Talk:Film/Archive 1

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Cinema, Film, or Movie as the primary page

It doesn't make a lot of sense to have separate articles for cinema, film, motion pictures, and movie. Currently all redirect to this article titled 'film'. Here's a refactoring of the arguments that were made on this talk page, mostly in 2004:

movie is not a popular term outside of the U.S., and since it has a colloquial origin (like talkie) academics will not likely start giving "degrees in movies" at "movie school". Danny points out that "movie" generally refers to a Hollywood-style feature, leaving film for everything else (shorts, documentaries, foreign, etc.)

cinema is more often used to describe the place where movies are seen (a movie theater) than the industry itself. Using the term for the field/industry might be considered "somewhat humorous and pretentious".

film is academic, used internationally, and understood. Technical people (such as those using the wikipedia) dislike the term's tight association with celluloid film, citing the industry's consistent march towards various kinds of video. Yet it has historical inertia, and for years people have been using video cameras and calling what they are doing 'filming'.

motion picture is probably the most accurate cross-medium description of the scope of what the article intends to describe. But (a) it's more of a definition than a term, and (b) outside of the MPAA, nobody says it, e.g. "I saw a great motion picture last week"

It would be tempting to use the Wikipedia as a bold step towards sorting this all out, and Michael Snow suggested to put the discussion of filmstock under film, while explaining moving-pictures-as-we-know-them under cinema. Yet a Google search done by Eclecticology showed strong support that the word film is heavily used in combination with each of festival, studies, school and documentary.

Because this issue has generated so much interest and discussion, zandperl suggested a section (after History but before Industry) that would discuss different connotations of the words "cinema," "film," and "movie" as used in American English, vs. British English, and maybe other languages. The current compromise is to list all the terms in the first paragraph of the lead of the article. Though it was suggested to make them bold, the manual of style says that words-as-words should be shown in italics. Metaeducation 13:23, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Just as significantly, it should be noted that the various sub-articles to this one - the ones on more specific aspects of Film - have the same problem, both in title (Cinema of [insert country name here]) and within text, where "movie", "show" and "cinema" may all appear within the same text, while "film" may not be used at all. The primary term used in this particular article will be rendered meaningless if not accompanied by extensive textual editing elsewhere. (And, BTW, I have heard/read the statement "I saw a great motion picture last week". All the terms under consideration do, in fact, have widespread usage, at least in the USA, particularly if you look back through time: "film" and "cinema" may dominate in contemporary academia, but I think a check of most other encyclopedias will find the topic title "Motion Pictures". But I'd much rather see everything just get organized under one common term rather than quibble over which is better; and "film" will do as good as any.) 12.73.195.41 20:13, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I must agree with the arguments above, however, I think with the coming of the digital age where cinemas get harddrives delivered instead of rolls of film could have an impact on the word choice. Considering "film" refers to the medium on which the movie has been captured, I don't think many people will be caught saying, "I saw a good film on a DVD last night". Also another argument for a possible split in the future is that "film" is ambiguous, whereas movie is not. --Kim Nevelsteen 12:42, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Scope of this article

There are countless topics in film production, so the question of the scope and priorities of this article comes into play. Mark feels it is important to mention the various theories of film, and Peter has advocated a section on "Film as Escapism"

NB, there is a competing article, and quite a bit longer, History of cinema, which needs to be examined & integrated in terms of relevant content, and the balance consigned to subarticles. There is also a contradictory section title, Cinema, in the site index at the Culture URL at the top of the 'pedia main page, and this leads to a number of different subtopical articles not linked to Film. The redirect process only works on the site-search field, and only if you enter the word "cinema" (or "movie", "motion picture", etc.) by itself.

We are working at consolidating all these link-points as a "table of contents" to Film. One reason, we can't stand scatter or mess! Also, hopefully, getting all these articles collected and classified in one place should help define the scope of this particular article insofar as it can't, alone, cover *everything* which can be said about film technology, film industry, film personalities and film product, but can serve as a summary lead-in to the details. Then comes the laborious process of conforming all the article titles to the word "film". 12.73.195.41 19:44, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Mentioning Specific Films, Directors, Actors, Editors...

Frequently, references to specific movies are added into the article, which seem rather arbitrary. For instance, when talking about the idea that some movies today use black and white for artistic effect, there was a reference to Schindler's List.

Though it could reasonably be argued that citing specifics is good for support, it opens a Pandora's Box of people adding links to their favorite films. It quickly gets to:

"The movie was a major critical and commercial success when it was released and has remained a popular favorite since. Kline won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work. [...]

In 2004 the magazine Total Film named A Fish Called Wanda the 41st greatest British film of all time."

<KF> points out that the same thing is happening with literature topics, and they are solving this with separate articles like 100 Best Characters in Fiction since 1900. A good rule of thumb seems to keep it out of this article, point out landmarks in the History of cinema article, and perhaps collapse a lot of other information under film award or film awards. Metaeducation 13:23, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

External links

There are waaay too many external links in this article. Did all of these websites send their minions to spam the Wikipedia, or what? --Ardonik 19:05, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)

Some articles are starting to order their external links by Alexa traffic rankings; I think that would be a good idea here. --Ardonik 19:05, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)

I agree- there are way too many external links. I don't want to start deleting them for fear of backlash, but some kind of discussion here would make sense. --DevanJedi

F.I.L.M. acronym-as-origin

194.243.7.199 wrote:

The use of word film in the sense of movie derives from Fabbrica Italiana Lamine Milano, an italian factory leader in 1920's market of cinematographic pellicles.

I couldn't find any support for this. It seems to me that the acronym was probably chosen because of the prominence of the existing term, and not vice versa. If someone can cite a historical reference for this "FILM" organization, then great, but I couldn't find anything about it that wasn't in Italian. Metaeducation 23:03, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I only have document in italian for this, and the entry in dictionary.com is of little support

Thus a word that has been with us since Old English times took on this new use, first recorded in 1845, which has since developed and now refers to an art form, a sense first recorded in 1920.

sorry. But if someone is interested in it, :

Bye.

New template {{Future film}} for tagging upcoming films

Adding the tag automatically adds the article to Category:Upcoming films, which is a subcategory of Category:Future products. Note that Category:Future films would propably be more in line with Category:Future products, Category:Future games and Category:Future events.

ps. How come there isn't a portal for movies? It's talk-page would have been a more approbiate place to inform about this template. --The Merciful 13:40, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Silly me, of course there is Wikipedia:WikiProject Films! --The Merciful 13:49, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Improvement drive

A related topic, Pulp Fiction, is currently nominated on WP:IDRIVE. Vote for this article.--Fenice 06:51, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Timeline

I just finished re-reading the timeline. It seems slightly bereft of information following the 80s. The 90s and the 00s may not have seen the same radical changes as the decades before, but there's still a lot to talk about with the rise of DVD and the distribution of movies illegally via peer2peer (and the MPAA's attempts against that movement), as well as other issues --Harmonica 03:02, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

This should be addressed in History of Film. For whatever reason someone copied what was there and put it here, and no one has condensed it down into the appropriate summary yet. MechBrowman 03:23, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Scope of this Article

Currently, this article is about the medium as well as the industry, and has a focus on history. Noisy suggests that the Cinematography article could be left to cover media and technology, and some history as well. More content is covered in Movies basic topics.

There has been a possibly misguided effort to pull in the content from other articles (timelines, etc) into this one. I say misguided because (1) the result is far, far, less readable and (2) the information was merely duplicated instead of moved entirely. Still, we really should have a consensus-based roadmap for what belongs in the various articles, and until we have one of those to point people to. So as I don't have the time at this exact moment to constructively do so, I'll just voice my opinion and hope someone else agrees and fixes it. Will the person/persons doing the merging edits identify themselves and present their rationale? Metaeducation 22:57, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I'd argue that the timeline actually reads as a fairly decent outline.. of something. But is it about Film per se? Or Cinema? Or is it in fact an amalgum of both? I realise that the two are inexplicably linked, but it starts out as talking about film (ie, the technical aspects/development) and then moves to talking about films (that is, Film) and the development of cinema.

Perhaps a timeline isn't a very helpful way of starting off this article because it conflates all the aspects of Film into one piece. I'm going to think about how this can be dealt with. Thoughts?--Harmonica 03:02, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Does anyone know where the word "film" is originated from? 64.231.177.76 00:57, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I came here looking for that precise information! (or the word 'cinema' in actual fact) --Harmonica 03:02, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I have tried to address the transition to digital theater display, and point out that HD home entertainment is soon to be a

big risk to the theater business, as 2K cinema is only a little better than home HD image

That list is too long and needs categorised; either that, or some entries should be removed. Fourohfour 10:24, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

"Films with plot twists"? This is a list? Films without are documentaries, aren't they? Or deadly dull... Trekphiler 07:57, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Film dating

Not sure if this belongs here or where, but... There seems to be a problem dating movie releases. I've seen discrepencies of a yr source to source; somebody needs to check. This isn't a problem unique to Wikipedia: I've seen 2 diff movie guides with diff dates, & the dates the newspaper uses don't agree always. More than that, & is it yr of release, yr filming ended, copywright yr, or what, that actually gets mentioned? Absent the exact release date, the year is a toss. Trekphiler 07:57, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

name of this article

should it be named Motion pictures - wouldn't this be the most unambiguous, straight forward, formal, and thereby proper name to use? Mayumashu 03:31, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Agree. Motion Pictures are often but not always on made on (photographic) film. AjaxSmack 07:37, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I also agree. "Motion pictures" is probably the most accurate name, and while the term "film" generally refers to motion pictures, the word only literally refers to the most common format of motion pictures. To me, it seems that a page entitle "Film" would be more likely to describe photographic film, rather than motion pictures. Of course, that's just me, and I'm not trying to call for a change in where "film" directs (although I would probably support such a change), but the name "Motion pictures" does seem more logical. --Shroom Mage 23:35, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I also agree. Motion Picture is less ambiguous. Wayne Goode 19:46, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I disagree, the point about "film" only literally referring to the most common format of motion pictures is incorrect in my view, the term evolved from those origins but now refers to all forms of motion picture. The English language is littered with examples of a term which originally had a limited and specific meaning, but evolved to become a more general and non-literal designation.

Moreover the term "motion picture" is rarely used in some English speaking parts of the world outwith North America - it's not at all common in Britain for instance where "motion pictures" are referred to almost universally as "films". You could argue that this would subsequently be taking the side of British English to use the term "film" for this article, however I would contend that point given that "film" is still used extensively in North America, it simply has a more formal meaning than it does in BE - it should also be noted that there's a discussion further down this talk page which concluded that keeping the name "film" was the correct course of action. Blankfrackis 19:20, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

List of Movie types

good job on the listings

But you all forgot, Movie based over video Games

When i get back, i wanna see it:P

>x<ino 08:54, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

It should have a list of movies based on books. All I saw was a list of songs based on films or books, which I think was put in by mistake.

Chinface

Does anyone know which articles I should link to the Chinface article? This is a unique type of performance, there are only so many ways one can act with the human body. Kernow 15:41, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

size of pic

The size of the pic (the one of the reel) is a little large in my opinion. Does anyone mind if I scale it down? --Osbus 15:17, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Endurance of film

Does this section really belong there -- or does it need a rewording? I wouldn't call it NPOV, exactly, but it seems to read more like a short essay than a part of an encyclopedia article. Eeblefish 02:42, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I'm late, but I wholeheartedly agree. I was tempted to severely edit that piece just now, but I realised it was unsalvageable because of its complete pointlessness. It should get the axe. Anyone else have an opinion? elvenscout742 08:27, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Notice: Quarterly Review of Film and Video bounty

See Wikipedia:Reward_board#Quarterly_Review_of_Film_and_Video. — Matt Crypto 19:04, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

external link

Do you think that Film Reviews & Discussion would be worthy of putting in the external links section?

A Filmmaking Wiki

I apologize if this is somehow considered spamming or vandalism, but I thought this might be of interest to people who contribute to the Film Portal. If this should be deleted, by all means do so. I've created a filmmaking wiki, at http://wikifilmschool.com. My aim is not to duplicate the efforts of the Film Portal or any other project that seeks to catalogue films themselves (though, in truth, that may be an eventual effect if the project grows as large as I hope it will), but rather focus on the art and craft of how films and movies are actually made; cataloguing technique, terms, resources, and all knowledge that is related to how one would actually put together a motion picture. My goal is to cross the spectrum of filmmaking, from informing on the arcana of names and terms used in professional filmmaking that are only generally privy to professionals and people who have accumulated schooling and/or experience to cataloguing every possible way to achieve professional level results with as little money and as little "industry standard" equipment as conceivable. I hope some people will be interested in contributting, as Wikifilmschool could benefit from people with general wiki experience (formatting, templates, community building, etc.) as much as actual content. I intend to post this in a few other spots related to film, so I apologize in advance to anyone who comes across this message more than once. HamillianActor 19:52, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

It might not be appropriate in the film article, but perhaps in the film school and filmmaking ones. I'd say be sparing in your use of linkage and only place it in articles which are very closely (ie not generally) related. Girolamo Savonarola 11:39, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree in principle, and certainly wouldn't start posting on things any more tangentially related to filmmaking than the film page, but in my opinion, it's relevant enough to warrant it. HamillianActor 16:04, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

It's not directly important enough to warrant a link to the article designed to discuss the entire discipline and artform of film in the past 100 years. Simple as that. External links should always be kept to a minimum, which was the rationale behind the extreme deletion of links recently. Relevant it may be, but not relevant enough to warrant inclusion in a serious encyclopedic article about film in general. Girolamo Savonarola 17:07, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Certainly not in the main article, and I would never edit the actual article unless it were a noteworthy inclusion (even then, I wouldn't make the edit myself) but do those same principles also apply to talk pages? As I stated in the original post, the last thing I want to do is engender a lot of ill will and if somebody feels their toes are being stepped on, I'm more than willing to entertain concerns and reverse edits.HamillianActor 21:49, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Request, if I may

The article on Satyajit Ray, Bengali filmmaker, is up for a peer review. Please take a look. Thanks--ppm 17:52, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

International Film

Having worked on various international cinema articles, I saw the opportunity to improve this section here. I have moved moved the few international cinema links to an "International Film" section under "See Also". As an alternative to this, the {{World Cinema}} template could be added, but I'll leave that up to the editors of this article.

I removed the few cinema by country links, as they were woefully incomplete, and added film by continent links in their place. If you wish to add a full list of cinema by country articles, check the World cinema article (but there are loads, so you may wish to avoid repeating the info that is already there). Gram 15:42, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

GA Re-Review and In-line citations

Members of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. Currently this article does not include in-line citations. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. Agne 04:48, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Semi-Protection

I have semi-protected the article based on frequent vandalism/link spam by IP users. Said users can request changes on this page to be reviewed deemable for admission, by any member or they can get an account. :) Cbrown1023 03:12, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

definition

The definition isn't specific enough. According to it, each episode of TV shows like Family Guy and Nip/Tuck could be considered a motion-picture film. Herorev 19:31, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Start of Collab

So what needs to be done to this article to make it a FA? First thing I notice is no inline cites, which is an instant fail. I think the endurance section should mention film preservation. Crew is an exceptionally short section that should include at least who are the main crew people. Film theory needs at least a sketch of realism vs expressionism and the major players. In the venues section we should mention how films are now framed with TV in mind. These are all off the top of my head, so if we agree we can start refilling the todo box.--Supernumerary 03:42, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

"Theory" vs. "Criticism"

Is there a difference between "film theory" and the academic style of film criticism? If not, perhaps we should combine the two subsections. --GHcool 04:16, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

There is a HUGE difference. Film theory is much more academic, while film criticism is just reviewing movies.--Supernumerary 05:04, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Same comment as his, I was going to reply then he gave my answer. :-P Cbrown1023 16:21, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Certainly there is a difference between film theory and film criticism of the newspaper review variety, but that doesn't answer my question. My question was "Is there a difference between 'film theory' and the academic style of film criticism?" --GHcool 00:11, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes there is. The difference is that academic film criticism applies the film theory to a specific film, director, series, genre, etc. It's film theory in action. (See reviews written by André Bazin.)--Supernumerary 00:23, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

With the invention

of celluloid film by Goodwin in 1887 . . . Why not like that in the main article ? 80.219.134.64 22:04, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Roundhay Garden Scene

The still from Roundhay Garden Scene, carries the caption "world's first motion picture," though the article refers to it as "the earliest surviving film." What's the truth here. Is there a distinction between motion pictures and films in this example (i.e., is this a reference to the use of celluloid film?) Do any of Muybridge's earlier experiments count as "motion pictures?" Does the fact that this is the earliest surviving film depend on the fact that earlier films haven't survived, in which case this is not the "world's first motion picture?" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zadignose (talk • contribs) 00:01, 16 February 2007 (UTC).

Wait a minute

Wait a minute... I thought the first film was released in 1896. And the oldest film was released in 1888. Something seems to be wrong. When was the first film released? Comon people, lets get our facts straight. Factual80man

1888 is when the FIRST ONE was released. 1896 is when the FIRST BRITISH FILM was released. Pro Game Master87 10:07, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Here's the quick and dirty version - the first successful experiments into motion pictures were completed by Le Prince in 1888. Many other people were working simultaneously on the technology, with varying systems and degrees of success. All of these systems involved specialized viewing systems which were essentially the original "peep shows" (think arcades, not red light district). The technology and concept of projecting a film took several more years to refine, and culminated around 1895. The Lumieres are often given the credit, although the truth is that they had many predecessors - no one person can claim much behind the creation of films. It was a very incremental process. Girolamo Savonarola 12:38, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

first feature film

Surely there would be room for mention in the article about what is considered the first feature length film, The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906, Australia)?? Peter 12:59, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The second paragraph

The second paragraph, "Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures...," seems out of place. The paragraphs before and after it are appropriate introduction defining the topic. All the statements about the power and importance of film sound like commentary trying to impress the reader. It's also not well written in my opinion, and it brings up an arbitrary collection of subtopics that do not define the scope. I suggest deleting it. SandyFace 05:40, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation request

Movie redirects here, so please put a link to Movie (disambiguation) on the head.--60.46.134.218 16:16, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Categories: Talk archives