Movie

The **moving picture** or **movie** consists of the showing of pictures in quick succession as to create the illusion of movement.

## History

The movie was invented in Griffonstone. The invention took the shape of a roll of photographic film which, using a clock's mechanism, would have iterative sections of it exposed to light to record consequent image stills.

After processing the film, the images would then be projected using the same type of mechanism. The stills would be taken and projected at a frequency high enough to convey movement.

In the first attempt this rate would be slow, of only 6 frames per second, but consequent improvements on the invention would standardize the rate to 24 frames per second.

As movie film, cameras and projectors were standardized and produced in large amounts, a movie industry began to spring up. The first movie theaters opened in Pierrebourg and spread through Griffonstone, followed by the Crystal Empire and Ponice and then Equestria and Surabhi.

At first the movies displayed in the theaters were simple recordings of real life scenes, promoting themselves on just the novelty of the moving picture, but as the novelty wore off and the invention's capabilities were explored movies started employing actors and settings to tell a story.

As the invention matured, its potential was further explored by the invention of new techniques to create visual effects that would be impossible in live theater, requiring recording multiple times over the same film, changing the speed at which the stills were taken or completely stopping the recording while changes in the set take place.

While Griffonstone remained at the vanguard of the new technology, Surabhi has developed its own movie industry, commonly known as Mooviewood, and it's considered the other major producer of movies after Griffonstone but above Equestria. Equestria's own movie industry is known as Applewood.

The rise of movie theaters has caused controversy within the live theater industry, which considers movie theaters to be unfair competition as playing a movie requires simply a projector and a technician rather than a full crew of actors and stagehooves, and they can perform effects that live plays can't.

This rise has also created a cultural shift where movie theaters have replaced live theaters in the public idea of what constitutes low class entertainment and correspondingly elevated the more expensive live theater to an entertainment of the higher classes.

Both industries remain co-existing. The movie theater industry has added new services to compete against live theaters, such as the sale of snacks and drinks before a projection and of framed movie stills after one.

Live theater went through a phase of being reclaimed as a lower class entertainment after an attempt by the movie industry to further increase its profits by creating self-destructing films that can only be played once before it bursts into flame by a system similar to a friction matchstick. This move by the film industry caused a strong backlash and received criticism due to the costs of purchasing new films for every projection (which would have rendered movie theater as expensive as live theater) as well as the damage caused to the projector by the igniting films and the noxiousness of the fumes.

After the backlash, these self-destructing films were scrapped for their use in commercial movie theaters, although they have found a niche use in intelligence agencies for sending recordings containing sensitive information that shouldn't be played more than once. However, the content of these films can still be played repeatedly by simply pausing and rewinding the film before it gets to the end, or by removing the ignition mechanism.

While in most of Equus, the moving picture stands in direct competition with live theater, in parts of Zebrica the moving picture has found a place within theater, with projections being used to set animated backgrounds for plays or for creating special effects while the actors perform on stage in a unique blend of media. This technique is useful for the depiction of magic-wielding creatures when the actors lack magical skills, such as the portrayal of Unicorns performing spells when the actors are Zebras.