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Motion pictures or film Film encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films (also referred to as movies or motion pictures) are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual 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 give motion pictures a universal power of communication. Some films have become popular worldwide attractions by using dubbing or subtitles that translate the dialogue.


Cognitive psychology of film[]

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.

Motion picture (educational)[]

An educational film is a film or movie whose primary purpose is to educate. Educational films have been used in classrooms as an alternative to other teaching methods.

Cultural significance[]

Many educational films shown in schools are part of long series - for example, films demonstrating scientific principles and experiments tend to be episodic, with each episode devoted to a specific experiment or principle.

Many schoolchildren in Britain in the late 1980s and early 1990s watched hundreds of episodes of British-made educational films (all very similar in style and production) over the course of their primary school careers. As a result, the delivery-style and distinctive colour-palette ("scientific" looking neutral-blue backgrounds etc.) of these films is instantly recognisable to any child of the appropriate generation. This was used to great effect by the series Look Around You which parodies these films.

Motion pictures (entertainment)[]

Social effects of motion pictures[]

The motion picture industry was on of the first to manufacture celebrities and to set in train fads and fashions. As a powerful mass medium it has been used by the politico-media complex for a number of purposes including propoganda and morale boosting


See also[]