheet music for this purpose, with complete film scores being composed for major productions.

A shot from Georges Méliès Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) (1902), an early narrative film.

 

The rise of European cinema was interrupted by the breakout of World War I while the film industry in United States flourished with the rise of Hollywood. However in the 1920s, European filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein, F. W. Murnau, and Fritz Lang, along with American innovator D. W. Griffith and the contributions of Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton and others, continued to advance the medium. In the 1920s, new technology allowed filmmakers to attach to each film a soundtrack of speech, music and sound effects synchronized with the action on the screen. These sound films were initially distinguished by calling them "talking pictures", or talkies.

 

The next major step in the development of cinema was the introduction of so-called "natural" color. While the addition of sound quickly eclipsed silent film and theater musicians, color was adopted more gradually as methods evolved making it more practical and cost effective to produce "natural color" films. The public was relatively indifferent to color photography as opposed to black-and-white,[citation needed] but as color processes improved and became as affordable as black-and-white film, more and more movies were filmed in color after the end of World War II, as the industry in America came to view color as essential to attracting audiences in its competition with television, which remained a black-and-white medium until the mid-1960s. By the end of the 1960s, color had become the norm for film makers.

 

Since the decline of the studio system in the 1960s, the succeeding decades saw changes in the production and style of film. New Hollywood, French New Wave and the rise of film school educated independent filmmakers were all part of the changes the medium experienced in the latter half of the 20th century. Digital technology has been the driving force in change throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century.

 Theory

     Main article: Film theory

 Film theory seeks to develop concise and systematic concepts that apply to the study of film as art. It was started by Ricciotto Canudo's The Birth of the Sixth Art. Formalist film theory, led by Rudolf Arnheim, Béla Balázs, and Siegfried Kracauer, emphasized how film differed from reality, and thus could be considered a valid fine art. André Bazin reacted against this theory by arguing that film's artistic essence lay in its ability to mechanically reproduce reality not in its differences from reality, and this gave rise to realist theory. More recent analysis spurred by Lacan's psychoanalysis and Ferdinand de Saussure's semiotics among other things has given rise to psychoanalytical film theory, structuralist film theory, feminist film theory and others.

 Language

 Film is considered to have its own language. James Monaco wrote a classic text on film theory titled "How to Read a Film". Director Ingmar Bergman famously said, "[Andrei] Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [director], the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream." Examples of the language are a sequence of back and forth images of one actor's left profile speaking, followed by another actor’s right profile speaking, then a repetition of this, which is a language understood by the audience to indicate a conversation. Another example is zooming in on the forehead of an actor with an expression of silent reflection, then changing to a scene of a younger version of the actor, indicating the actor is having a memory of their own past.

 

Montage

     Main article: Montage

 Parallels to musical counterpoint have been developed into a theory of montage, extended from the complex superimposition of images in early silent film[citation needed] to even more complex incorporation of musical counterpoint together with visual counterpoint through mise en scene and editing, as in a ballet or opera; e.g., as illustrated in the gang fight scene of director Francis Ford Coppola’s film, Rumblefish.

 Criticism

 

    Main article: Film criticism

 

Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films. In general, these works can be divided into two categories: academic criticism by film scholars and journalistic film criticism that appears regularly in newspapers and other media.

 

Film critics working for newspapers, magazines, and broadcast media mainly review new releases. Normally they only see any given film once and have only a day or two to formulate opinions. Despite this, critics have an important impact on films, especially those of certain genres. Mass marketed action, horror, and comedy films tend not to be greatly affected by a critic's overall judgment of a film. The plot summary and description of a film that makes up the majority of any film review can still have an important impact on whether people decide to see a film. For prestige films such as most dramas, the influence of reviews is extremely important. Poor reviews will often doom a film to obscurity and financial loss.

 The impact of a reviewer on a given film's box office performance is a matter of debate. Some claim that movie marketing is now so intense and well financed that reviewers cannot make an impact against it. However, the cataclysmic failure of some heavily-promoted movies which were harshly reviewed, as well as the unexpected success of critically praised independent movies indicates that extreme critical reactions can have considerable influence. Others note that positive film reviews have been shown to spark interest in little-known films. Conversely, there have been several films in which film companies have so little confidence that they refuse to give reviewers an advanced viewing to avoid widespread panning of the film. However, this usually backfires as reviewers are wise to the tactic and warn the public that the film may not be worth seeing and the films often do poorly as a result.

 

It is argued that journalist film critics should only be known as film reviewers, and true film critics are those who take a more academic approach to films. This line of work is more often known as film theory or film studies. These film critics attempt to come to understand how film and filming techniques work, and what effect they have on people. Rather than having their works published in newspapers or appear on television, their articles are published in scholarly journals, or sometimes in up-market magazines. They also tend to be affiliated with colleges or universities.

 

Industry

 

    Main article: Film industry

 

The making and showing of motion pictures became a source of profit almost as soon as the process was invented. Upon seeing how successful their new invention, and its product, was in their native France, the Lumières quickly set about touring the Continent to exhibit the first films privately to royalty and publicly to the masses. In each country, they would normally add new, local scenes to their catalogue and, quickly enough, found local entrepreneurs in the various countries of Europe to buy their equipment and photograph, export, import and screen additional product commercially. The Oberammergau Passion Play of 1898[citation needed] was the first commercial motion picture ever produced. Other pictures soon followed, and motion pictures became a separate industry that overshadowed the vaudeville world. Dedicated theaters and companies formed specifically to produce and distribute films, while motion picture actors became major celebrities and commanded huge fees for their performances. Already by 1917, Charlie Chaplin had a contract that called for an annual salary of one million dollars.

 

In the United States today, much of the film industry is centered around Hollywood. Other regional centers exist in many parts of the world, such as Mumbai-centered Bollywood, the Indian film industry's Hindi cinema which produces the largest number of films in the world.[1] Whether the ten thousand-plus feature length films a year produced by the Valley pornographic film industry should qualify for this title is the source of some debate.[citation needed] Though the expense involved in making movies has led cinema production to concentrate under the auspices of movie studios, recent advances in affordable film making equipment have allowed independent film productions to flourish.

 

Profit is a key force in the industry, due to the costly and risky nature of filmmaking; many films have large cost overruns, a notorious example being Kevin Costner's Waterworld. Yet many filmmakers strive to create works of lasting social significance. The Academy Awards (also known as "the Oscars") are the most prominent film awards in the United States, providing recognition each year to films, ostensibly based on their artistic merits.

 

There is also a large industry for educational and instructional films made in lieu of or in addition to lectures and texts.

 

Associated fields

 

    Further information: Film history,  Film criticism, Film theory, Product placement, and Propaganda

 

Derivative academic Fields of study may both interact with and develop independently of filmmaking, as in film theory and analysis. Fields of academic study have been created that are derivative or dependent on the existence of film, such as film criticism, film history, divisions of film propaganda in authoritarian governments, or psychological on subliminal effects of a flashing soda can during a screening. These fields may further create derivative fields, such as a movie review section in a newspaper or a television guide. Sub-industries can spin off from film, such as popcorn makers, and toys. Sub- industries of pre-existing industries may deal specifically with film, such as product placement in advertising.

 

Terminology used regarding film

 

Most people use “film” and “movie” interchangeably. “Film” is more often used when considering artistic, theoretical, or technical aspects, as studies in a university class. “Movies” more often refers to entertainment or commercial aspects, as where to go for fun on a date. For example, a book titled “How to Read a Film” would be about the aesthetics or theory of film, while “Lets Go to the Movies” would be about the history of entertaining movies. “Motion pictures” or “Moving pictures” are films and movies. A “DVD”, “videotape”, “video”, or “vid” is a digital reproduction of an analogue film, or a product with all of the elements of an analogue film but made in an electromagnetic storage medium. “Film” and “video” may be used interchangeably when the video is of sufficient quality, or is the original medium of recording. “Silent films” need not be silent, but are films and movies without an audible dialogue, though they may have a musical soundtrack. “Talkies” refers to early movies or films having audible dialogue or analogue sound, not just a musical accompaniment. “Cinema” either broadly encompasses both films and movies, or is roughly synonymous with “Film”, both capitalized when referring to a category of art. The “silver screen” refers to classic black and white films before color, not to contemporary films without color.

 

The expression “Sight and Sound”, as in the film journal of the same name, means “film”. The following icons mean film - a “candle and bell”, as in the films Tarkovsky, of a segment of film stock, or a two faced Janus image, and an image of a movie camera in profile.

 

“Widescreen” and “Cinemascope” refers to a larger width to height in the frame, compared to an earlier historic aspect ratios. A “feature length film”, or “feature film”, is of a conventional full length, usually 60 minutes or more, and can commercially stand by itself without other films in a ticketed screening. A “short” is a film that is not as long as a feature length film, usually screened with other shorts, or preceding a feature length film. A “trailer” is a very short “short”, or advertisement, preceding a film. An “independent” is a film made outside of the conventional film industry.

 

A “screening” or “projection” is the projection of a film or video on a screen at a public or private theater, usually but not always of a film, but of a video or DVD when of sufficient projection quality. A “double feature” is a screening of two independent, stand-alone, feature films. A “viewing” is a watching of a film. A “showing” is a screening or viewing on an electronic monitor. “Sales” refers to tickets sold at a theater, or more currently, rights sold for individual showings. A “release” is the distribution and often simultaneous screening of a film A “preview is a screening in advance of the main release.

 

“Hollywood” may be used either as a pejorative adjective, shorthand for asserting an overly commercial rather than artistic intent or outcome, as in “too Hollywood”, or as a descriptive adjective to refer to a film originating with people who ordinarily work near Los Angeles.

 Expressions for Genres of film are sometimes used interchangeably for “film” in a specific context, such as a “porn” for a film with explicit sexual content, or “cheese” for films that are light, entertaining, and not highbrow.

 Preview

 A preview performance refers to a showing of a movie to a select audience, usually for the purposes of corporate promotions, before the public film premiere itself. Previews are sometimes used to judge audience reaction, which if unexpectedly negative, may result in recutting or even refilming certain sections (Audience response).

 Trailer

     Main article: Film trailer

 Trailers or previews are film advertisements for films that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema, on whose screen they are shown. The term "trailer" comes from their having originally been shown at the end of a film programme. That practice did not last long, because patrons tended to leave the theater after the films ended, but the name has stuck. Trailers are now shown before the film (or the A movie in a double feature program) begins.

 

Film, or other art form?

 

Film may be combined with performance art and still be considered or referred to as a “film”. For example, when there is a live musical accompaniment to a silent film. Another example is audience participation films, as at a midnight movies screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show , where the audience dresses up in costume from the film and loudly does a karaoke-like reenactment along with the film. Performance art where film is incorporated as a component is usually not called film, but a film, which could stand-alone but is accompanied by a performance may still be referred to as a film.

 The act of making a film can, in and of itself, be considered a work of art, on a different level from the film itself, as in the films of Werner Herzog.

 Similarly, the playing of a film can be considered to fall within the realm of political protest art, as in the subtleties within the films of Tarkovsky. A “road movie” can refer to a film put together from footage from a long road trip or vacation.

 ducation and Propaganda

     Main articles: Education and Propaganda

 

Film is used for education and propaganda. When the purpose is primarily educational, a film is called an "educational film". Examples are recordings of lectures and experiments, or more marginally, a film based on a classic novel.

 

Film may be propaganda, in whole or in part, such as the films made by Leni Riefenstahl in Nazi Germany, US war film trailers during World War II, or artistic films made under Stalin by Eisenstein. They may also be works of political protest, as in the films of Wajda, or more subtly, the films of Andrei Tarkovsky.

 

The same film may be considered educational by some, and propaganda by others, such as some of the films of Michael Moore.

 

Production

 

    Main article: Filmmaking

 

The nature of the film determines the size and type of crew required during filmmaking. Many Hollywood adventure films need computer generated imagery (CGI), created by dozens of 3D modellers, animators, rotoscopers and compositors. However, a low-budget, independent film may be made with a skeleton crew, often paid very little. Also, an open source film may be produced through open, collaborative processes. Filmmaking takes place all over the world using different technologies, styles of acting and genre, and is produced in a variety of economic contexts that range from state-sponsored documentary in China to profit-oriented movie making within the American studio system.

 

A typical Hollywood-style filmmaking Production cycle is comprised of five main stages:

 

   1. Development

   2. Pre-production

   3. Production

   4. Post-production

   5. Distribution

 

This production cycle typically takes three years. The first year is taken up with development. The second year comprises preproduction and production. The third year, post-production and distribution.

 

Crew

 

    Main article: Film crew

 

A film crew is a group of people hired by a film company, employed during the "production" or "photography" phase, for the purpose of producing a film or motion picture. Crew are distinguished from cast, the actors who appear in front of the camera or provide voices for characters in the film. The crew interacts with but is also distinct from the production staff, consisting of producers, managers, company representatives, their assistants, and those whose primary responsibility falls in pre-production or post-production phases, such as writers and editors. Communication between production and crew generally passes through the director and his/her staff of assistants. Medium-to-large crews are generally divided into departments with well defined hierarchies and standards for interaction and cooperation between the departments. Other than acting, the crew handles everything in the photography phase: props and costumes, shooting, sound, electrics (i.e., lights), sets, and production special effects. Caterers (known in the film industry as "craft services") are usually not considered part of the crew.

 

Technology

 

Film stock consists of transparent celluloid, acetate, or polyester base coated with an emulsion containing light-sensitive chemicals. Cellulose nitrate was the first type of film base used to record motion pictures, but due to its flammability was eventually replaced by safer materials. Stock widths and the film format for images on the reel have had a rich history, though most large commercial films are still shot on (and distributed to theaters) as 35 mm prints.

 

Originally moving picture film was shot and projected at various speeds using hand-cranked cameras and projectors; though 1000 frames per minute (16⅔ frame/s) is generally cited as a standard silent speed, research indicates most films were shot between 16 frame/s and 23 frame/s and projected from 18 frame/s on up (often reels included instructions on how fast each scene should be shown)[2]. When sound film was introduced in the late 1920s, a constant speed was required for the sound head. 24 frames per second was chosen because it was the slowest (and thus cheapest) speed which allowed for sufficient sound quality. Improvements since the late 19th century include the mechanization of cameras — allowing them to record at a consistent speed, quiet camera design — allowing sound recorded on-set to be usable without requiring large "blimps" to encase the camera, the invention of more sophisticated filmstocks and lenses, allowing directors to film in increasingly dim conditions, and the development of synchronized sound, allowing sound to be recorded at exactly the same speed as its corresponding action. The soundtrack can be recorded separately from shooting the film, but for live-action pictures many parts of the soundtrack are usually recorded simultaneously.

 

As a medium, film is not limited to motion pictures, since the technology developed as the basis for photography. It can be used to present a progressive sequence of still images in the form of a slideshow. Film has also been incorporated into multimedia presentations, and often has importance as primary historical documentation. However, historic films have problems in terms of preservation and storage, and the motion picture industry is exploring many alternatives. Most movies on cellulose nitrate base have been copied onto modern safety films. Some studios save color films through the use of separation masters — three B&W negatives each exposed through red, green, or blue filters (essentially a reverse of the Technicolor process). Digital methods have also been used to restore films, although their continued obsolescence cycle makes them (as of 2006) a poor choice for long-term preservation. Film preservation of decaying film stock is a matter of concern to both film historians and archivists, and to companies interested in preserving their existing products in order to make them available to future generations (and thereby increase revenue). Preservation is generally a higher-concern for nitrate and single-strip color films, due to their high decay rates; black and white films on safety bases and color films preserved on Technicolor imbibition prints tend to keep up much better, assuming proper handling and storage.

 

Some films in recent decades have been recorded using analog video technology similar to that used in television production. Modern digital video cameras and digital projectors are gaining ground as well. These approaches are extremely beneficial to moviemakers, especially because footage can be evaluated and edited without waiting for the film stock to be processed. Yet the migration is gradual, and as of 2005 most major motion pictures are still recorded on film.

 

Independent

 

    Main article: Independent film

 

The Lumière Brothers

 

Independent filmmaking often takes place outside of Hollywood, or other major studio systems. An independent film (or indie film) is a film initially produced without financing or distribution from a major movie studio. Creative, business, and technological reasons have all contributed to the growth of the indie film scene in the late 20th and early 21st century.

 

On the business side, the costs of big-budget studio films also leads to conservative choices in cast and crew. There is a trend in Hollywood towards co-financing (over two-thirds of the films put out by Warner Bros. in 2000 were joint ventures, up from 10% in 1987).[3] A hopeful director is almost never given the opportunity to get a job on a big-budget studio film unless he or she has significant industry experience in film or television. Also, the studios rarely produce films with unknown actors, particularly in lead roles.

 

Before the advent of digital alternatives, the cost of professional film equipment and stock was also a hurdle to being able to produce, direct, or star in a traditional studio film.

 

But the advent of consumer camcorders in 1985, and more importantly, the arrival of high-resolution digital video in the early 1990s, have lowered the technology barrier to movie production significantly. Both production and post-production costs have been significantly lowered; today, the hardware and software for post-production can be installed in a commodity-based personal computer. Technologies such as DVDs, FireWire connections and non-linear editing system pro-level software like Adobe Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas and Apple's Final Cut Pro, and consumer level software such as Apple's Final Cut Express and iMovie make movie-making relatively inexpensive.

 

Since the introduction of DV technology, the means of production have become more democratized. Filmmakers can conceivably shoot and edit a movie, 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, distribution, and marketing remain difficult to accomplish outside the traditional system. Most independent filmmakers rely on film festivals to get their films noticed and sold for distribution. The arrival of internet-based video outlets such as YouTube and Veoh has further changed the film making landscape in ways that are still to be determined.

 

Open content film

 

    Main article: Open content film

 

An open content film is much like an independent film, but it is produced through open collaborations; its source material is available under a license which is permissive enough to allow other parties to create fan fiction or derivative works, than a traditional copyright. Like independent filmmaking, open source filmmaking takes place outside of Hollywood, or other major studio systems.

 

Fan film

 

    Main article: Fan film

 

A fan film is a film or video inspired by a film, television program, comic book or a similar source, created by fans rather than by the source's copyright holders or creators. Fan filmmakers have traditionally been amateurs, but some of the more notable films have actually been produced by professional filmmakers as film school class projects or as demonstration reels. Fan films vary tremendously in length, from short faux-teaser trailers for non-existent motion pictures to rarer full-length motion pictures.

 

Animation

 

    Main article: Animation

 

Animation is the technique in which each frame of a film is produced individually, whether generated as a computer graphic, or by photographing a drawn image, or by repeatedly making small changes to a model unit (see claymation and stop motion), and then photographing the result with a special animation camera. When the frames are strung together and the resulting film is viewed at a speed of 16 or more frames per second, there is an illusion of continuous movement (due to the persistence of vision). Generating such a film is very labour intensive and tedious, though the development of computer animation has greatly sped up the process.

 

File formats like GIF, QuickTime, Shockwave and Flash allow animation to be viewed on a computer or over the Internet.

 

Because animation is very time-consuming and often very expensive to produce, the majority of animation for TV and movies comes from professional animation studios. However, the field of independent animation has existed at least since the 1950s, with animation being produced by independent studios (and sometimes by a single person). Several independent animation producers have gone on to enter the professional animation industry.

 

Limited animation is a way of increasing production and decreasing costs of animation by using "short cuts" in the animation process. This method was pioneered by UPA and popularized by Hanna-Barbera, and adapted by other studios as cartoons moved from movie theaters to television.[4]

 

Although most animation studios are now using digital technologies in their productions, there is a specific style of animation that depends on film. Cameraless animation, made famous by moviemakers like Norman McLaren, Len Lye and Stan Brakhage, is painted and drawn directly onto pieces of film, and then run through a projector.

 

Venues

 

When it is initially produced, a feature film is often shown to audiences in a movie theater or cinema. The identity of the first theater designed specifically for cinema is a matter of debate; candidates include Tally's Electric Theatre, established 1902 in Los Angeles[5], and Pittsburgh's Nickelodeon, established 1905. [6] Thousands of such theaters were built or converted from existing facilities within a few years.[7] In the United States, these theaters came to be known as nickelodeons, because admission typically cost a nickel (five cents).

 

Typically, one film is the featured presentation (or feature film). Before the 1970s, there were "double features"; typically, a high quality "A picture" rented by an independent theater for a lump sum, and a "B picture" of lower quality rented for a percentage of the gross receipts. Today, the bulk of the material shown before the feature film consists of previews for upcoming movies and paid advertisements (also known as trailers or "The Twenty").

 

Historically, all mass marketed feature films were made to be shown in movie theaters. The development of television has allowed films to be broadcast to larger audiences, usually after the film is no longer being shown in theaters. Recording technology has also enabled consumers to rent or buy copies of films on VHS or DVD (and the older formats of laserdisc, VCD and SelectaVision — see also videodisc), and Internet downloads may be available and have started to become revenue sources for the film companies. Some films are now made specifically for these other venues, being released as made-for-TV movies or direct-to-video movies. The production values on these films are often considered to be of inferior quality compared to theatrical releases in similar genres, and indeed, some films that are rejected by their own studios upon completion are distributed through these markets.

 

The movie theater pays an average of about 50-55% of its ticket sales to the movie studio, as film rental fees.[8] The actual percentage starts with a number higher than that, and decreases as the duration of a film's showing continues, as an incentive to theaters to keep movies in the theater longer. However, today's barrage of highly marketed movies ensures that most movies are shown in first-run theaters for less than 8 weeks. There are a few movies every year that defy this rule, often limited-release movies that start in only a few theaters and actually grow their theater count through good word-of-mouth and reviews. According to a 2000 study by ABN AMRO, about 26% of Hollywood movie studios' worldwide income came from box office ticket sales; 46% came from VHS and DVD sales to consumers; and 28% came from television (broadcast, cable, and pay-per-view).[8]

 

Future state

 

While motion picture films have been around for more than a century, film is still a relative newcomer in the pantheon of fine arts. In the 1950s, when television became widely available, industry analysts predicted the demise of local movie theaters. Despite competition from television's increasing technological sophistication over the 1960s and 1970s, such as the development of color television and large screens, motion picture cinemas continued. In fact with the rise of television's predominance, film began to become more respected as an artistic medium by contrast due the low general opinion of the quality of average television content. In the 1980s, when the widespread availability of inexpensive videocassette recorders enabled people to select films for home viewing, industry analysts again wrongly predicted the death of the local cinemas.

 

In the 1990s and 2000s the development of digital DVD players, home theater amplification systems with surround sound and subwoofers, and large LCD or plasma screens enabled people to select and view films at home with greatly improved audio and visual reproduction. These new technologies provided audio and visual that in the past only local cinemas had been able to provide: a large, clear widescreen presentation of a film with a full-range, high-quality multi-speaker sound system. Once again industry analysts predicted the demise of the local cinema. Local cinemas will be changing in the 2000s and moving towards digital screens, a new approach which will allow for easier and quicker distribution of films (via satellite or hard disks), a development which may give local theaters a reprieve from their predicted demise.

 

The cinema now faces a new challenge from home video by the likes of a new DVD format Blu-ray, which can provide full HD 1080p video playback at near cinema quality. Video formats are gradually catching up with the resolutions and quality that film offers, 1080p in Blu-ray offers a pixel resolution of 1920×1080 a leap from the DVD offering of 720×480 and the paltry 330×480 offered by the first home video standard VHS. The maximum resolutions that film currently offers are 2485×2970 or 1420×3390, UHD, a future digital video format, will offer a massive resolution of 7680×4320, surpassing all current film resolutions. The only viable competitor to these new innovations is IMAX which can play film content at an extreme 10000×7000 resolution.

 

Despite the rise of all new technologies, the development of the home video market and a surge of online copyright infringement, 2007 was a record year in film that showed the highest ever box-office grosses. Many expected film to suffer as a result of the effects listed above but it has flourished, strengthening film studio expectations for the future.


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Movie theater

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The Snowdon Theatre, Montreal, Quebec

A typical multiplex (AMC Promenade 16 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, United States).

A movie theater in Australia 

A movie theater, movie theatre, picture theatre or cinema is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ("movies" or "films"). 

Most movie theaters are commercial operations catering to the general public, who attend by purchasing a ticket. The movie is projected with a movie projector onto a large projection screen at the front of the auditorium. Some movie theaters are now equipped for digital cinema projection, removing the need to create and transport a physical film print.

Contents 

    * 1 Spelling and alternative terms

    * 2 History

          o 2.1 Before 1900

          o 2.2 1900-1919

          o 2.3 Post 1920s : modern era

    * 3 3D

    * 4 Design

          o 4.1 Multiplexes and megaplexes

          o 4.2 IMAX

          o 4.3 Drive-in

          o 4.4 Other venues

    * 5 Programming

    * 6 Presentation

          o 6.1 Live broadcasting to movie theaters

    * 7 Pricing and admission

          o 7.1 Luxury screens

          o 7.2 Age restrictions

          o 7.3 Ticket check; movie hopping

          o 7.4 Revenue

    * 8 Movie theater culture

          o 8.1 Intimacy

          o 8.2 Lobby, food and drinks

    * 9 Business practice controversies

    * 10 Movie theatres and chains

    * 11 See also

    * 12 References

    * 13 External links 

Spelling and alternative terms 

Outside of North America, most English-speaking countries use the term cinema (pronounced /ˈsɪnəmɑ/, but formerly spelt "kinema" and pronounced /ˈkɪnəmɑ/). Both terms, as well as their derivative adjectives "cinematic" and "kinematic," ultimately derive from the Greek κινμα, -ατος, "movement." In these areas the term "theatre" is usually restricted to live-performance venues. 

In the United States, the customary spelling is "theater", but the National Association of Theatre Owners uses the spelling "theatre" to refer to a movie theater. 

Colloquial expressions, mostly used for cinemas collectively, include the silver screen, the big screen (contrasted with the "small screen" of television) and (in the United Kingdom) the pictures, the flicks, and the flea pit (which derives from the long-standing belief that the seats were infested with fleas as they were so uncomfortable to sit on, resulting in frequent fidgeting)[citation needed]. 

A "screening room" usually refers to a small facility for viewing movies, often for the use of those involved in the production of motion pictures, or in large private residences. 

History

The Gateway Theatre in Jefferson Park, Chicago was a Movie Palace for the Balaban and Katz theater chain. The theater's Baroque spire is a replica of the Royal Castle in Warsaw. 

Before 1900 

Noting that the first public exhibition of projected motion pictures in the United States was at Koster & Bials Music Hall on 34th Street in New York City on April 23, 1896, the first storefront "theater" in the US dedicated exclusively to showing motion pictures was Vitascope Hall, established on Canal Street, New Orleans, Louisiana June 26, 1896: it was converted from a vacant store. In the basement of the new Ellicott Square Building, Main Street, Buffalo, New York, Mitchell Mark and his brother Moe Mark added what they called Edison’s Vitascope Theater (entered through Edisonia Hall), which they opened to the general public on Monday, 19 October 1896, in collaboration with Rudolph Wagner, who had moved to Buffalo after spending several years working at the Edison laboratories: this 72 seat, plush theater was designed from scratch solely to show motion pictures. Terry Ramseye, in his book, A Million and One Nights [p. 276], notes that this “was one of the earliest permanently located and exclusively motion-picture exhibitions.” According to the Buffalo News (Wednesday, November 2, 1932), "There were seats for about 90 persons and the admission was three cents. Feeble, flickering films of travel scenes were the usual fare." (The true number of seats was 72.)

This November 7, 1897 ad shows the actual programming of Vitascope Theater, one of the first motion picture theaters specially built for that purpose. In its first year, 200,000 people attended. It was in Buffalo, New York. However, during the rest of this period, between 1891-1900, films did not achieve much popularity.[1]

Many older movie theaters, such as the River Oaks Theatre in Houston, Texas, have been restored and play arthouse movies; newer multiplexes in the areas with restored theaters show first run films.

Other older movie theaters, such as the Texas Theatre in Dallas, Texas, have been deemed historically significant and undergone restoration. The Texas Theater is shown here in 2008 with replica marquee and appears as it did in 1963 when Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested on the premises. The building today hosts live theater. 

1900-1919 

The first permanent structure designed for screening of movies in the state of California was Tally's Electric Theater, completed in 1902 in Los Angeles. The Great Train Robbery (1903), which was 12 minutes in length, would also give the film industry a boost.[2] In 1905, Pittsburgh movie theater owners Harry Davis and John Harris also established the first of what would become a popular form of movie theaters spread throughout the country, which were five-cent nickelodeon movies. In 1906, Montreal opened one of the first movie theatres in the world. The oldest movie theatre still in action today is the Korsør Biograf Teater, which opened in August 1908 in Korsør, Denmark.[3] In 1912, the Picture House, in Clevedon, England, opened with a charity film performance to raise funds for the victims of the Titanic disaster. The 1913 opening of the Regent Theater in New York City signaled a new respectability for the medium, and the start of the two-decade heyday of American cinema design. The million dollar Mark Strand Theater at 47th Street and Broadway in New York City opened in 1914 by Mitchell Mark was the archetypical movie palace. The ornate Al Ringling Theater was the very first "Movie Palace" it was built in Baraboo, WI by Al Ringling, one of the founders of the Ringling Bros. Circus for the then incredible sum of $100,000.00. In 1915, the movie The Birth of a Nation would also pave way for feature films.[4] By 1915, feature films were so successful that the five cent ticket admission prices would expand to ten cents, hence ending the era of nickelodeon movie theaters.[5] Later, Los Angeles promoter Sid Grauman continued the trend of theatre-as-destination with his ornate "Million Dollar Theatre", using the same design firm as Ringling (the MDT was the first to signify its primary use for motion pictures with the "theatre" spelling), and opened on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles in 1918. 

Post 1920s : modern era 

In the next ten years, as movie revenues exploded, independent promoters and movie studios (who owned their own proprietary chains until an antitrust ruling in 1948) raced to build the most lavish, elaborate, attractive theatres. These forms morphed into a unique architectural genre—the movie palace—a unique and extreme architectural genre which boasted a luxurious design, a giant screen, and, beginning in 1953, stereophonic sound. The movie chains were also among the first industries to install air conditioning systems which gave the theatres an additional lure of comfort in the summer period. 

Several movie studios achieved vertical integration by acquiring and constructing theatre chains. The so-called "Big Five" theatre chains of the 1920s and 1930s were all owned by studios: Paramount, Warner, Loews (which owned Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), Fox, and RKO. All were broken up as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the 1948 United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. anti-trust case. 

In the 1970s, porn theatres became ubiquitous in some areas. However, the introduction of the low-cost VHS video system for home televisions has decommissioned many porno cinemas as well as many 'second-run' theatres. 

People can pay to watch movies at home, through cable television or streamed from the Internethttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet#Streaming_media: pay-per-view (PPV) and video on demand (VOD). This may have contributed to an industry wide slump in the late 1980s (see disruptive technology), not to mention the decline of the 'Dollar Cinema' (where first-run films are pulled from circulation). The theater industry responded by building larger auditoriums with stadium seating layouts, installing more screens (to allow for more variety and more show times), upgrading sound systems and installing more amenities and higher-quality concessions. The growing popularity of high-definition television sets, along with HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc players has probably also contributed to the decline in cinema attendance. On February 17, 2009; all US television stations will be broadcast in the digital format. This could also affect US movie theaters. 

3D 

Sometimes a 3-D film is shown. Visitors borrow or keep special glasses to watch it. Depending on the system used, these are e.g. polarized glasses. Three Dimensional films use two images channelled, respectively, to the right and left eyes to simulate depth by using 3-D glasses with red and blue lenses (anaglyph), polarized (linear and circular), and other techniques. 3-D glasses deliver the proper image to the proper eye and make the image appear to "pop-out" at the viewer and even follow the viewer when he/she moves so viewers relatively see the same image. Most 3-D films are used in amusement parks and even "4-D" techniques are used when certain effects such as spraying of water, movement of seats, and other effects are used to simulate actions seen on the screen. There were early 3-D films in the 1920s and several "waves" or 3D in the 1930s, 1950s, 1980s, late 1990s. A current wave involves IMAX 3D.

 Design

Interior of a Hoyts movie theater in Australia, with stadium seating, acoustic wall hangings, wall-mounted speakers, and cup holders.

Interior of a 1950s style fine arts movie theater. A low pitch viewing floor is used. 

Traditionally a movie theater, like a stage theater, consists of a single auditorium with rows of comfortable seats, as well as a lobby area containing a box office for buying tickets, a counter and/or self-service facilities for buying snacks and drinks, and washrooms. Stage theaters are sometimes converted into movie theatres by placing a screen in front of the stage and adding a projector; this conversion may be permanent, or temporary for purposes such as showing arthouse fare to an audience accustomed to plays. The familiar characteristics of relatively low admission and open seating can be traced to Samuel Roxy Rothafel, an early movie theater impresario. Many of these early theatres contain a balcony, an elevated platform above the theater's rearmost seats. The rearward main floor "loge" seats were sometimes larger, softer, and more widely spaced and sold for a higher price. 

In conventional low pitch viewing floors the preferred seating arrangement is to use staggered rows. While a less efficient use of floor space this allows a somewhat improved sight line between the patrons seated in the next row toward the screen, provided they do not lean toward one another. 

"Stadium seating" is employed in many modern theaters, giving patrons a clear sight line over the heads of those seated in front of them. Originally employed for flat-screen IMAX viewing (which has a very tall screen) this feature has proven popular with theatre patrons. The first stadium-style movie theater in the United States was the AMC Grand in Dallas, Texas, which opened in 1995.[citation needed] 

Rows of seats are divided by one or more aisles so that there are seldom more than 20 seats in a row. This allows easier access to seating, as the space between rows is very narrow. Depending on the angle of rake of the seats, the aisles have steps. In older theaters, aisle lights were often built into the end seats of each row to help patrons find their way in the dark. Since the advent of stadium theaters with stepped aisles, each step in the aisles may be outlined with small lights to prevent patrons from tripping in the darkened theater. 

See also luxury screens below. 

Multiplexes and megaplexes

Example of a Multiplex layout. 

North America's first two-screen theatre, The Elgin Theatre was created in 1957 by Nat Taylor in Ottawa, Ontario, when he expanded the 20 year old facility. Other two screen theatres opened in the mid to late-1960's, such as the Martin's Westgate Cinemas in East Point, Ga. (1965). 

Taylor is credited as inventor of the multiplex or cineplex, and later founded the Cineplex Odeon Corporation, opening the 18-screen Toronto Eaton Centre Cineplex, the world's largest at the time.[2] 

Stanley Durwood of American Multi-Cinema (now AMC Theatres) pioneered what would become the multiplex in 1963 after realizing that he could operate several attached auditoriums with the same staff needed for one through careful management of the start times for each movie. 

Since that time multiple-screen theatres have become the norm, and many existing venues have been retrofitted so that they have multiple auditoriums. A single lobby is shared among them. In most markets, nearly all single-screen theatres (sometimes referred to as a "Uniplex") have gone out of business, the ones remaining are generally used for arthouse films, eg the Crest Theatre [3] in downtown Sacramento, California , small scale productions, film festivals or other presentations. Because of the late development of multiplexes, the term "cinema" or "theater" may refer either the whole complex or a single auditorium, and sometimes "screen" is used to refer to an auditorium. 

A popular movie may be shown on multiple screens at the same multiplex, which reduces the choice of movies but offers more choice of viewing times or a greater number of seats to accommodate patrons. Two or three screens may be created by dividing up an existing cinema (as Durwood did with his Roxy in 1964), but newly built multiplexes usually have at least six to eight screens, and often as many as twelve, fourteen or even sixteen.

 

Although definitions vary, a large multiplex with 20 or more screens is usually called a megaplex. The first megaplex is generally considered to be the Kinepolis in Brussels, Belgium, which opened in 1988 with 25 screens and a seating capacity of 7,500. The first megaplex in the United States was Studio 28 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which reopened in 1988 with 20 screens and a seating capacity of 6,000. [4] 

IMAX 

IMAX is a system using film with more than 10 times the frame size of a 35mm film to produce image quality far superior to conventional film. IMAX theaters use an oversized screen as well as special projectors. The first permanent IMAX theater was at Ontario Place in Toronto, Ontario. 

Drive-in 

A drive-in movie theatre is basically an outdoor parking area with a screen at one end and a projection booth at the other. Moviegoers drive into the parking spaces which are sometimes sloped upwards at the front to give a more direct view of the movie screen. Movies are usually viewed through the car windscreen (windshield) although some people prefer to sit on the hood of the car. Sound is either provided through portable loudspeakers located by each parking space, or is broadcast on an FM radio frequency, to be played through the car's stereo system. Because of their outdoor nature, drive-ins usually only operate seasonally, and after sunset. Drive-in movie theatres are mainly found in the United States, where they were especially popular in the 1950s and 1960s. Once numbering in the thousands, about 400 remain in the U.S. today. In some cases, multiplex or megaplex theatres were built on the sites of former drive-in theatres.

 Other venues

 Some outdoor movie theatres are just cleared areas where the audience sits upon chairs or blankets and watch the movie on a temporary screen, or even the wall of a convenient building. 

Colleges and universities have often sponsored film screenings in lecture halls. The formats of these screenings include 35mm, 16mm, DVD, VHS, and even 70mm in rare cases. 

Some alternative methods of showing movies have been popular in the past. In the 1980s the introduction of VHS cassettes made possible video-salons, small rooms where visitors viewed the film on a large TV. These establishments were especially popular in the Soviet Union, where official distribution companies were slow to adapt to changing demand, and so movie theatres could not show popular Hollywood and Asian films. 

Movies are also commonly shown on airliners in flight, using large screens in each cabin or smaller screens for each group of rows or each individual seat; the airline company sometimes charges a fee for the headphones needed to hear the movie's sound. Movies are sometimes also shown on trains, such as the Auto Train. 

The smallest purpose-built cinema in operation is the Cinema dei Piccoli in Villa Borghese, Rome, Italy. The Cinema dei Piccoli was built by Alfredo Annibali in 1934 in the park of Villa Borghese, and today covers an area of 71.52 sq. m (769.83 sq ft). Originally called the Topolino Cinema (after Mickey Mouse), the movie theatre used a Path-Baby 9.5 mm movie projector, bed sheets for the screen and played 78's for background music. Restored in 1991, the cinema now has 63 seats, a 5 x 2.5 m (16.4 x 8.2 ft) screen, stereo sound and air conditioning. It is mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records. 

Programming 

Movie theaters may be classified by the type of movies or when they are shown: 

    * First-run theater: A theater that runs primarily mainstream film fare from the major film companies and distributors, during the initial new release period of each film.

    * Second-run or discount theater: A theater that runs films that have already shown in the first-run theaters and presented at a lower ticket price. (These are sometimes known as dollar theaters or "Cheap Seats".)

    * Repertoire/repertory theater or arthouse: A theater that presents more alternative and art films as well as second-run and classic films (often known as an "Independent Cinema" in the UK).

    * An adult theater or sex theater specializes in showing pornographic movies. Such movies are rarely shown in other theaters.

    * IMAX theaters can show conventional movies, but the major benefits of the IMAX system are only available when showing movies filmed using it. While a few mainstream feature films have been produced in IMAX, IMAX movies are often documentaries featuring spectacular natural scenery, and may be limited to the 45-minute length of a single reel of IMAX film.

 

Presentation

 

Usually an admission is for one feature film. Sometimes two feature films are sold as one admission (double feature), with a break in between. Separate admission for a short subject is rare; it is either an extra before a feature film or part of a series of short subjects sold as one admission (this mainly occurs at film festivals). (See also anthology film). 

Historically, many movie theatres presented a number of shorter items in addition to the feature film. This might include a newsreel, live-action comedy short films, documentary short films, musical short films, and/or cartoon shorts (many classic cartoons series such as the Looney Tunes and Mickey Mouse shorts were created for this purpose). Some theatres ran on continuous showings, where the same items would repeat throughout the day, with patrons arriving and departing at any time rather than having distinct entrance and exit cycles. Newsreels gradually became obsolete by the 1960s with the rise of television news, and most material now shown prior to a feature film is of a commercial or promotional nature. 

A typical modern theatre presents commercial advertising shorts, then movie trailers, and then the feature film. Advertised start times are usually for the entire program or session, not the feature itself.[6] 

Thus people who want to avoid commercials might want to enter later, and those who want to avoid the trailers, again later. This is easiest and causes the least inconvenience when it is not crowded, and/or one is not very choosy about where one wants to sit. If one has a ticket for a specific seat (see below) one is formally assured of that, but it is still inconvenient and disturbing to find and claim it during the commercials and trailers, unless it is near an aisle. 

Some movie theaters have some kind of break during the presentation. There may also be a break between the introductory material and the feature. Some countries such as the Netherlands have a tradition of incorporating an intermission in regular feature presentations, though many theaters have now abandoned that tradition [7], while in North America this is very rare, and usually limited to special circumstances involving extremely long movies.

 

During the closing credits many people leave, some stay till the end. Usually the lights are switched on after the credits, sometimes already during them. Some films show additional scenes while the credits are rolling. 

Until the multiplex era, prior to showtime, the screen would typically be covered by the traditional curtain which would be drawn for the feature. Some theaters, lacking a curtain, occupied the screen with slides of some form of abstract art. Currently, in multiplexes, theater chains often feature a continuous PowerPoint-like presentation of slides between showings featuring a loop of movie trivia, promotional material for the theater chains (such as encouraging patrons to purchase gift certificates and group rates, or buy concessions), or advertising for local and national businesses. Advertisements for Fandango and other convienent methods of purchasing tickets is often shown. Also prior to showing the film, reminders, in varying forms would be shown concerning theater etiquette (no smoking, no talking, no littering, removing crying babies, ect) and in recent years, added reminders to silence cellphones. 

Some theatres, if projection is well-equipped, have the ability to interlock, which is where one film print runs through two projectors at the same time. Once the film is threaded and loaded in the first projector, the projectionist threads the film on multiple rings that surround the nearest wall that will designate to the projector that is closer, but both projectors must be programmed in similar format to allow both projectors to run the single print at the same time. This practice is most common with blockbuster movies in the summer and sometimes winter. Pacific Theatres and AMC Theatres are two of the theater circuits that does interlocking. 

Live broadcasting to movie theaters 

Sometimes movie theaters provide digital projection of a live broadcast of a performance or other event. For example, there are regular live broadcasts to movie theaters of Metropolitan Opera performanceshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Opera#Met_broadcasts_to_movie_theaters, with additionally limited repeat showings. 

Pricing and admission

Box office of a 1950s style fine arts movie theater.[8] 

In order to obtain admission to a movie theater, the prospective theater-goer must usually purchase a ticket, which may be for an arbitrary seat ("open" or "free" seating, first-come, first-served) or for a specific one (allocated seating).[9] Movie theaters in North America generally have open seating. Movie theaters in Europe can have free seating or numbered seating. Some theatres in Mexico offer numbered seating, in particular, Cinepolis VIP. In the case of numbered seating systems the attendee can often pick seats from a screen; sometimes the attendee cannot see the screen and has to make a choice based on still available seats. In the case of free seats, already seated customers may be forced by staff to move one or more places for the benefit of an arriving couple or group wanting to sit together. 

The average price for a movie ticket in the United States is $7.08 

The price of a ticket may be discounted during off-peak times e.g. for matinées, and higher at busy times, typically evenings and/or weekends. In Canada, when this practice is used, it is traditional to offer the lower prices for Tuesday for all showings, one of the slowest days of the week in the movie theatre business, which has led to the nickname "cheap Tuesday."[10] Sometimes tickets are cheaper on Monday, or on Sunday morning. Almost all movie theaters employ economic price discrimination: tickets for youth, students, and seniors are typically cheaper. Large theater chains, such as AMC Theaters, also own smaller theaters that show "second runs" of popular films, at reduced ticket prices. Movie theaters in India and other developing countries employ price discrimination in seating arrangement: seats closer to the screen cost less, while the ones farthest from the screen cost more. 

Some movie theaters and chains sell passes for unlimited entrance. Some examples: 

    * "Pathé Unlimited Card" (PUC) for the chain of 12 multi- and megaplex theatres of Pathé in the Netherlands (100 screens), for €18/month; there are 15,000 pass holders (April 2006)

    * "Groninger Filmkaart" for €20/month for the two movie theaters MustSee Euroborg (10 screens) and Images (3 screens) in Groningen

    * "Unlimited Card" for the chain of movie theaters of Cineworld (formerly UGC) in the UK and Ireland, for £13.99/month, or £11.99 excluding those in London's West End.

    * Carte "Le Pass" for the chain of movie theatres of Pathé/Gaumont in Paris, for 20 euro/month; ditto for each of a number of other French cities (same price, even though the pass is valid for much fewer screens)

    * "UGC Illimité" passes for all UGC movie theaters in France, for 18 euro/month, and an entrance fee of 30 euro.

    * "UGC Unlimited" passes for the four UGC movie theaters in Belgium, for 15 euro/month

    * "SF Movie Passport" pass for all the movies shown in SF Group theaters in Thailand, valid for a month for one person and one showing per movie, at the price of 800 baht or eqv USD 20

 

Note that in Thailand there is the restriction of one viewing per movie, while in the Netherlands one can see any movie as many times as one wants. 

Luxury screens 

Cinemas in city centres are increasingly offering luxury seating with services like complimentary refills of soft drinks and popcorn, a bar, reclining leather seats and service bells. The Vue Cinema chain is a good example of a large-scale offering of such a service, called "Gold Class". 

Age restrictions 

Admission to a movie may also be restricted by a motion picture rating system. According to such systems, children or teenagers below a certain age may be forbidden access to theaters showing certain movies, or only admitted when accompanied by a parent or other adult. In some jurisdictions a rating may legally impose this on movie theaters. Furthermore, where movie theaters do not have this legal obligation, they may enforce restrictions on their own.

 

Accordingly, a movie theater may either not be allowed to program an unrated film, or voluntarily refrain from that. In the US many mainstream movie theaters do not even show movies rated NC-17 ("No one 17 and under admitted"). Often, instead, an edited R-rated version ("Restricted. Persons under 17 are not admitted unless accompanied by parent or adult guardian.") is shown.[dubious – discuss] 

Ticket check; movie hopping 

In some movie theater complexes, the theaters are arranged such that tickets are checked at the entrance into the entire plaza, rather than before each theater. This has led to movie hopping, also called theater hopping and plexing, the practice of buying a ticket for one film and illicitly attending additional showings within the complex without buying the required tickets. Younger patrons may also use this practice to enter auditoriums showing age-restricted movies. 

At a theater with a sold-out show there is often an additional ticket check, to make sure that everybody with a ticket for that show can find a seat. 

The lobby may be before or after the ticket check, see below. 

Revenue 

Movie studios/film distributors in the U.S. traditionally drive hard bargains entitling them to as much as 100% of the gross ticket revenue during the first weeks (and then the balance changes in 10% increments at an undetermined time).[11] See also box office. 

Movie theater culture 

Movie theaters are associated with dating, popcorn and expensive treats. It is rather common that people throw and leave their garbage on the floor in a movie theater, as opposed to the cultural standard of cleaning up after oneself.

 Intimacy 

Sometimes couples go to a movie theater for the additional reason that it provides the possibility of some physical intimacy, where the dark provides some privacy (with additional privacy in the back-row). This kind of intimacy is considered by some a lesser form of public display of affection. This applies in particular for young people who still live with their parents, and these parents tend to monitor and/or forbid certain activities, and in the case of other social or even legal problems with public displays of affection. Compared with being together in a room without other people, it may also be reassuring for one or both of the couple (and for parents) that the intimacy is necessarily limited. 

Arm rests pose a hindrance to intimacy for some people. Some theaters have love seats: seats for two without an armrest in the middle. The most modern theaters have movable armrests throughout the theater that when down can hold a food container as well as act as an armrest or partition between the seats and when up allow closer contact between the couple. Some theaters such as the Parkway in Oakland, California have sofas for greater comfort.[12] 

Lobby, food and drinks

Concession stand of a 1950s style fine arts movie theater. 

Movie theaters usually sell various snack foods and drinks on concession stands. There may be a counter, self-service where one pays at the counter, and/or coin-operated machines. Sometimes the area of sale is more like a self-service shop than a lobby (it is not suitable for consuming the goods), and one pays at the check-out between the shop and the area with the screens. 

The facilities for buying snacks and drinks often represent the theater's primary source of profit since most of the ticket revenue goes to the film distributor (and onward to the movie studio). Some movie theaters forbid eating and drinking inside the viewing room (restricting such activities to the lobby), while others encourage it by fitting cup holders on the arm rests (on the front side of the arm rests of one's own chair, or the back side of the arm rests in front) and selling large portions of popcorn; also in that case bringing one's own food and drinks may be forbidden. Concessions is currently a huge area of expansion with many companies in the U.S. offering a wider range of snacks, including hot dogs and nachos.

 Many theaters have embraced the "brew and view" concept, serving alcoholic beverages, in addition to snacks and popcorn. Some movie theaters such as the Alamo Drafthouse offer full restaurant service at one's seat, though this is not as widespread. McMenamins is a chain of restaurant/brewpub establishments in the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington, many of which have full movie theaters.

Business practice controversies 

    * Advertising - Many filmgoers complain about commercial advertising shorts, arguing that their absence would be one of the main advantages of going to a movie theater. Other critics such as Roger Ebert have expressed concerns that these advertisements, plus an excessive number of movie trailers, could lead to pressure to restrict the preferred length of the feature films themselves to facilitate playing schedules. So far, the theatre companies have typically been highly resistant to these complaints, citing the need for the supplementary income. Some chains like Famous Players and AMC Theatres have compromised with the commercials restricted to being shown before the scheduled start time for the trailers and the feature film. Individual theaters within a chain also sometimes adopt this policy.

 

    * Presentation - Another major recent concern is that the dramatic improvements in stereo sound systems have led to cinemas playing the soundtracks of presented films at unacceptably high volume levels. Usually, the trailers are presented at a very high sound level, presumably to overcome the sounds of a busy crowd. The sound is not adjusted downward for a sparsely occupied theater, and some patrons employ earplugs for the trailer period. Volume is normally adjusted based on the projectionist's judgment of a high or low attendance. The film will always be shown at a lower volume level than the trailers. This may cause problems. If the volume level of the trailers is set at an acceptable level rather than very loud, the volume of the actual film will probably be too low. In response to audience complaints, a manager at a Cinemark theater in California explained that the studios set trailer sound levels, not the theater, but the validity of this claim was not authenticated. 

    * Piracy - In recent years cinemas have started to show warnings, before the movie starts, against using cameras and camcorders during the movie. These warnings threaten customers with being removed from the cinema and arrested by the police. This example was shown at cinemas in the United Kingdom:

        You are not permitted to use any camera or recording equipment in this cinema. This will be treated as an attempt to breach copyright. Any person doing so can be ejected and such articles may be confiscated by the police. We ask the audience to be vigilant against any such activity and report any matters arousing suspicion to cinema staff. Thank you.

     Some theaters (including those with IMAX stadiums) have detectors at the doors to pick up recording smugglers.

     * Crowd control - As movie theaters have grown into multiplexes and megaplexes, crowd control has become a major concern. An overcrowded megaplex can be rather unpleasant, and in an emergency can be extremely dangerous. Therefore, all major theater chains have implemented crowd control measures. The most well-known measure is the ubiquitous holdout line which prevents ticket holders for the next showing of that weekend's most popular movie from entering the building until their particular auditorium has been cleared out and cleaned. Since the 1980s, some theater chains (especially AMC Theatres) have developed a policy of co-locating their theaters in shopping centers (as opposed to the old practice of building stand-alone theaters). They deliberately build lobbies and corridors that cannot hold as many people as the auditoriums, thus making holdout lines necessary. In turn, ticket holders may be enticed to shop or eat while stuck outside in the holdout line. However, given the fact that rent is based on square footage, the practice of having a smaller lobby is somewhat understandable.

Movie theatres and chains 

    Main article: List of movie theaters and cinema chains 

See also

Commons:Cinemas

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Cinemas

    * British Board of Film Classification

    * Category:Cinema and movie theatre chains

    * Category:Cinemas and movie theaters

    * Film

    * Film screening

    * Fictional film

    * Home cinema

    * Inflatable movie screen

    * List of film formats

    * Motion Picture Association of America

    * Movie palace

    * Nickelodeon movie theater

    * Surround sound and THX

 

References

 

   1. ^ Vitascope Hall

   2. ^ http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0040-165X(199301)34%3A1%3C166%3ABTNESP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-L

   3. ^ dr.dk - in Danish.

   4. ^ MJ Movie Reviews - Birth of a Nation, The (1915) by Dan DeVore

   5. ^ The Nickelodeon's history

   6. ^ "The love and loathing of cinema ads", BBC News website, 23 February 2005

   7. ^ BoomChicago.nl website

   8. ^ The Fine Arts Theatre Group Proudly Presents...

   9. ^ See e.g. [1]

  10. ^ Skirl | Dan Dickinson » Blog Archive » First the accusatory vignettes that air before the movie, and now this

  11. ^ Darren Filson, David Switzer and Portia Besocke, "At the movies: the economics of exhibition contracts," Economic Inquiry 43, no. 2 (April 2005): 354-370.

  12. ^ The Parkway Speakeasy Theater: interior photo with sofas 

External links

    * Cinema Treasures - Database of movie theaters around the world

    * I Remember JFK: The Downtown Movie Theater

    * Theatre Historical Society of America - official site

    * Archives of Ontario Various historical photos of movie theatres in Ontario (Canada), along with brief history.

    * The Open-Air Cinemas of Greece

    * Australian Theatres at the National Film and Sound Archive

    * Box Office Headquarters - Database of movie theater reviews from moviegoers.

    * Eyewitness To History: Air Conditioning Goes to the Movies, 1925 

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