Production
At its core, the means to produce a film depend on the content the filmmaker wishes to show, and the apparatus for displaying it: the zoetrope merely requires a series of images on a strip of paper. Film production can therefore take as little as one person with a camera (or even without a camera, as in Stan Brakhage's 1963 film Mothlight), or thousands of actors, extras and crewmembers for a live-action, feature-length epic.
The necessary steps for almost any film can be boiled down to conception, planning, execution, revision, and distribution. The more involved the production, the more significant each of the steps becomes. In a typical production cycle of a Hollywood-style film, these main stages are defined as:
- Development
- Pre-production
- Production
- Post-production
- Distribution
This production cycle usually takes three years. The first year is taken up with development. The second year comprises preproduction and production. The third year, post-production and distribution.
The bigger the production, the more resources it takes, and the more important financing becomes; most feature films are not only artistic works, but for-profit business entities.
Read more about this topic: Film
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“Perestroika basically is creating material incentives for the individual. Some of the comrades deny that, but I can’t see it any other way. In that sense human nature kinda goes backwards. It’s a step backwards. You have to realize the people weren’t quite ready for a socialist production system.”
—Gus Hall (b. 1910)
“I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)