Roman Lyon

Cinematography is an art form unique to motion pictures. Although the exposing of images on light-sensitive elements dates back to the early 19th century,[1] motion pictures demanded a new form of photography and new aesthetic techniques.

In the infancy of motion pictures, the cinematographer was usually also the director and the person physically handling the camera. As the art form and technology evolved, a separation between director and camera operator emerged. With the advent of artificial lighting and faster (more light sensitive) film stocks, in addition to technological advancements in optics and new techniques such as color film and widescreen, the technical aspects of cinematography necessitated a specialist in that area.

Cinematography was key during the silent movie era - no sound apart from background music, no dialogue - the films depended on lighting, acting and set.

Italian lights

Lighting Digital Video



White balance. As the DV standard has a low color-resolution, it is important to control and know how to filter and white balance the image on set. It has been proved difficult to adjust color in post with a good result, although it has been done. Regarding lighting, be aware of the possibilities the white balance setting on the camera have, and use gels on the lamps, and sometimes on windows to create a neutral image.


In return for these shortcomings, DV-cameras can be more light-sensitive than most film stocks, and therefore require less light intensity, to give the same image. (PD150 is about 320ASA versus Kodak's 50D's 50ASA. One would need about 8 times more light, to get the same image at the same F-stop). Although high ASA film is available.

Markets of Lyon

Match cut: The exact opposite of a jump cut within a scene. These cuts make sure that there is a spatial-visual logic between the differently positioned shots within a scene. thus, where the camera moves to, and the angle of the camera, makes visual sense to the spectator. Eyeline matching is part of the same visual logic: the first shot shows a character looking at something off-screen, the second shot shows what is being looked at. Match cuts then are also part of the seamlessness, the reality effect, so much favoured by Hollywood.

To the grand Colombier

Historically, video frames were represented as analog waveforms in which varying voltages represented the intensity of light in an analog raster scan across the screen. Analog blanking intervals separated video frames in the same way that frame lines did in film. For historical reasons, most systems used an interlaced scan system in which the frame typically consisted of two video fields sampled over two slightly different periods of time. This meant that a single video frame was usually not a good still picture of the scene, unless the scene being shot was completely still.



With the dominance of digital technology, modern video systems now represent the video frame as a rectangular raster of pixels, either in an RGB color space or a color space such as YCbCr.

Châtillon-sur-Chalaronne

The cinematography etymologically means "movement" because it comes from the greek "kine" (movement) and "grafos" (write or capture). In this art, individual images called photograms are presented by means of a technique that consists on projecting them in a quick and successive way in order to produce a movement illusion.

It was originated in France in the XIX century, when the brothers Lumiere filmed the exit of some workers from a factory. It is produced by recording images of the world we live; however, today is also possible to make it with computers help by means of the using animation techniques or special effects.

 

Flower-auction

About FloraHolland The Netherlands is the heart of the international floriculture sector. It has an intricate and high-quality network of companies, ranging from breeders and growers to sales experts and export firms, representing every aspect of the business. The Netherlands is the place where supply and demand come together. From Europe and beyond. FloraHolland flower auction plays a key role in the Netherlands, land of Floriculture where its position as marketplace fulfils the role of matchmaker, intermediary and knowledge center.

Once upon a time (agriculture)

Montage play  is a technique in film editing in which a series of short shots are edited into a sequence to condense space, time, and information. It is usually used to suggest the passage of time, rather than to create symbolic meaning as it does in Soviet montage theory.
From the 1930s to the 1950s, montage sequences often combined numerous short shots with special optical effects (fades, dissolves, split screens, double and triple exposures) dance and music. They were usually assembled by someone other than the director or the editor of the movie.

Dutch Dancing

An axial cut is a type of jump cut, where the camera suddenly moves closer to or further away from its subject, along an invisible line drawn straight between the camera and the subject. While a plain jump cut typically involves a temporal discontinuity an axial cut is a way of maintaining the illusion of continuity
Axial cuts are used rarely in contemporary cinema, but were fairly common in the cinema of the 1910s and 1920s.
An axial cut can be made with the use of a zoom lens, or physically moving the camera with a crane or Camera dolly. The intervening footage is then removed while editing the film. Since footage is discarded, this technique works better for static shots. If action is required, several takes will be required to get the necessary footage.

Cinema back to the fair

The earliest films were simply one static shot that showed an event or action with no editing or other cinematic techniques. Around the turn of the 20th century, films started stringing several scenes together to tell a story. The scenes were later broken up into multiple shots photographed from different distances and angles. Other techniques such as camera movement were developed as effective ways to tell a story with film. Until sound film became commercially practical in the late 1920s, motion pictures were a purely visual art, but these innovative silent films had gained a hold on the public imagination. Rather than leave audiences with only the noise of the projector as an accompaniment, theater owners hired a pianist or organist or, in large urban theaters, a full orchestra to play music that fit the mood of the film at any given moment.

Traffic in Rotterdam 1930

Black and white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, and hyphenated black-and-white when used as an adjective, is any of several monochrome forms in visual arts.

Black-and-white images are not usually starkly contrasted black and white. They combine black and white in a continuum producing a range of shades of gray. Further, many monochrome prints in still photography, especially those produced earlier in its development, were in sepia (mainly for archival stability), which yielded richer, subtler shading than reproductions in plain black-and-white.

For the birds

Birds Eye View (BEV) is an organisation established in 2002 to celebrate and support women's work in film, most notably by way of an annual film festival in London that places women at the heart of the creative vision.
Birds Eye View was founded  in 2002, to celebrate and support women filmmakers.

Backed by key figures in the film industry, Birds Eye View describes its work as “a positive response to the fact that women make up only 7% of directors and 12% of writers in the film industry”. The organisation’s work includes an annual festival of films by women filmmakers, held in London, as well as a touring programme and year-round training and career development programmes for emerging women filmmakers in the UK. In addition to promoting work by women filmmakers, Birds Eye View aims to educate audiences about the importance of diversity in film, and to widen the audiences for women-made films and world cinema.

http://www.birds-eye-view.co.uk/

Saving Euro Saving

Film distribution is the process through which a film is made available for viewing by an audience. This is normally the task of a professional film distributor, who would determine the marketing strategy of the film, the media by which a film is to be exhibited or made available for viewing, and may set the release date and other matters. The film may be exhibited directly to the public either through a movie theater (historically the main way films were distributed) or television for personal home viewing (including on DVD-Video or Blu-ray Disc, video-on-demand, online downloading, television programs through broadcast syndication etc.). Other ways of distributing a film include rental or personal purchase of the film in a variety of media and formats, such as VHS tape or DVD, or Internet downloading of streaming using a computer.

Ain river and region

Ain is a department named after the Ain River on the eastern edge of France. Being part of the region Rhône-Alpes and bordered by the rivers Saône and Rhône, the department of Ain enjoys a privileged geographic situation.

Ain is composed of four geographically different areas (Bresse, Dombes, Bugey and Pays de Gex) which – each with its own characteristics – contribute to the diversity and the dynamic economic development of the department.

Although looking ahead, Ain attaches nevertheless great importance to its historical and cultural heritage as illustrate its gastronomy , and its tourism (346 classified monuments , 14 museums of France, eco-tourism and ski tourism).

Taste of Holland

Growth in video journalism coincides with changes in video technology and falling costs. As quality cameras and non-linear editing system(NLE) have become smaller and available at a fraction of their previous prices, the single camera operator method has spread.



Some argue that video journalists can get closer to the story, avoiding the impersonality that may come with larger television crewing. In addition, the dramatically lower costs have made possible the birth of many cinéma vérité-style documentary films and television series.

Documentary on Carnival

A DVD documentary is a documentary film of indeterminate length that has been produced with the sole intent of releasing it for direct sale to the public on DVD(s), as different from a documentary being made and released first on television or on a cinema screen (a.k.a. theatrical release) and subsequently on DVD for public consumption.

This form of documentary release is becoming more popular and accepted as costs and difficulty with finding TV or theatrical release slots increases. It is also commonly used for more 'specialist' documentaries, which might not have general interest to a wider TV audience. Examples are military, cultural arts, transport, sports, etc..

Wetlands

Grignan petit tour

Home video editing

Like many other technologies, the cost of video editing has declined by an order of magnitude or more. Nearly any home computer sold since the year 2000 has the speed and storage capacity to digitize and edit standard-definition television. The two major retail operating systems include basic video editing software - Apple's iMovie and Microsoft's Windows Movie Maker. There are also more advanced commercial products.

Additionally, there are free, opensource video-editing programs.  A new free and collaborative video editing platform called WeVideo was introduced to the market in September 2011, which allows multiple users and editors for a unified video real.

Dutch Countryside

A Costume drama, or period drama, is a period piece in which elaborate costumes, sets and properties are featured in order to capture the ambiance of a particular era.

The term is usually used in the context of film and television. It is an informal, crossover term that can apply to several genres but is most often heard in the context of historical dramas and romances, adventure films and swashbucklers. The implication is that the audience is attracted as much by the lavish costumes as by the content.

Hell on Earth

Historically the most common use of churchyards was as a consecrated burial ground known as a graveyard. Graveyards were usually established at the same time as the building of the relevant place of worship (which can date back to the 6th to 14th centuries) and were often used by those families who could not afford to be buried inside or beneath the place of worship itself. However, many churchyards in Northwestern France and in the UK may predate the establishment of the Christian church there today. Most headstones and other memorials are of the 17th century at the earliest, as ground would often be reused for further burials and only some families could afford any memorials.

Art in Lyon

Art films are aimed at small niche market audiences, which means they can rarely get the financial backing which will permit large production budgets, expensive special effects, costly celebrity actors, or huge advertising campaigns, as are used in widely-released mainstream blockbuster films. Art film directors make up for these

constraints by creating a different type of film, which typically uses lesser-known film actors (or even amateur actors) and modest sets to make films which focus much more on developing ideas or exploring new narrative techniques or filmmaking conventions.

Fly Away

 Filminfo:

Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting.

The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be speaking a different language.  "Dubbing" also describes the process of an actor re-recording lines spoken during filming in order to improve audio quality or reflect dialog changes

Say cheese

In cinematography, a take refers to each filmed "version" of a particular shot or "setup". Takes of each shot are generally numbered starting with "take one" and the number of each successive take is increased (with the director calling for "take two" or "take eighteen") until the filming of the shot is completed.



A one-take occurs when the entire scene is shot satisfactorily the first time, whether by necessity (as with certain expensive special effects) or by happy accident.



Film takes are often designated with the aid of a clapperboard. It is also referred to as the slate. The number of each take is written or attached to the clapboard, which is filmed briefly prior to or at the beginning of the actual take. Only takes which are vetted by the continuity person and/or script supervisor are printed and are sent to the film editor.

Schiphol Airport 1939

Aerial photography is the taking of photographs of the ground from an elevated/direct-down position. Usually the camera is not supported by a ground-based structure. Platforms for aerial photography include fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or "drones"), balloons, blimps and dirigibles, rockets, pigeons, kites, parachutes, stand-alone telescoping and vehicle-mounted poles. Mounted cameras may be triggered remotely or automatically; hand-held photographs may be taken by a photographer.

schiphol was a polder under sea level

the old city of Lyon

In the past, most independent filmmakers have relied on film festivals to get their films noticed and sold for distribution. However, the Internet has allowed for relatively inexpensive distribution of independent films. As a result several companies have emerged to assist filmmakers in getting independent movies seen and sold via mainstream internet marketplaces, oftentimes adjacent to popular Hollywood titles. With internet movie distribution, independent filmmakers who fail to garner a traditional distribution deal now have the ability to reach global audiences.

(farm)House in Holland

A narrator is, within any story of a movie, the person who tells the story to the audience. When the narrator is also a character within the story, he or she is sometimes known as the viewpoint character. The narrator is one of three entities responsible for story-telling of any kind. The others are the author and the audience.

The author and the audience both inhabit the real world. It is the author's function to create the universe, people, and events within the story. It is the audience's function to understand and interpret the story. The narrator only exists within the world of the story and present it in a way the audience can comprehend.

Perouges in dept: Ain

  

The 20th century is not the first to create images of life during medieval times. The Middle Ages ended over five centuries ago and each century has imagined, portrayed and depicted the Middle Ages through painting, architecture, poetry, music and novel. In the 20th century, film has defined Medieval history perhaps more so than any other medium. While the conclusions of academic research and findings of archeology have advanced knowledge of the Middle Ages, nothing has had more widespread influence on more people than the images created by film.

Typical French (Champagne)

A film genre is a motion picture category based on similarities in either the narrative elements or the emotional response to the film (namely, serious, comic, etc.). Most theories of film genre are borrowed from literary genre criticism. The basic genres include fiction and documentary, from which subgenres have emerged, such as docufiction and docudrama. Other subgenres include the courtroom and trial-focused drama known as the legal drama. Types of fiction which may seem unrelated can also be combined to form hybrid subgenres, such as the melding of horror and comedy in the Evil Dead films. Other popular combinations are the romantic comedy and the action comedy film.

 

Medieval Perouges, the church

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record. A "documentary film" was originally a movie shot on film stock—the only medium available—but now includes video and digital productions that can be either direct-to-video or made for a television program. "Documentary" has been described as a "filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception" that is continually evolving and is without clear boundaries.

 

Tramway

In motion picture terminology, a tracking shot (also known as a dolly shot or trucking shot) is a segment in which the camera is mounted on a camera dolly, a wheeled platform that is pushed on rails while the picture is being taken. One may dolly in on a stationary subject for emphasis, or dolly out, or dolly beside a moving subject (an action known as "dolly with").

Flood disaster 1953

The 1953 North Sea flood was a major flood caused by a heavy storm, that occurred on the night of Saturday 31 January 1953 and morning of 1 February 1953. The floods struck the Netherlands, Belgium, England and Scotland.

A combination of a high spring tide and a severe European windstorm over the North Sea caused a storm surge (known locally as a "storm tide"). The combination of wind, high tide and low pressure had the effect that the water level exceeded 5.6 metres (18.4 ft) above mean sea level in some locations. The flood and waves overwhelmed sea defences and caused extensive flooding. The Netherlands, a country that is partly located below mean sea level and relies heavily on sea defences, was worst affected, recording 1,836 deaths and widespread property damage. Most of the casualties occurred in the southern province of Zeeland. In England, 307 people were killed in the counties of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. 19 were killed in Scotland. 28 were killed in West Flanders, Belgium.

 

Lorraine

Insert (filmmaking)
In film, an insert is a shot of part of a scene as filmed from a different angle and/or focal length from the master shot. Inserts cover action already covered in the master shot, but emphasize a different aspect of that action due to the different framing. An insert differs from a cutaway as cutaways cover action not covered in the master shot.

There are more exact terms to use when the new, inserted shot is another view of actors: close-up, head shot, knee shot, two shot. So the term "insert" is often confined to views of objects—and body parts, other than the head. Thus: CLOSE-UP of the gunfighter, INSERT of his hand quivering above the holster, TWO SHOT of his friends watching anxiously, INSERT of the clock ticking.

 

Only Lyon

Filminfo:
A cinematograph is a film camera, which also serves as a film projector and developer. It was invented in the 1890

Popular thought, dictates that Louis Lumière was the first to conceptualise the idea, and both Lumière brothers shared the patent. They made their first film, Sortie de l'usine Lumière de Lyon, in 1894. The film was publicly screened at L'Eden, the world's first and oldest cinéma, located in La Ciotat in southeastern France, on September 28, 1895. The first commercial, public screening of cinematographic films happened in Paris on 28 December 1895 and was organised by the Lumière brothers.

MontLuel near Lyon

Filminfo

Aerial perspective or atmospheric perspective refers to the effect the atmosphere has on the appearance of an object as it is viewed from a distance. As the distance between an object and a viewer increases, the contrast between the object and its background decreases, and the contrast of any markings or details within the object also decreases. The colours of the object also become less saturated and shift towards the background color, which is usually blue, but under some conditions may be some other color (for example, at sunrise or sunset distant colors may shift towards red).

Citadel Briancon

"Screen direction" is a term used in motion picture and video editing and refers to an underlying concept of cinematic grammar which involves the direction that actors or objects appear to be moving on the screen from the point of view of the camera or audience. A rule of film editing is that movement from one edited shot to another must maintain the consistency of screen direction in order to avoid audience confusion.

"Camera left" or "frame left" indicates movement towards the left side of the screen, while "camera right" or "frame right" refers to movement towards the right side of the screen. "Foreground" refers to the apparent space close to the camera (and thus to the audience), while "background" refers to the apparent space in the distance away from the camera and the audience.

Abrivado

Suspense is a feeling of uncertainty and anxiety about the outcome of certain actions, most often referring to an audience's perceptions in a dramatic work. Suspense is not exclusive to fiction, though. Suspense may operate in any situation where there is a lead up to a big event or dramatic moment, with tension being a primary emotion felt as part of the situation. In the kind of suspense described by film director Alfred Hitchcock, an audience experiences suspense when they expect something bad to happen and have (or believe they have) a superior perspective on events in the drama's hierarchy of knowledge, yet they are powerless to intervene to prevent it from happening.

 

Gerardmer en Vosges

Waterproof digital cameras are digital cameras that can make pictures underwater. Before developing waterproof digital cameras we were able to buy waterproof housings for digital cameras, but they cost almost as the digital cameras and it was very expensive. If You have waterproof digital camera You will be able to walk next to the water and feel relaxed, because You will never again be worried about what would happened if Your camera fell in the water. A lot of waterproof digital cameras are shockproof and resistant on low temperatures, one of them is Canon PowerShot D10, one of the first underwater digital cameras.

Highest city in Europe

A freeze frame shot is used when one shot is printed in a single frame several times, in order to make an interesting illusion of a still photograph.

"Freeze frame" is also a drama medium term used in which, during a live performance, the actors/actresses will freeze at a particular, pre-meditated time, to enhance a particular scene, or to show an important moment in the play/production[like a celebration]. The image can then be further enhanced by spoken word, in which each character tells their personal thoughts regarding the situation, giving the audience further insight into the meaning, plot or hidden story of the play/production/scene.

 

Remiremont historical centre

Film production occurs in three stages:


Pre-production—Preparations are made for the shoot, in which cast and film crew are hired, locations are selected, and sets are built. This is also the stage in which the ideas for the film are created, rights to books/plays are bought, etc.




 Production—The raw elements for the finished film are recorded.



Post-Production—The film is edited; production sound is separately edited, music tracks recorded, if a film is sought to have a score; sound effects are designed and recorded; all sound elements are mixed into "stems" then the stems are mixed then married to picture and the film is fully completed

Macon, nature & culture

21st century work mostly uses digital cinematography and has no film stocks but the cameras themselves can be adjusted in ways that go far beyond the abilities of one particular film stock. They can provide varying degrees of color sensitivity, image contrast, light sensitivity and so on. One camera can achieve all the various looks of different emulsions, although it is heavily argued as to which method ofcapturing an image is the "best" method. Digital image adjustments (ISO, contrast etc.) are executed by estimating the same adjustments that would take place if actual film were in use, and are thus vulnerable to the cameras sensor designers perceptions of various film stocks and image adjustment parameters 

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Remiremont :Ville fleurie

Forced perspective is a technique that employs optical illusion to make an object appear farther away, closer, larger or smaller than it actually is. It is used primarily in photography, filmmaking and architecture. It manipulates human visual perception through the use of scaled objects and the correlation between them and the vantage point of the spectator or camera.

 

La Ferme Moderne

A theatrical property, commonly referred to as a prop, is an object used on stage by actors to further the plot or story line of a theatrical production. Smaller props are referred to as "hand props". Larger props may also be set decoration, such as a chair or table. The difference between a set decoration and a prop is use. If the item is not touched by a performer for any reason it is simply a set decoration. If it is touched by the actor in accordance to script requirements or as deemed by the director, it is a prop.

Au bord du Truyeres

A filming location is a place where some or all of a film or television series is produced, in addition to or instead of using sets constructed on a movie studio backlot or soundstage. In filmmaking, a location is any place where a film crew will be filming actors and recording their dialog. A location where dialog is not recorded may be considered as a second unit photography site. Filmmakers often choose to shoot on location because they believe that greater realism can be achieved in a "real" place; however, location shooting is often motivated by the film's budget. Many films shoot interior scenes on a sound stage and exterior scenes on location.

It is often mistakenly believed that filming "on location" takes place in the actual location in which its story is set, but this is not necessarily the case.

Horses and bulls

There are notable films that are primarily about and/or feature animals. Films involving dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals are included  those concerning mythical creatures, such as dragons or vampires, are not; however, films concerning anthropomorphized animals (such as Scooby-Doo), gigantized animals (such as King Kong), mutated forms of real animals (such as Anaconda), or fictional hybrids of real animals (such as Sharktopus) are considered to be films about animals.

Parc des Volcans Auvergne

With the advent of digital editing, film editors and their assistants have become responsible for many areas of filmmaking that used to be the responsibility of others. For instance, in past years, picture editors dealt only with just that—picture. Sound, music, and (more recently) visual effects editors dealt with the practicalities of other aspects of the editing process, usually under the direction of the picture editor and director. However, digital systems have increasingly put these responsibilities on the picture editor. It is common, especially on lower budget films, for the editor to sometimes cut in makeshift music, mock up visual effects, and add temporary sound effects or other sound replacements. These temporary elements are usually replaced with more refined final elements produced by the sound, music, and visual effects teams hired to complete the picture.

On Fire

In 1868, American inventor John Wesley Hyatt developed a plastic material he named Celluloid, improving on Parkes' invention by plasticizing the nitrocellulose with camphor so that it could be processed into finished form and used as a photographic film. Celluloid was used by Kodak, and other suppliers, from the late 1880s as a film base in photography, X-ray films, and motion picture films, and was known as nitrate film. After numerous fires caused by unstable nitrate films, "safety film" (cellulose acetate film) started to be used from the 1930s in the case of X-ray stock and from 1948 for motion picture film.

The Eiffel bridge (GARABIT viaduct)

Good location managers are well poised and able to think fast on their feet as they are constantly moving, usually preceding production to a location and overseeing final strike and wrap. They are the first and last people the public sees that represent the production and are responsible for ensuring that the location is returned to the condition in which it was received. The location manager is also to be aware of the possible copyright issues which may be an issue if the show is filmed in a public place where there is art work or similar and where the artist has to give consent to the creation being depicted or covered or replaced by other artwork.

Amsterdam live

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A director's cut is a specially edited version of a film, a that is supposed to represent the director's own approved edit. 'Cut' explicitly refers to the process of film editing: the director's cut is preceded by the rough editor's cut and followed by the final cut meant for the public film release.

Director's cuts generally remain unreleased to the public because, as far as film is concerned, with most film studios the director does not have a final cut privilege. The studio can insist on changes that they feel will make the film more likely to succeed at the box office. This sometimes means a happier ending or less ambiguity, but more often means that the film is simply shortened to provide more screenings per day.

Heart of Sweden

Swedish cinema is known for including many acclaimed movies; during the 20th century the industry was the most prominent of Scandinavia. This is largely due to the popularity and prominence of directors Victor Sjöström and Ingmar Bergman; and more recently Roy Andersson, Lasse Hallström and Lukas Moodysson.

Amsterdam Art

Editing Dialog (a conversation)

In contrast with action scenes, a conversation is edited based on the rhythm of the dialog as the actors talk back and forth. The rhythm of the dialog must sound perfectly natural... which is surprising since, most of the time, each actor's dialog comes from a different shot.

Special Note: The gap between the dialog must seem natural. You must decide how soon to cut from one actor to the next.

In a conversation, the audio is more important than the picture. Therefore, a conversation is edited based on the audio, not the picture.

If the picture is bad and the audio is good, the audience will think it is supposed to be that way. If the picture is terrific and the audio is bad, the audience will complain.

 

The roof of Amsterdam

Conversation vs. Action

Action sequences are scenes where there is no dialog. Conversations are scenes ) where the actors continually talk back and forth.

Golden Rule: When two or more people are talking back and forth, you have a "conversation". The rest of the time, the scene is considered "action."

Editing Action means Look for the best images Action sequences are edited based on the images on the screen. For action sequences, the picture is the most important thing. Because there is no dialog to worry about, you tell the story visually.

 

Perpignan

A cult film (also known as a cult movie/picture or a cult classic) is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences. Many cult movies have gone on to transcend their original cult status and have become recognized as classics; others are of the "so bad it's good" variety and are destined to remain in obscurity. Cult films often become the source of a thriving, obsessive, and elaborate subculture of fandom, hence the analogy to cults. However, not every film with a devoted fanbase is necessarily a cult film. Usually, cult films have limited but very special, noted appeal. Cult films are often known to be eccentric, often do not follow traditional standards of mainstream cinema and usually explore topics not considered in any way mainstream—yet there are examples that are relatively normal. Many are often considered controversial because they step outside standard narrative and technical conventions.

Skinny Bridge

A story told to tourists about the origins of the 1691 version of the bridge is that it was built by two wealthy sisters who lived on opposite sides of the Amstel river and wanted to be able to visit one another every day (and were presumably too busy, or not in good enough health, to go the long way round via another bridge, of which there must surely have been at least one). In one variant of the story the sisters, although wealthy, were not quite wealthy enough to afford a bridge of adequate width for general use and so built a very narrow bridge, hence its name. In another variant of the story the sisters' last name was Mager, hence the bridge's name (rather than from its narrowness).

The bridge can be seen in a number of films, such as the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever from 1971.