Feature film | What is, definition, characteristics, types, origin, history, duration

Feature film

In order to be able to refer to the term feature film, we must also know that it is part of a film production, in other words, the group of specialists who are in charge of participating in the making of a film. Cinema, besides being an art and an important industry, is also a means of communication that has had a great influence within society and part of this great area is the feature film. When we see cinematographic productions, we can realize that some of them have a shorter time and others a longer duration, and this is when we hear the word feature film.

What is a feature film?

A feature film is any film production that has a duration greater than or equal to sixty minutes, or one that has a duration greater than forty-five minutes that is produced in 70 mm format and a minimum of eight image perforations.

Definition
Characteristics of a feature film
Origin
History
Types of Feature Films
How long it lasts
How it differs from a short film
Examples of feature films

Definition

We know as a feature film the audiovisual production or cinematographic production, which has a minimum duration of 60 minutes, is also considered as a feature film that production with a duration greater than forty-five minutes is produced in a support format of 70 mm with a minimum of 8 perforations per image.

Characteristics of a feature film

The most outstanding characteristics of a feature film are the following:

They have a duration of 30 minutes or more.
Feature films longer than 45 minutes are produced on a 70-millimeter
They have a wide variety of classes and genres.
The length of the feature film may also vary depending on the country in which it is made.

Origin

The origin of the feature film is documented in Lubin’s Passion Play, a representation of the Passion produced by the Lubin Manufacturing Company and premiered in January 1903. The film was divided into thirty-one parts and had a total duration of sixty minutes. Sometime later, the French company Pathé Frères launched its own cinematographic representation of the Passion of Christ: La Vie et la passion de Jésus-Christ, which was divided into thirty-two parts and lasted forty-four minutes.

History

According to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, the first feature film ever made was called The Story of the Kelly Gang, a silent film of Australian origin that lasted just over an hour and was written and directed by Charles Tait.

Types of Feature Films

The classification of the feature film is quite extensive, and in order to make it, several different aspects are taken into consideration in order to classify it depending on the style, setting, format or type of audience. In this way we have:

According to its style or tone

Drama: are those films that focus mainly on the development of a conflict between the protagonists.
Comedy: these are films that have been filmed to provoke humor, entertainment and laughter in the spectator that sometimes have a reflective message.
Action: these are films that have an argument that implies the moral interaction that occurs through violence or physical force.
Adventure Cinema: this type of cinema contains situations of danger and risk.
Terror: these films are made to provoke tension and fear within the audience.
Science-fiction films: these are films that show the progression from the unknown to the known through the resolution of a series of enigmas.
Romantic cinema: these are films that refer specifically to romantic elements.
Musical cinema: films that contain some small interruptions as they develop, in order to introduce a musical fragment that can be sung or accompanied by a choreography.
Melodrama: films with a strong emotional or moral or emotional charge.
Cinema catastrophe: are films which have as their main theme the great catastrophes that have happened or may happen.
Fantasy: films that contain a series of facts, worlds, creatures or fantasy things.
Pornographic: Contains explicit sexual scenes.

According to its setting

Historical: they tell us stories that have happened in the past, with the intention of making a historical recreation.
Police-Film: This type of feature film tells us about the defeat of “evil” through police action.
War: refers to battlefields and times of war.
From the West or also known as Western: these are films that were developed during the colonial period of the United States of America.
Science fiction films: they show us the space dominated by man or future civilizations.
Fantasy: refers to mythical worlds that are born from the author’s imagination.
Sport: tells stories in environments or events related to a sport.

According to its format

Animation: these are films also known as cartoons that are composed of photograms that are drawn by hand and that create the illusion of movement.
Real image, or live action: these are films filmed with real actors.

By type of audience

Children: these are feature films aimed at children.
Juvenile: feature films aimed at teenagers.
Family: made with the intention of attracting people of all ages.
Adult: aimed at adult audiences; much of its content includes scenes of violence, threatening themes, shocking words or explicit sex.

How long it lasts

The feature film is a film that has a duration of sixty minutes or longer than this number. The term also includes those films that have a duration of more than forty-five minutes, and that are produced in 70 mm format, with a minimum of 8 perforations per image.

How it differs from a short film

When we talk about short films we are referring to productions that have a duration of 30 minutes or less and can represent any existing genre as long as it adapts to the duration of the footage although it is more common to see experimental themes and art cinema. With respect to feature films, these are all productions that have a duration equal to or greater than 60 minutes.