CHENNAI FILM SCHOOL

(Affiliated to The Tamilnadu Dr.J.Jayalalithaa Music and Fine Arts University)

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DIRECTION / UNIT I
INTRODUCTION TO CINEMA
Cinema is a powerful medium which was invented in the late nineteenth century(19 th). It
surpassed the existing medium called music,dance and drama. The advantage of cinema was, it
did not require any qualification from the audience. For ex: To read a novel one has to have a
knowledge of the language. To a music or dance performance the audience are expected to have
some basic knowledge about that art forms. But cinema was able to reach each and every
audience including the illiterate mass. Though cinema has many dimensions, it is generally or
mostly used as a story telling medium which is the reason invention of cinema served a serious
blow to the other story telling mediums such as drama. Started as just an amusement cinema
today holds a very big role in the lives of the people.

PREVIOUS MEDIUM OF COMMUNICATION

In the beginning human community started using “Sign Language” as a medium of
communication.When they started speaking, language came into being. Then came writing in the
form of scratching letters on stones and later on palm leaves. In the 16 th century printing machine
was invented. This created a big revolution in communication starting from simple official notice
and pamplets this spread into a big way in the form of newspapers,magazines,novels etc., All
these mediums of communication where surpassed overnight by invention of cinema.

MEDIUMS OF EXPRESSION
Cinema can be divided into three basic categories:

 Medium of Expression
 Medium of Entertainment
 Medium of Infoshare

MEDIUM OF EXPRESSION
Movies that were generally described as art films come under this category. Here the movie
makers have no guarantee about the income. Mostly film makers with artistic tendencies make
this movies at their own expenses or with the help of charitable establishments.
Most of the time these kind of art films won’t see a theatrical release. They used to get revenue
through the DVD sales. Other form of revenue came from film societies. Another source of income
is award money from the film festival.

MEDIUM OF ENTERTAINMENT
Cinema is also said to be a medium of entertainment because it is the best way to tell or convey
a story to the people. It is fastest and easiest way to entertain people, most people love to watch
movies with their family in weekend. People can travel with the movie like they connect with
characters of the film and the character will entertain the people more,Though 80% of cinema
comes under this category today it is taking a struggle for survival. Cinema as it is generally
understood, is an element that has to be seen in a theatre with large number of audience is slowly
coming to a slow down. Instead of being a separate entity the cinema theatres are slowly
becoming a part of a big business complex such as malls, but it is also shaping itself into other
forms such as OTT platforms.

MEDIUM OF INFO-SHARE
In the beginning of cinema information was shared to the people in the form of newsreel in all the
countries. These newsreels will play in the theatres before the main picture. Many governments
started a film producing department to produce such newsreels and propaganda films. Later many
documentaries based on social issues were produced by such agencies. In India such an
establishment was functioning in the name of “film division”. Today the “Info Share” Category has
transformed into newchannels and social media programmes.

INFLUENCE ON PEOPLE
A man was visiting a theatre daily to watch the same movie. When asked why he said, that a girl
in a scene will be removing her clothes one by one, when she is about to take the last bit of cloth
a train will pass her, thus hiding her removing the last bit of cloth. He is coming to see the movie
daily with a hope that one day the train might come late. This is a story used to describe the
influence of cinema on people. One cinema is equal to so many number of lectures to convey the
people on any particular issue. This is the reason Russian communist government used cinema
to influence the people to a large extent. In India particularly in Tamilnadu, people have elected
five cinema personalities as their Chief Ministers. Though cinema is slowly weakening as a theatre
viewing element it is spreading its wings in parallel visual platforms and its influence on people
continous

BUSINESS PROSPECTS
When cinema came into being, it was not known as “Cinema”. It was called in different languages
with words generally meaning moving images.Lumiere Brothers who were one of the major
contributor in the invention of cinema called it as “Passing Clouds” or words to that effect. But
when people started showing extreme eagerness to watch this moving images, the producers of
them thought of collecting money to show them. So they started screening their “movies”(which
ran for 2 or 3 mins) they hire a society hall or someplace like that and ran 5 or 6 bits of there
movies which can ran for 10 or 15 mins, which forms a “show”. For this they started collecting a
“nickel” (lowest denomination of American money.That is why the places movies were screened
was known as “nickelodeon”. Later on when cinema started talking, for a longer duration it become
a mass media and started collecting big money. When a movie is produced it is bought by
distributors from each territories for an amount decided by the star cast directors merit and the
production value. The distributors in turn release the movies in theatres based on percentage
sharing or hire basis. Today cinemas business prospects have expanded in multilevel such as
theatre release, satellite rights, OTT platforms, etc...

INDUSTRY STATUS
Though cinema has developed in to a big industry, giving employment to so many number of
people and involving so much of money and ironically paying a lot of tax money to the government
it is not recognized as an Industry. Barring some private finance institutions who finance movies,
that to with a security, government banks still hesitate to give loans to the production of a movie.
This is because of the unpredictability of the commercial success of the movie, so the industry
status of cinema still remains a question.