november 04, 2018

PAMPUS

Amateur films were usually shot on 16 mm film or on 8 mm film (either Double-8 or Super-8) until the advent of cheap video cameras or digital equipment. The advent of digital video and computer based editing programs greatly expanded the technical quality achievable by the amateur and low-budget filmmaker. Amateur video has become the choice for the low-budget filmmaker and has boomed into a very watched and even produced industry with the use of VHS and digital video camcorders.


 



november 03, 2018

MAN

English animator Steve Cutts has a knack for satirizing the excesses of modern society. Just watch his 2012 short animation "Man," and you'll see what I mean. In three short minutes, Cutts covers a lot of ground, documenting the rise of human civilization and its ever-escalating assault on nature and our natural resources. It's funny. It's biting. And it may give you pause as we gear up for Christmas, the apotheosis of American materialism.




Paper Collection



Paper and cardboard: are collected and called :old paper

The Dutch are good at separating old paper and cardboard: we deliver three quarters of all the old paper and cardboard separately. What is allowed with the old paper and what is not allowed?


Newspapers, leaflets, envelopes, paper packaging, toilet rolls: everything is allowed with the old paper. Paper can be recycled well to make new paper.
paper



november 01, 2018

Addams Family




Musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing.
The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, but in some cases, they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate "production numbers."

The musical film was a natural development of the stage musical after the emergence of sound film technology. Typically, the biggest difference between film and stage musicals is the use of lavish background scenery and locations that would be impractical in a theater. Musical films characteristically contain elements reminiscent of theater; performers often treat their song and dance numbers as if a live audience were watching. In a sense, the viewer becomes the diegetic audience, as the performer looks directly into the camera and performs to it.



Hunting by Fox




A natural history film or wildlife film is a documentary film about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures, usually concentrating on film taken in their natural habitat but also often including footage of trained and captive animals. Sometimes they are about wild animals, plants, or ecosystems in relationship to human beings. Such programmes are most frequently made for television, particularly for public broadcasting channels, but some are also made for the cinema medium. The proliferation of this genre occurred almost simultaneously alongside the production of similar television series.


 

oktober 23, 2018

Visit to Singapore in 1964



In 2007 Rogge put a number of his videos on video website YouTube. Then it becomes clear how rare film material of Hong Kong from the fifties is. He gets a lot of reactions and the material is viewed so well that he is offered his own channel. He places about ten videos per month. In addition to his own material, he also places films that he buys at internet auctions. In addition, he edits films that, on university sites, are said to lead "a dormant existence". After his adjustments, including new text, sound and royalty free music, they are clicked more often.




oktober 18, 2018

Fitgirl



A video blog or video log, usually shortened to vlog is a form of blog for which the medium is video, and is a form of web television. Vlog entries often combine embedded video (or a video link) with supporting text, images, and other metadata. Entries can be recorded in one take or cut into multiple parts. Vlog category is popular on the video sharing platform YouTube.

Video logs (vlogs) also often take advantage of web syndication to allow for the distribution of video over the Internet using either the RSS or Atom syndication formats, for automatic aggregation and playback on mobile devices and personal computers



oktober 17, 2018

BW turned into true colours

 

Lord of the Rings' director Peter Jackson has brought the First World War to life in a documentary using rare original footage that has been colourised and transformed with modern production techniques.

Mr Jackson restored a 100-hours of footage from the Imperial War Museum's archive for They Shall Not Grow Old, bringing, in the director's own words, "the human experience of the war" to the big screen in vivid colour.

Old and damaged film was immaculately restored and slowed down to a normal speed bringing clarity to the war only previously seen by the infantrymen who saw it first hand.



 

oktober 16, 2018

Famous Photos




For the first time ever, working in close collaboration with the Hague Museum of Photography, the Rencontres d’Arles is presenting a selective overview of the autonomous works created by Wolf. Wolf’s key 21st-century theme is “life in cities”, as he observes it in vast metropolises like Tokyo, and Hong Kong. The striking feature of these impressive series is the changing points of view adopted by the artist in order to show the complexity of modern city life. The magnum opus of the exhibition is The Real Toy Story installation (2004), featuring over 20,000 plastic “Made in China” toys found by him in junk markets and second-hand shops in the United States. Amid this overwhelming array of mass-produced stuff for kids, Michael Wolf shows sympathetic portraits of individual Chinese assembly-belt workers producing toys to satisfy the manic worldwide demand for cheap consumer goods.

oktober 14, 2018

Houthaven (Amsterdam West)



Experimental film, experimental cinema or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms and alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, particularly early ones, relate to arts in other disciplines: painting, dance, literature and poetry, or arise from research and development of new technical resources.


While some experimental films have been distributed through mainstream channels or even made within commercial studios, the vast majority have been produced on very low budgets with a minimal crew or a single person and are either self-financed or supported through small grants.

Experimental filmmakers generally begin as amateurs, and some used experimental films as a springboard into commercial film making or transitioned into academic positions. The aim of experimental filmmaking is usually to render the personal vision of an artist, or to promote interest in new technology rather than to entertain or to generate revenue, as is the case with commercial films.



 

oktober 13, 2018

Sign of life



Labeling theory is the theory of how the self-identity and behavior of individuals may be determined or influenced by the terms used to describe or classify them. It is associated with the concepts of self-fulfilling prophecy and stereotyping. Labeling theory holds that deviance is not inherent to an act, but instead focuses on the tendency of majorities to negatively label minorities or those seen as deviant from standard cultural norms. The theory was prominent during the 1960s and 1970s, and some modified versions of the theory have developed and are still currently popular. A stigma is defined as a powerfully negative label that changes a person's self-concept and social identity.




oktober 12, 2018

Art in the Wilderness



International Garden Photographer of the Year is the world's premier competition and exhibition specialising in garden, plant, flower and botanical photography.

It is run in association with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom. The main exhibition is held annually at Kew, with a rolling programme of touring exhibitions in the UK and all over the world. Exhibitions are linked to events such as workshops and lectures on garden photography.



oktober 11, 2018

Interactive Religious site



An historical site about roman catholiscme in the province of North Brabant, the Netherlands,

keywords: Incense... Holywater...Sausage Rolls which are typical objects in this culture at the time.

Complete interactive : churches, convent, holyplaces, popes, pictures, etc. etc


 

oktober 10, 2018

Art as a tool for change



Graffiti is like flowers. They are beautiful, but they don't live long." An interview with Lebanese-Egyptian street-artist Bahia Shehab about the role of art during the Arab spring: "You cannot resist ideas. They can travel into any mind."

"I am a quiet person, I don't know how to scream", says Bahia Shehab. "My contribution to the revolution was to paint on the walls, was to be an artist." During the Arab spring many artists felt the urge to rush to the streets, Shehab explains. At the time, there was no tomorrow, one did not think of possible repercussions, she says: "When you loose hope with everything around you, you go down to the street. Your only hope is the people. This is who you paint and work for. It's their minds, you try to influence."





Catering Amsterdam North




Filmmaking – process of making a film. Filmmaking involves a number of discrete stages including an initial story, idea, or commission, through scriptwriting, casting, shooting, editing, and screening the finished product before an audience that may result in a film release and exhibition. Filmmaking is both an art and an industry. Films were originally recorded onto plastic film which was shown through a movie projector onto a large screen (in other words, an analog recording process). The adoption of CGI-based special effects led to the use of digital intermediates. Most contemporary films are now fully digital through the entire process of production, distribution, and exhibition from start to finish.





oktober 07, 2018

Amsterdam East (gate)



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, the technical aspects of cinematography necessitated a specialist in that area.



oktober 05, 2018

The rise of the Film Industry




The film industry or motion picture industry, comprises the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking, i.e., film production companies, film studios, cinematography, animation, film production, screenwriting, pre-production, post production, film festivals, distribution and actors, film directors and other film crew personnel.



Though the expense involved in making films almost immediately led film production to concentrate under the auspices of standing production companies, advances in affordable film making equipment, and expansion of opportunities to acquire investment capital from outside the film industry itself, have allowed independent film production to evolve


 

oktober 04, 2018

OPPOSITE (Lookout)

On its most fundamental level, film editing is the art, technique and practice of assembling shots into a coherent sequence. The job of an editor is not simply to mechanically put pieces of a film together, cut off film slates or edit dialogue scenes. A film editor must creatively work with the layers of images, story, dialogue, music, pacing, as well as the actors' performances to effectively "re-imagine" and even rewrite the film to craft a cohesive whole. Editors usually play a dynamic role in the making of a film.


Chateau de L'Emperi



The narrator is, within any story, the fictional or non-fictional, personal or impersonal entity 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, A narrator may tell the story from his own point of view (as a fictive entity) or from the point of view of one of the characters in the story. The act or process of telling the particulars of a story is referred to as narration. Along with exposition, argumentation, and description, narration (broadly defined) is one of four rhetorical modes of discourse. 

oktober 03, 2018

Knifegrinder



We get our ideas from what I'm going to call for a moment our unconscious -- the part of our mind that goes on working, for example, when we're asleep. So what I'm saying is that if you get into the right mood, then your mode of thinking will become much more creative. But if you're racing around all day, ticking things off a list, looking at your watch, making phone calls and generally just keeping all the balls in the air, you are not going to have any creative ideas."




oktober 02, 2018

Hollywood in Morroco



The Ouarzazate area is a noted film-making location, with Morocco's biggest studios inviting many international companies to work here. Films such as Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), The Living Daylights (1987), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), The Mummy (1999), Gladiator (2000), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), Kundun (1997), Legionnaire (1998), Hanna (2011),The Hills Have Eyes (2006), and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011) were shot here, as was part of the TV series Game of Thrones.




Cultural Brabant



The parade float got its name because the first floats were decorated barges that were towed along canals with ropes held by parade marchers on the shore. Floats were occasionally propelled from within by concealed oarsmen, but the practice was abandoned because of the high incidence of drowning when the lightweight and unstable frames capsized. Strikingly, among the first uses of grounded floats — towed by horses — was a ceremony in memory of recently drowned parade oarsmen. Today, parade floats are traditionally pulled by motor vehicles or are powered themselves





oktober 01, 2018

Bayern North



Bavaria Film in Munich, Germany is one of Europe's largest film production companies, with some 30 subsidiaries.
The studios were founded in 1919, when Munich-raised film producer Peter Ostermayr converted the private film company he had started in 1907, Münchener Lichtspielkunst GmbH, to the public company Münchener Lichtspielkunst AG (Emelka), and acquired a large area (ca. 356.000 m²) for the studios in Geiselgasteig, a district of Munich's southern suburb Grünwald. The company was a direct competitor to UFA, which had started in Berlin in 1917, and quickly absorbed several other film industry companies in the region. In 1930 investor Wilhelm Kraus and a consortium of banks bought a major shareholding in the company, and on 21 September 1932 the group took control of the company and renamed it Bavaria Film AG. In 1938 the Bavaria Film was nationalised but privatised again in 1956.


 

Poor Mokum (amsterdam)


Zuiderzee ballad



A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French chanson balladée or ballade, which were originally "danced songs''. Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of the British Isles from the later medieval period until the 19th century. They were widely used across Europe, and later in Australia, North Africa, North America and South America. Ballads are often 13 lines with an ABABBCBC form, consisting of couplets (two lines) of rhymed verse, each of 14 syllables. Another common form is ABAB or ABCB repeated, in alternating 8 and 6 syllable lines.


september 30, 2018

Trainspotting


 

In the production of photographic prints, spotting is a type of retouching flaws in the finished print with specially made paints, dyes, pencils and pens. White spots on gelatin-silver prints made from negatives are caused by dust adhering to the negative or paper during exposure. Prints from positive transparencies exhibit black marks. White spots can be carefully darkened using a fine paintbrush and a dye of the appropriate colour. A small amount of dye, which should be very weak, is needed. The spot will darken as dye accumulates in the gelatin layer. Black spots on gelatin-silver prints are caused by holes in the negative's emulsion. These can be removed by careful knifing of the gelatin layer.

september 26, 2018

The history of photography in 5 minutes

 

We find ourselves, still early in the 21st century, in an unprecedented era in the history of photography. The consumers of the developed world have, of course, had access to cameras of their own for decades and decades, but now almost each and every one of us walks around with a camera in our pocket. When a particular landscape, building, animal, human being, or other sight strikes our fancy, we capture it without a moment's hesitation — and, often, without having given a moment's thought to the technological and artistic history of the discipline we are, if for little more than an instant, practicing.



september 20, 2018

100 ships on the IJ



In fiction, continuity is consistency of the characteristics of people, plot, objects, and places seen by the reader or viewer over some period of time. It is relevant to several media.

Continuity is particularly a concern in the production of film and television due to the difficulty of rectifying an error in continuity after shooting has wrapped up. It also applies to other art forms, including novels, comics, and video games, though usually on a smaller scale. It also applies to fiction used by persons, corporations, and governments in the public eye.


september 19, 2018

Selfy by the fox



Posting intentionally unattractive selfies has also become common in the early 2010s—in part for their humor value, but in some cases also to explore issues of body image or as a reaction against the perceived narcissism or over-sexualization of typical selfies.

The practice of taking selfies has been criticised not only for being narcissistic, preventing assessment and appreciation of what is happening in the present, but also for being mindlessly conformist behaviour, when everyone does what everyone else is doing, "like that scene in The Life of Brian – where the crowd gathers outside Brian's window and enthusiastically chants in unison: 'Yes, we're all individuals! ... Yes, we are all different!

'

september 18, 2018

The park (VondelPark)





A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors. Films may be of recent date and, depending upon the festival's focus, can include international and domestic releases. Some festivals focus on a specific film-maker or genre (e.g., film noir) or subject matter (e.g., horror film festivals). A number of film festivals specialise in short films of a defined maximum length. Film festivals are typically annual events.


september 16, 2018

Cityseeing in Amsterdam



An event movie is a film whose release itself is considered a major event, such as an anticipated sequel or a big budget film with major stars generating considerable attention and state-of-the-art special effects. An event movie is usually the highest-grossing box office movie in the particular year and becomes a part of popular culture. Steven Spielberg's 1975 movie Jaws is considered the first event movie.



september 15, 2018

Beatrix-park


 
 

World cinema is not the sum-total of all films made around the world. Its use is analogous to the use of the term "world literature". Goethe used the concept of Weltliteratur (world literature) in several of his essays in the early decades of the nineteenth century to describe the international circulation and reception of literary works in Europe, including works of non-Western origin. An interest in "world cinema" suggests an awareness of high-quality films made outside the Hollywood studio system which dominates international viewership. 




 

september 14, 2018

Luisenpark by boat

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In film making, the 180-degree rule is a basic guideline regarding the on-screen spatial relationship between a character and another character or object within a scene. By keeping the camera on one side of an imaginary axis between two characters, the first character is always frame right of the second character. Moving the camera over the axis is called jumping the line or crossing the line; breaking the 180-degree rule by shooting on all sides is known as shooting in the round.

The 180-degree rule enables the audience to visually connect with unseen movement happening around and behind the immediate subject and is important in the narration of battle scenes.


september 13, 2018

This Beautiful City



We are in the Amsterdam Museum to view the exhibition 'The Most Beautiful City', which was compiled by Mayor Eberhard van der Laan just before his death.

In the Amsterdam Gallery of the museum 80 selected photographs and objects from the collection of the Amsterdam Museum and the City Archives will be exhibited. With this selection, Van der Laan wanted to make clear how Amsterdammers in the past dealt with growing pains and economic growth of the city. He hoped to give an impetus to a good conversation about the future of the city.



september 12, 2018

Luisenpark in Mannheim



The concept of orphan films acquired an academic and creative entity in the 1990s from new approaches to managing film archives. At that time, orphan films simply identified films without copyright or abandoned by their owners or custodians. However, the term gradually widened to include any kind of footage which has been abandoned, found or forgotten for commercial, material, cultural, political and historical reasons:  material in the public domain, home movies, film out-takes, unreleased films, industrial and educational films, clandestine work, ethnographic films, newsreels, censored material, unfinished pieces, fragments of productions from the silent era, archival material, reels found, medical films, short or unusual format films, advertisements, sponsored films, student work and any other ephemeral piece of celluloid.


september 11, 2018

Enkhuizen



Cinematography finds uses in many fields of science and business as well as for entertainment purposes and mass communication.

The word "cinematography" is based on the Greek words κίνημα (kinema), meaning "movement, motion" and γράφειν (graphein) meaning "to record", together meaning "recording motion". The word used to refer to the art, process, or job of filming movies, but later its meaning became restricted to "motion picture photography"




september 10, 2018

St.Petersburg travel trips transport



In April 1896, just four months after the first films were shown in Paris, the first cinematic apparatus appeared in Russia. The first films seen in the Russian Empire were via the Lumière brothers, in Moscow and St. Petersburg in May 1896. In the same month, the first film was shot in Russia, by Lumière cameraman Camille Cerf, a record of the coronation of Nicholas II at the Kremlin in Moscow. The first permanent cinema was opened in St Petersburg in 1896 at Nevsky Prospect, No. 46.



The first Russian movies were shown in the Moscow Korsh Theatre by artist Vladimir Sashin. After purchasing a Vitagraph projector, Sashin started to make short films, which by August 1896 were being demonstrated to theatre audiences after the theatre performance had ended.



september 08, 2018

Flasback



In film, flashbacks depict the subjective experience of a character by showing a memory of a previous event and they are often used to "resolve an enigma". Flashbacks are important in film noir and melodrama films. In movies and television, several camera techniques, editing approaches and special effects have evolved to alert the viewer that the action shown is a flashback or flashforward; for example, the edges of the picture may be deliberately blurred, photography may be jarring or choppy, or unusual coloration or sepia tone, or monochrome when most of the story is in full color, may be used. The scene my fade or dissolve, often with the camera focused on the face of the character and there is typically a voice-over by a narrator (who is often, but not always, the character who is experiencing the memory.




Rothenburg ob den Tauber



The "four walls" system of film production (also known as the "four wall system") refers to a system whereby a film production company rents a sound stage and associated space but then contracts separately for additional facilities and hires freelance staff. The four walls system became prominent in the 1960s  , following the demise of the Hollywood studio system from 1948 . Some big studios, like Pinewood Studios in England, became "four walls" facilities  for independent film producers and television companies. These facilities no longer engage in the development or distribution of films.


 

september 07, 2018

Silent life






Photomicrograph
A light micrograph or photomicrograph is a micrograph prepared using an optical microscope, a process referred to as photomicroscopy. At a basic level, photomicroscopy may be performed simply by connecting a camera to a microscope, thereby enabling the user to take photographs at reasonably high magnification.





Laundry



A web series is a series of scripted or non-scripted videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet and part of the web television medium, which first emerged in the late 1990s and become more prominent in the early 2000s (decade). A single instance of a web series program can be called an episode or "webisode", however the latter term is not often used. In general, web series can be watched on a range of platforms, including desktop, laptop, tablets and smartphones. They can also be watched on television.




september 06, 2018

Hello I am Amsterdam

The first flexible photographic roll film was marketed by George Eastman in 1885, but this original "film" was actually a coating on a paper base. As part of the processing, the image-bearing layer was stripped from the paper and transferred to a hardened gelatin support. The first transparent plastic roll film followed in 1889. It was made from highly flammable nitrocellulose ("celluloid"), now usually called "nitrate film".

Although cellulose acetate or "safety film" had been introduced by Kodak in 1908, at first it found only a few special applications as an alternative to the hazardous nitrate film, which had the advantages of being considerably tougher, slightly more transparent, and cheaper. The changeover was not completed for X-ray films until 1933, and although safety film was always used for 16 mm and 8 mm home movies, nitrate film remained standard for theatrical 35 mm motion pictures until it was finally discontinued in 1951.

Films remained the dominant form of photography until the early 21st century when advances in digital photography drew consumers to digital formats.


Domberg Bamberg



Follow shot is a specific camera angle in which the subject being filmed is seemingly pursued by the camera, for example by a Steadicam. The follow shot can be achieved through tracking devices, panning, the use of a crane, and zoom lenses resulting in different qualitative images but, nevertheless, recording a subject (performer) in motion.

september 04, 2018

L'histoire kaputt




A man lifts a big black thing out of a closet, there is a composite girl, and there are creatures in the forest. Eye presents new work by Alex van Warmerdam in an exhibition specially designed for the film museum. Characters, objects and situations come to life in a mysteriously staged setting, complemented by big screens showing scenes from Van Warmerdam’s films. All elements of the exhibition testify to the down-to-earth imagination and idiosyncratic approach of Alex van Warmerdam as a maker of films and works for the stage, as well as a writer and painter.

At the invitation of Eye Filmmuseum, Alex van Warmerdam (1952) created an exhibition with new films, installations and objects. Film, theatre, design and painting come together in L’histoire kaputt, a term that denotes a wondrous world where things are completely convincingly different from how they appear.


Mannheim : Wasserturm



A film school is any educational institution dedicated to teaching aspects of filmmaking, including such subjects as film production, film theory, digital media production, and screenwriting. Film history courses and hands-on technical training are usually incorporated into most film school curricula. Technical training may include instruction in the use and operation of cameras, lighting equipment, film or video editing equipment and software, and other relevant equipment. Film schools may also include courses and training in such subjects as television production, broadcasting, audio engineering, and animation.


september 02, 2018

Bamberg Symphony



A recent study from BBC Earth and UC-Berkeley has shown that watching nature documentaries can inspire "significant increases in feelings of awe, contentedness, joy, amusement and curiosity" and conversely "reduce feelings of tiredness, anger and stress." In short, they can engender what the authors of the study call ‘real happiness’ – a kind of happiness that leads to actual improvement in individuals’ health and wellbeing, 




River Regnitz



Development of film
In this stage, the project producer selects a story, which may come from a book, play, another film, true story, video game, comic book, graphic novel, or an original idea, etc. After identifying a theme or underlying message, the producer works with writers to prepare a synopsis. Next they produce a step outline, which breaks the story down into one-paragraph scenes that concentrate on dramatic structure. Then, they prepare a treatment, a 25-to-30-page description of the story, its mood, and characters. This usually has little dialogue and stage direction, but often contains drawings that help visualize key points. Another way is to produce a scriptment once a synopsis is produced.




september 01, 2018

The Cabin



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. Often inserts of this sort are done separately from the main action, by a second-unit director using stand-ins.

Inserts and cutaways can both be vexatious for directors, as care must be taken to preserve continuity by keeping the objects in the same relative position as in the main take, and having the lighting be the same.

Historic images of Dutch Whaling



Most early forms of motion pictures or film were black and white. Some color film processes, including hand coloring were experimented with, and in limited use, from the earliest days of motion pictures. The switch from most films being in black-and-white to most being in color was gradual, taking place from the 1930s to the 1960s. Even when most film studios had the capability to make color films, the technology's popularity was limited, as using the Technicolor process was expensive and cumbersome. For many years, it was not possible for films in color to render realistic hues, thus its use was restricted to historical films or musicals until the 1950s, while many directors preferred to use black-and-white stock. For the years 1940–1966, a separate Academy Award for Best Art Direction was given for black-and-white movies along with one for color.



Devils' Cave



Horror is a genre of speculative fiction which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten, scare, disgust, or startle its readers or viewers by inducing feelings of horror and terror. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon has defined the horror story as "a piece of fiction in prose of variable length... which shocks or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing". It creates an eerie and frightening atmosphere. Horror is frequently supernatural, though it can be non-supernatural. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for the larger fears of a society.