Film & Media Library — Index
The moving image — cinema and television — as art, craft, and industry: its history from the Lumières to the streaming era, its formal language, its production crafts, and the modes (documentary, animation, world cinema) that extend it. Sister to
VisualArts/,Music/, andLiterature/in the Arts group; draws onHumanities/History/for context and feedsSociety/Sociology/culture-media-and-socialization(media as a social force).
- Status: Tier 1 complete — 12 notes (two history, one theory, four craft, five mode/industry), authored 2026-06-03.
- Conventions: named films, directors, and dates throughout; film and show titles in italic; literal dollar amounts escaped (
\$); no emojis.
Tier 1 — History and theory
| Topic | File | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Film history: silent to studio era | film-history-silent-to-studio-era | 1895–1960: invention, silent avant-gardes, sound, classical Hollywood |
| Film history: new waves to contemporary | film-history-new-waves-to-contemporary | the New Waves, New Hollywood, the blockbuster, indie, digital, streaming |
| Film theory & criticism | film-theory-and-criticism | formalist/realist, auteur theory, semiotics & the gaze, cognitive, criticism |
Tier 1 — Form and craft
| Topic | File | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Film form & film language | film-form-and-film-language | mise-en-scène, the shot, editing, sound — the grammar of cinema |
| Cinematography & lighting | cinematography-and-lighting | the DP, exposure, lenses, formats, lighting, color and the DI |
| Editing, sound & post-production | editing-sound-and-postproduction | the cut, sound design, the score, visual effects, the post pipeline |
| Screenwriting & film narrative | screenwriting-and-film-narrative | the screenplay, three-act structure, the “gurus,” character, genre |
Tier 1 — Modes and industry
| Topic | File | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| The film industry & production | the-film-industry-and-production | the majors & streamers, development, financing, distribution, exhibition |
| Documentary & experimental film | documentary-and-experimental-film | Nichols’s modes, direct cinema, the avant-garde, the essay film |
| Animation | animation | cel, stop-motion, CGI; Disney, anime, the world traditions |
| World cinema & national traditions | world-cinema-and-national-traditions | European, Indian, East Asian, Iranian, African & Latin American cinemas |
| Television & the streaming era | television-and-the-streaming-era | the serial form, prestige TV, the streaming disruption, convergence |
Adjacent libraries
- VisualArts · Music · Literature — the sister arts (film as the synthesis of image, sound, and narrative)
- narrative-form-and-genre — narratology, shared between literature and film
- modern-history — the 20th-century context of cinema’s rise
- culture-media-and-socialization — media effects, the production of culture, the attention economy
- Economics — the economics of the film and streaming industries