Amateur film is the low-budget

hobbyist A hobby is considered to be a regular activity that is done for enjoyment, typically during one's leisure time. Hobbies include collecting themed items and objects, engaging in creative and artistic pursuits, playing sports, or pursuing oth ...

art of

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

practised for passion and enjoyment and not for

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...

purposes.

Organizations

The international organization for amateur film makers is UNICA ( Union International du Cinema Non Professionel); in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

the

American Motion Picture Society American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

(AMPS), in Canada the Society of Canadian Cine Amateurs (SCCA), in the UK it is the

Institute of Amateur Cinematographers An institute is an organisational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes can ...

. These organizations arrange annual

festival A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival c ...

s and conventions. There are several amateur film festivals held annually in the United States,

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. The Cinema Museum in London holds a large collection of amateur films whose details can be accessed on-lin

Creation

Amateur films were usually shot on

16 mm film 16 mm film is a historically popular and economical gauge of film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 and 35 mm. It is generally used for non-theatrical (e.g., industrial, educ ...

or on 8 mm film (either Double-8 or Super-8) until the advent of cheap

video camera A video camera is an optical instrument that captures videos (as opposed to a movie camera, which records images on film). Video cameras were initially developed for the television industry but have since become widely used for a variety of oth ...

s or digital equipment. The advent of

digital video Digital video is an electronic representation of moving visual images (video) in the form of encoded digital data. This is in contrast to analog video, which represents moving visual images in the form of analog signals. Digital video comprises ...

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.

Notable films

A number of amateur films have been added to the National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB)

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception i ...

(NFR) including: * ''

The Augustas ''The Augustas'' (filmed in the 1930s and the 1940s) is a home movie made by Scott Nixon, a traveling insurance agent from Augusta, Georgia and an avid member of the Amateur Cinema League who enjoyed recording his life and travels on film. It las ...

'' (1930s-1950s) * '' Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse'' (1940) * ''

Disneyland Dream ''Disneyland Dream'' (1956) is a home movie made by Robbins and Meg Barstow that documents their family's free trip to the newly opened Disneyland. The one-week trip was a prize they won in a contest sponsored by Scotch tape. The movie was shot w ...

'' (1956) *

Zapruder film The Zapruder film is a silent 8mm color motion picture sequence shot by Abraham Zapruder with a Bell & Howell home-movie camera, as United States President John F. Kennedy's motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on November ...

(1963)

References

External links

Amateur Film Clips

Streaming Amateur Film

Amateur Cinema Project
Film genres Hobbies Amateur filmmaking {{film-genre-stub

Organizations

Creation

Notable films

Further reading

References

External links