motion-picture technology

Introduction
History
- Introduction of sound
- Introduction of color
- Wide-screen and stereoscopic pictures
Professional motion-picture production
- Cameras
  - Principal parts
  - Camera supports
- Film
- Lighting
  - Light sources
  - Light measurement
- Film processing and printing
- Sound-recording techniques
  - Optical recording
  - Magnetic recording
  - Double-system recording
  - The sound recordist
  - Microphones
- Editing
  - Picture editing
  - Editing equipment
  - Electronic editing
- Special effects
- Sound editing
  - Dialogue
  - Sound effects
  - Music
  - Mixing
- Projection technology and theater design
  - Projection techniques
  - Sound reproduction
  - Auditorium design
Motion pictures for scientific purposes
- Time-lapse cinematography
- High-speed cinematography
  - Optical systems outside the camera
  - Framing
  - Illumination
Animation
- Figural basis of animation
- Noncellular animation
- Planning
- Execution
- Newer techniques

References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics

Images, Videos & Interactives

Director Steven Spielberg and camera operator Michael Chapman film next to a large mechanical shark on the set of the 1975 movie Jaws.

The Lumiere brothers' Cinematographe, a vintage wooden-framed device with a boxy projector and film reel, set up for film projection using a magic lantern lamphouse.

The video thumbnail image shows a Foley artist using a coffee grinder to create sound.

Related Questions

How can bad weather or illness delay a film shoot?
How can camera movement reveal details or create suspense in a film?
How did Billy Bitzer and D.W. Griffith help change early camera techniques?
How did CinemaScope use anamorphic lenses to create widescreen images?
How did blue-screen photography allow actors to appear in imaginary settings?
How did camera cranes expand filmmakers’ options for camera movement?
How did editing make the cliff-jump scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid appear real?
How did sound recording initially limit camera movement in films?
How did the Kinetoscope differ from a motion-picture projector?
How did tungsten-halogen lamps improve lighting for location filming?
How do alternating close-ups help show reactions during a conversation?
How do cinematographers work with directors and other members of a film crew?
How do clapperboards help synchronize picture and sound?
How do film commissions attract movie shoots to local areas?
How do film distributors help finance movies?
How do film producers raise money to make a movie?
How do film tax incentives encourage productions to film in particular places?
How do filmmakers use slow motion and accelerated motion for expressive effects?
How do framing and camera angle influence a movie scene?
How do optical printers create fades, dissolves, and other film effects?
How does a camera pan differ from a camera tilt?
How does a key light differ from a fill light in motion-picture lighting?
How does a rotary shutter prevent light from reaching film while it moves?
How does a zoom lens change focal length during a shot?
How does an establishing shot help audiences understand a scene?
How does cinematography help create a film’s visual style?
How does film editing shape separate shots into a story?
How does product placement provide funding for films?
How does the contrast ratio between key light and fill light affect a filmed image?
What do grips do on a motion-picture crew?
What does a fade-out or dissolve suggest about the relationship between two scenes?
What does a focus puller do during filming?
What is the difference between above-the-line and below-the-line film workers?
What responsibilities does a cinematographer have on a feature film?
Which jobs are completed during film preproduction?
Which tasks are completed during film postproduction?
Why can location shooting increase a film’s production costs?
Why can postproduction take longer than the filming stage?
Why did Hollywood studios shift from long-term employment to project-based film crews after the 1940s?
Why did carbon arc lights replace early tungsten lamps in filmmaking?
Why do editors cut on action in motion pictures?
Why have European governments provided public funding for film production?
Why must each frame of motion-picture film stop briefly during exposure?
Why were widescreen movies sometimes panned and scanned for television?

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External Websites

National Park Service - Motion Pictures

motion-picture technology

filmmaking

Also known as: film technology, movie technology

Written by

Elisabeth Weis

Professor of Film, Brooklyn College and Graduate Center, City University of New York. Coeditor of Film Sound: Theory and Practice.

Elisabeth WeisAll

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

Britannica Editors

History

motion-picture technology, the means for the production and showing of motion pictures. It includes not only the motion-picture camera and projector but also such technologies as those involved in recording sound, in editing both picture and sound, in creating special effects, and in producing animation. Motion-picture technology is a curious blend of the old and the new. In one piece of equipment state-of-the-art digital electronics may be working in tandem with a mechanical system invented...

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