Home movies
Encyclopedia
A home movie is part of the motion picture filmmaking
process made by amateurs, often for viewing by family and friends. When the hobby began, home movies were produced on photographic film
, but accessibility of video production
with video camera
s and low cost data storage device
s has made the making of home movies easier and more affordable to the average person. The boundaries between consumer movie-making and professional movie-making are becoming increasingly blurred as prosumer
equipment often offers features previously only available on professional equipment.
In recent years, clips from home movies have been available to wider audience
s through television series such as America's Funniest Home Videos
, in Great Britain
You've Been Framed! and Internet online video-sharing sites such as YouTube
. The popularity of the Internet, and wider availability of high-speed connections has provided new ways of sharing home movies, such as video weblogs (vlog
s), and video podcast
s.
, video tape, etc.) at prices affordable to consumers.
Development of film formats suitable for amateur hobbyists began early in the history of cinematography. For example, the 17.5 mm "Birtac" format was patented by Birt Acres
in 1898. This format split the standard 35 mm film into two strips half as wide and was able to be loaded into the camera in daylight. Since the frames were also half the height of 35 mm frames, the Birtac format used only 25% of the amount of film stock used by 35 mm. Since the camera doubled as a printer and projector, equipment costs were also reduced.
Many competing film formats were introduced in the early decades until 16 mm safety film was introduced by Eastman Kodak
in 1923 and became a standard in the non-professional market. Although 16 mm had the advantage of users not being tied to one equipment manufacturer and there were obvious cost advantages compared to standard 35 mm, it was never able to eliminate smaller formats and it eventually was relegated to professional users, particularly in the education market.
In 1932, Kodak introduced another new format, 8 mm
(now known as "Regular 8" or "Straight 8"), by slitting 16 mm film in half, again reducing by 75% the amount of film stock used per frame. This was the point at which home movies finally came within reach of the average family, and the smaller format allowed for much smaller and more portable cameras and projectors.
The introduction of Kodachrome
color reversal film for 16 mm in 1935, and for 8 mm in 1936, facilitated home color cinematography. The availability of reversal film (Kodachrome was not the first) was very important to the home movie-making market, since it avoided the expense of separate negatives and positive prints.
film. The Super 8 format used the same film width as Regular 8, but the perforations were smaller, allowing for a larger frame size yielding frames with less grain. In addition, Super 8 film came in cartridges for easier loading into the camera. A competing format from Fujifilm
(Single-8
) was also introduced in 1965 and used similar film, but in a different type of cartridge.
VCR in 1975 and VHS
in 1976 heralded a revolution in the making of home movies. Videocassettes were extremely inexpensive compared to film and they could even be erased. It took a few years before consumer video camera
s and portable VCRs were introduced, and later combined to create camcorder
s, but by that time, many consumers already had the playback equipment in their homes.
s and PDAs
with video capabilities, has led to the banning of such devices from various places, due to privacy and security concerns.
Pornographic
movies of celebrities have been rumoured to exist for many years, but the ease of creating home movies on video has resulted in several celebrity sex tape
s becoming available to the public, often without the permission of participants. The honeymoon
video of Pamela Anderson
and Tommy Lee
from 1998 was the first highly publicized example.
Portability of digital equipment helps fuel other controversies as well, such as the incident on November 17, 2006 in which comedian Michael Richards
got into a racist war of words with an audience member during his comedy club act. Large parts of the incident were captured on the camera phone of another audience member and broadcast widely.
Home movies have played important roles in controversial police investigations, a prime example being the Zapruder film
of the 1963 assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy
shot using an 8 mm home movie camera on Kodachrome
II 8 mm safety film. This film was published and broadcast extensively and became official evidence for the Warren Commission
, which was established on November 29, 1963 to investigate the assassination that had taken place exactly a week earlier.
Filmmaking
Filmmaking is the process of making a film, from an initial story, idea, or commission, through scriptwriting, casting, shooting, directing, editing, and screening the finished product before an audience that may result in a theatrical release or television program...
process made by amateurs, often for viewing by family and friends. When the hobby began, home movies were produced on photographic film
Photographic film
Photographic film is a sheet of plastic coated with an emulsion containing light-sensitive silver halide salts with variable crystal sizes that determine the sensitivity, contrast and resolution of the film...
, but accessibility of video production
Video production
Video production is videography, the process of capturing moving images on electronic media even streaming media. The term includes methods of production and post-production...
with video camera
Video camera
A video camera is a camera used for electronic motion picture acquisition, initially developed by the television industry but now common in other applications as well. The earliest video cameras were those of John Logie Baird, based on the electromechanical Nipkow disk and used by the BBC in...
s and low cost data storage device
Data storage device
thumb|200px|right|A reel-to-reel tape recorder .The magnetic tape is a data storage medium. The recorder is data storage equipment using a portable medium to store the data....
s has made the making of home movies easier and more affordable to the average person. The boundaries between consumer movie-making and professional movie-making are becoming increasingly blurred as prosumer
Prosumer
Prosumer is a portmanteau formed by contracting either the word professional or less often, producer with the word consumer. For example, a prosumer grade digital camera is a "cross" between consumer grade and professional grade...
equipment often offers features previously only available on professional equipment.
In recent years, clips from home movies have been available to wider audience
Audience
An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature , theatre, music or academics in any medium...
s through television series such as America's Funniest Home Videos
America's Funniest Home Videos
America's Funniest Home Videos is an American reality television program on ABC in which viewers are able to send in humorous homemade videotapes. The most common videos usually feature slapstick physical comedy arising from incidents, accidents and mishaps...
, in Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
You've Been Framed! and Internet online video-sharing sites such as YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
. The popularity of the Internet, and wider availability of high-speed connections has provided new ways of sharing home movies, such as video weblogs (vlog
Vlog
Video blogging, sometimes shortened to vlogging or vidding or vidblogging is a form of blogging for which the medium is video, and is a form of Web television. Entries often combine embedded video or a video link with supporting text, images, and other metadata. Entries can be recorded in one take...
s), and video podcast
Video podcast
Video podcast is a term used for the online delivery of video on demand video clip content via Atom or RSS enclosures...
s.
History
The development of home movie-making has depended critically on availability of equipment and media formats (film stockFilm stock
Film stock is photographic film on which filmmaking of motion pictures are shot and reproduced. The equivalent in television production is video tape.-1889–1899:...
, video tape, etc.) at prices affordable to consumers.
Development of film formats suitable for amateur hobbyists began early in the history of cinematography. For example, the 17.5 mm "Birtac" format was patented by Birt Acres
Birt Acres
Birt Acres was a photographer and film pioneer.Born in Richmond, Virginia to English parents, he invented the first British 35 mm moving picture camera, the first daylight loading home movie camera and projector, Birtac, was the first travelling newsreel reporter in international film history and...
in 1898. This format split the standard 35 mm film into two strips half as wide and was able to be loaded into the camera in daylight. Since the frames were also half the height of 35 mm frames, the Birtac format used only 25% of the amount of film stock used by 35 mm. Since the camera doubled as a printer and projector, equipment costs were also reduced.
Safety film and the 16 mm film format
Another breakthrough in making film practical for home users was the introduction of safety film in the 1920s. Earlier "nitrate film" required special handling and storage, even after it was exposed and developed, since it is extremely flammable and has even been known to spontaneously catch fire as it gets older.Many competing film formats were introduced in the early decades until 16 mm safety film was introduced by Eastman Kodak
Eastman Kodak
Eastman Kodak Company is a multinational imaging and photographic equipment, materials and services company headquarted in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded by George Eastman in 1892....
in 1923 and became a standard in the non-professional market. Although 16 mm had the advantage of users not being tied to one equipment manufacturer and there were obvious cost advantages compared to standard 35 mm, it was never able to eliminate smaller formats and it eventually was relegated to professional users, particularly in the education market.
8 mm film format and color
8 mm film
8 mm film is a motion picture film format in which the filmstrip is eight millimeters wide. It exists in two main versions: the original standard 8mm film, also known as regular 8 mm or Double 8 mm, and Super 8...
(now known as "Regular 8" or "Straight 8"), by slitting 16 mm film in half, again reducing by 75% the amount of film stock used per frame. This was the point at which home movies finally came within reach of the average family, and the smaller format allowed for much smaller and more portable cameras and projectors.
The introduction of Kodachrome
Kodachrome
Kodachrome is the trademarked brand name of a type of color reversal film that was manufactured by Eastman Kodak from 1935 to 2009.-Background:...
color reversal film for 16 mm in 1935, and for 8 mm in 1936, facilitated home color cinematography. The availability of reversal film (Kodachrome was not the first) was very important to the home movie-making market, since it avoided the expense of separate negatives and positive prints.
Super 8 and Single-8 film formats
Although developments in fine-grained film made Regular 8 mm film practical, it was largely superseded shortly after Kodak's 1965 introduction of Super 8Super 8 mm film
Super 8 mm film is a motion picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement of the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format....
film. The Super 8 format used the same film width as Regular 8, but the perforations were smaller, allowing for a larger frame size yielding frames with less grain. In addition, Super 8 film came in cartridges for easier loading into the camera. A competing format from Fujifilm
Fujifilm
is a multinational photography and imaging company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.Fujifilm's principal activities are the development, production, sale and servicing of color photographic film, digital cameras, photofinishing equipment, color paper, photofinishing chemicals, medical imaging...
(Single-8
Single-8
Single-8 is a motion picture film format introduced by Fujifilm of Japan in 1965 as an alternative to the Kodak Super 8 format. The company Konan claims in its to have developed the Single-8 system in 1959....
) was also introduced in 1965 and used similar film, but in a different type of cartridge.
Home video-making
The introduction of the BetaBetamax
Betamax was a consumer-level analog videocassette magnetic tape recording format developed by Sony, released on May 10, 1975. The cassettes contain -wide videotape in a design similar to the earlier, professional wide, U-matic format...
VCR in 1975 and VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
in 1976 heralded a revolution in the making of home movies. Videocassettes were extremely inexpensive compared to film and they could even be erased. It took a few years before consumer video camera
Video camera
A video camera is a camera used for electronic motion picture acquisition, initially developed by the television industry but now common in other applications as well. The earliest video cameras were those of John Logie Baird, based on the electromechanical Nipkow disk and used by the BBC in...
s and portable VCRs were introduced, and later combined to create camcorder
Camcorder
A camcorder is an electronic device that combines a video camera and a video recorder into one unit. Equipment manufacturers do not seem to have strict guidelines for the term usage...
s, but by that time, many consumers already had the playback equipment in their homes.
Omnipresence and controversy
Portability and small size of digital home movie equipment, such as camera phoneCamera phone
A camera phone is a mobile phone which is able to capture still photographs . Since early in the 21st century the majority of mobile phones in use are camera phones....
s and PDAs
Personal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...
with video capabilities, has led to the banning of such devices from various places, due to privacy and security concerns.
Pornographic
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
movies of celebrities have been rumoured to exist for many years, but the ease of creating home movies on video has resulted in several celebrity sex tape
Celebrity sex tape
A celebrity sex tape is typically an amateur pornographic video recording involving one or more celebrity famous person which has been, intentionally or unintentionally, made available publicly....
s becoming available to the public, often without the permission of participants. The honeymoon
Honeymoon
-History:One early reference to a honeymoon is in Deuteronomy 24:5 “When a man is newly wed, he need not go out on a military expedition, nor shall any public duty be imposed on him...
video of Pamela Anderson
Pamela Anderson
Pamela Denise Anderson is a Canadian-American actress, model, producer, author, activist, and former showgirl, known for her roles on the television series Home Improvement, Baywatch, and V.I.P. She was chosen as a Playmate of the Month for Playboy magazine in February 1990...
and Tommy Lee
Tommy Lee
Thomas Lee Bass , best known as Tommy Lee, is an American musician and founding member of glam metal band Mötley Crüe. As well as being the band's long-term drummer, Lee founded rap-metal band Methods of Mayhem, and has pursued solo musical projects...
from 1998 was the first highly publicized example.
Portability of digital equipment helps fuel other controversies as well, such as the incident on November 17, 2006 in which comedian Michael Richards
Michael Richards
Michael Anthony Richards is an American actor, comedian, writer and television producer, best known for his portrayal of the eccentric Cosmo Kramer on the television sitcom Seinfeld....
got into a racist war of words with an audience member during his comedy club act. Large parts of the incident were captured on the camera phone of another audience member and broadcast widely.
Home movies have played important roles in controversial police investigations, a prime example being the Zapruder film
Zapruder film
The Zapruder film is a silent, color motion picture sequence shot by private citizen Abraham Zapruder with a home-movie camera, asU.S. President John F...
of the 1963 assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
shot using an 8 mm home movie camera on Kodachrome
Kodachrome
Kodachrome is the trademarked brand name of a type of color reversal film that was manufactured by Eastman Kodak from 1935 to 2009.-Background:...
II 8 mm safety film. This film was published and broadcast extensively and became official evidence for the Warren Commission
Warren Commission
The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, was established on November 27, 1963, by Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963...
, which was established on November 29, 1963 to investigate the assassination that had taken place exactly a week earlier.
See also
- Amateur filmAmateur filmAmateur Film is the low-budget hobbyist art of film practiced for passion and enjoyment and not for business purposes.-Organizations:The international organization for amateur film makers is UNICA ; in the United States the American Motion Picture Society , in Canada the Society of Canadian Cine...
- CinematographyCinematographyCinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
- Event videographyEvent VideographyEvent videography is a video production, the art of capturing social and special events onto video by a videographer. The term is used to describe the videography of any event, aside from weddings and wedding videography.-History:...
- Underwater videographyUnderwater videographyUnderwater videography is a video production, the branch of underwater photography concerned with capturing underwater moving images either as a recreational diving or commercial documentary, or filmmaking activity.-Limitations:...
- VideographyVideographyVideography refers to the process of capturing moving images on electronic media even streaming media). The term includes methods of video production and post-production...
- Video productionVideo productionVideo production is videography, the process of capturing moving images on electronic media even streaming media. The term includes methods of production and post-production...
- Wedding videographyWedding videographyWedding videography is a video production that documents a wedding on video. The final product of the videographer's documentation is commonly called a wedding video it is also being referred to as a wedding movie or a wedding film.-History:...