34-483: This list of American films of 1938 compiles American feature films that were released in 1938 . The comedy You Can't Take It with You won the Academy Award for Best Picture . Feature film A feature film or feature-length film (often abbreviated to feature ), also called a theatrical film , is a narrative film ( motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered
68-492: A 35 mm film longer than 1,600 metres (5,200 ft), which is exactly 58 minutes and 29 seconds for sound films . The term feature film came into use to refer to the main film presented in a cinema and the one which was promoted or advertised. The term was used to distinguish the longer film from the short films (referred to as shorts) typically presented before the main film, such as newsreels , serials , animated cartoons , live-action comedies and documentaries . There
102-487: A Nation (1915) was the first American feature film. The most prolific year of U.S. feature production was 1921, with 682 releases; the lowest number of releases was in 1963, with 213. Between 1922 and 1970, the U.S. and Japan alternated as leaders in the quantity of feature film production. Since 1971, the country with the highest feature output has been India, which produces a thousand films in more than twelve Indian languages each year. In 1927, Warner Bros. released
136-739: A Nation (1915). The notion of how long a feature film should be has varied according to time and place. According to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , the American Film Institute and the British Film Institute , a feature film runs for more than 40 minutes, while the Screen Actors Guild asserts that a feature's running time is 60 minutes or longer. The Centre National de la Cinématographie in France defines it as
170-724: A commemorative plaque on his building at 44 Hatton Garden, London. Paul was born in Islington in London, and educated at the City of London School . He began his technical career learning instrument-making skills at the Elliott Brothers , a firm of London instrument makers founded in 1804, followed by the Bell Telephone Company in Antwerp . In 1891, he established an instrument-making company,
204-514: A concession to operate a kinetoscope parlour at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre , and the success of this venture inspired him to attempt surpassing Edison by projecting moving images onto a screen. While Paul and Birt Acres shared innovator status for creating Britain's first 35mm camera, they quickly dissolved the partnership to operate as competitors in the film camera and projector markets. Acres would present his projector at
238-891: A dedicated office and showroom. Continuing his innovations with portable cameras, Paul built the 'Cinematograph Camera No. 1' in April 1896, the first camera to feature reverse-cranking. This mechanism allowed for the same film footage to be exposed several times. The ability to create super-positions and multiple exposures was used in Paul's 1901 film Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost , the oldest known film adaptation of Charles Dickens ' A Christmas Carol . French filmmaker Georges Méliès began his career using cameras built by Paul. In 1898, he designed and constructed Britain's first film studio in Muswell Hill , North London . The British Film Catalogue credits Paul's Our New General Servant (1898) with
272-512: A model that could be manufactured in Britain. He manufactured a number of these - according to one account of his "200" but later revised this to "60". However, the only films available were 'bootleg' copies of those produced for the Edison machines. As Edison had patented his camera (the details of which were a closely guarded secret), Paul resolved to solve this bottleneck by creating his own camera. Via
306-504: A music hall stage act. Nearby, the Lumière brothers showcased their projections at Empire Music Hall . The use of his Theatrograph in music halls across England helped popularize cinema among the British population. To support the many showmen interested in making films of local interest, Paul established a separate manufacturing department focused on cameras, projectors, and cinema equipment with
340-673: A mutual friend, Henry W. Short, Paul was introduced to Birt Acres , a photographic expert and much-respected photographer who was the General Manager at Elliott & Son's photographic works. Acres had been working on a machine for rapid photographic printing, so Paul applied his discoveries in producing the " Paul-Acres Camera ", as named by historian John Barnes, in March 1895. It was the first camera made in England, capable of shooting film in Edison's 35mm format. On 24 October 1895, Paul applied for
374-403: A patent for a device to evoke the effects that H. G. Wells had described in his novel The Time Machine , published the previous year. Audiences would be given the illusion of traveling backwards or forwards in time, of seeing in close-up or at a distance life in eras long before or after their own times. Paul wrote, "The Spectators should be given the sensation of voyaging from the last epoch to
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#1732851812657408-485: A short film series. Early features were mostly documentary-style films of noteworthy events. Some of the earliest feature-length productions were films of boxing matches, such as The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight (1897), Reproduction of the Corbett-Jeffries Fight and The Jeffries-Sharkey Fight (1899). Some consider the 100-minute The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight to be the first documentary feature film, but it
442-526: A universal standard, to make the technologies more compatible with each other and more user friendly. Shooting movies on digital also led to new technologies for distributing films. Titan A.E. , released in 2000, was the first feature film to be released for viewing over the internet. Digital distribution changed the ways people received and watched media. It also gave viewers access to huge amounts of online content on demand. Robert W. Paul Robert William Paul (3 October 1869 – 28 March 1943)
476-531: Is more accurately characterized as a sports program as it included the full unedited boxing match. In 1900, the documentary film Army Life was produced by Robert Paul . It was a programme of 33 short films, with a total running time of around 75 minutes, following the training of British soldiers. Inauguration of the Australian Commonwealth (1901) ran for 35 minutes, "six times longer than any previous Australian film", and has been called "possibly
510-641: The Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company took over the smaller but successful Robert W. Paul Instrument Company, becoming The Cambridge and Paul Instrument Company Ltd. The name was shortened to the Cambridge Instrument Co Ltd in 1924 when it was converted to a public company. Paul continued to make his own films that pioneered techniques such as close-up framing and cut transitions , selling them either directly or through newer new distribution companies. While Paul exited
544-487: The "first use of intertitles". Throughout his career, Paul continued to see internationally renowned instruments like the Unipivot galvanometer , winning gold medals at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair and 1910 Brussels International Exposition . Upon the outbreak of World War I , he began producing military instruments, including early wireless telegraphy sets and instruments for submarine warfare. In December 1919,
578-458: The Robert W. Paul Instrument Company, and established a workshop at 44 Hatton Garden , London, which later became his office. In 1894, he was approached by two Greek businessmen who wanted him to make copies of an Edison Kinetoscope that they had purchased. He initially refused until learning that Edison had not patented the invention in Britain. Paul purchased a Kinetoscope, reverse-engineering
612-605: The Royal Photographic Society on 14 January 1896 to much acclaim. Paul would present his own, the Theatrograph, shortly after on 20 February at Finsbury Park College, ironically on the same day as the Lumière brothers first film projections in London. In 1896, he pioneered a system of projecting motion pictures onto a screen using a double Maltese cross system , coinciding with the Lumière brothers' projection system. After some demonstrations before scientific groups, he
646-553: The documentary With Our King and Queen Through India (1912), filmed in Kinemacolor and Oliver Twist (also 1912). The first American features were Oliver Twist , From the Manger to the Cross , Cleopatra and Richard III (all 1912). Actor Frederick Warde starred in some of these adaptations. The first Asian feature was Japan 's The Life Story of Tasuke Shiobara (1912),
680-505: The film industry by early 1910, his importance was recognized among contemporaries through the moniker 'Daddy Paul'. Without prior knowledge of Paul's contributions to film, the technology company Kinetic purchased the 44 Hatton Garden property in London in 1994, renaming it Kinetic House. In 1999, the British film industry commemorated the work of Paul by erecting a commemorative plaque on the building, an event attended by film industry actors and union members, such as Sir Sydney Samuelson ,
714-486: The first Indian feature was Raja Harishchandra (1913), China 's first feature film was Zhang Shichuan's Nan Fu Nan Qi (1913), the first South American feature was Brazil 's O Crime dos Banhados (1913), and the first African feature was South Africa 's De Voortrekkers (1916). By 1915, over 600 feature films were produced annually in the United States. It is often incorrectly cited that The Birth of
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#1732851812657748-744: The first British Film Commissioner. Filmed by Birt Acres: Made independently: In April 2019, the Bruce Castle Museum held a 150th anniversary exhibition curated by Ian Christie entitled "Animatograph! How Cinema was Born in Haringey". In August 2019, the Barnet London Borough Council approved a proposal by Lipton Plant Architects to have the Light House project involving flats, a supermarket, and car park in London's Muswell Hill suburb to include an unusual shimmering void cutout as
782-556: The first feature-length documentary made in Australia". American company S. Lubin released a Passion Play titled Lubin's Passion Play in January 1903 in 31 parts, totaling about 60 minutes. The French company Pathé Frères released a different Passion Play in May 1903, The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ , in 32 parts, totaling 44 minutes. Defined by length, the first dramatic feature film
816-412: The first feature-length film with sound, The Jazz Singer , whose audio track was recorded with a proprietary technology called Vitaphone . The film's success persuaded other studios to go to the considerable expense of adding microphones to their sets, and scramble to start producing their own " talkies ". One of the next major advancements made in movie production was color film . Even before color
850-543: The late 1990s. In 2002, George Lucas ' Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones became the first major studio film shot primarily on digital video. The ability to instantly play back footage and quickly transfer footage to computers for editing helped to speed up post-production time. Digital film making was given a big boost in 2005 when the Digital Cinema Initiative created a guide for manufacturers to create
884-430: The present, or the present epoch may be supposed to have been accidentally passed and a present scene represented on the machine coming to a standstill, after which the impression of travelling forward again to the present epoch may be given, and the re-arrival notified by the representation on the screen of the place at which the exhibition is held ..." The patent was never completed and nothing came of it. Paul obtained
918-476: The principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term feature film originally referred to the main, full-length film in a cinema program that included a short film and often a newsreel . Matinee programs, especially in the US and Canada, in general, also included cartoons , at least one weekly serial and, typically, a second feature-length film on weekends. The first narrative feature film
952-522: Was a complex, time consuming, and expensive process that many movie studios were not eager to try. One of the early adopters of the three-strip process was Disney . Some of the most notable films Technicolor processed with three-strip were The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind . Digital Video (or DV) has quickly changed how most films are made. First used to create special effects and animated movies, digital cameras became more common on film sets in
986-467: Was a possibility in movies, early film makers were interested in how color could enhance their stories. Early techniques included hand tinting : painting each frame by hand. Cheaper and more widely used was toning : dying the film in a single color, used in many films in the 1920s. The film processing lab Technicolor developed the Three-Tone coloring technique that became the standard for color film. It
1020-533: Was an English pioneer of film and scientific instrument maker. He made narrative films as early as April 1895, which were shown first in Edison Kinetoscope knockoffs. In 1896 he showed his films projected, at about the time the Lumière brothers were pioneering projected films in France. His first notably successful scientific device was his Unipivot galvanometer . In 1999, the British film industry erected
1054-598: Was asked to supply a projector and staff to the Alhambra Music Hall in Leicester Square , and he presented his first theatrical programme on 25 March 1896. This included films shot by Birt Acres , featuring cartoonist Tom Merry drawing caricatures of the German Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II (1895) and Prince Bismarck (1895). Merry had previously performed his lightning-fast drawing as part of
List of American films of 1938 - Misplaced Pages Continue
1088-465: Was no sudden increase in the running times of films to the present-day definitions of feature-length; the "featured" film on a film program in the early 1910s gradually expanded from two to three to four reels. Early features had been produced in the United States and France, but were released in individual (short film) scenes. This left exhibitors the option of playing them alone, to view an incomplete combination of some films, or to run them all together as
1122-665: Was the Australian 60-minute film The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906). Similarly, the first European feature was the 90-minute film L'Enfant prodigue (France, 1907), although that was an unmodified record of a stage play; Europe's first feature adapted directly for the screen , Les Misérables , came from France in 1909. The first Russian feature was Defence of Sevastopol in 1911. Early Italian features included L'Inferno (1911), Quo Vadis? , The Last Days of Pompeii (1913) and Cabiria (1914). The first UK features were
1156-423: Was the 60-minute The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906, Australia). Other early feature films include Les Misérables (1909, U.S.), L'Inferno , Defence of Sevastopol , The Adventures of Pinocchio (1911), Oliver Twist (American version), Oliver Twist (British version), Richard III , From the Manger to the Cross , Cleopatra (1912), Quo Vadis? (1913), Cabiria (1914) and The Birth of
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