Okay, so I'm taking a video production class at a college. My instructor keep showing us videos of former students, and some say "video by" and some say "A film by". My instructor has pointed out several times that "A film by" is incorrect because we a shooting of tape/video/DVD, etc. I'm going to encite a riot over this nor make any noise over this. I just want to find out if she is correct because I've seen plenty of movies shot on video where you see "A film by" and she says they are all incorrect for that.
Well, I did some research and if you take film and video each for what they are, they are basically the same except for the storage medium they use.
Film is literally: a similar perforated strip covered with an iron oxide emulsion (magfilm), intended for the recording and reproduction of both images and sound.
The motion picture is like a picture of a lady in a half- piece bathing suit. If she wore a few more clothes, you might be intrigued. If she wore no clothes at all, you might be shocked. But the way it is, you are occupied with noticing that her knees are too bony and that her toenails are too large. The modern film tries too hard to be real. Its techniques of illusion are so perfect that it requires no contribution from the audience but a mouthful of popcorn.
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
Digging deeper into the definition, the definition of Film alone indicates that it is a film, just in digital format. A DVD, video tape, etc. is still Film, just a digital reproduction in the electromagnetic storage medium; it still has all the functions and products of a analogue film.
Now when someone says I saw a great "Film" they are usually talking about a more artistic, sometimes more independent movie than a commercial mainstream, usually referred to as a "Movie".
So is my instructor in the right to tell us that if we put "A film by" because we aren't shooting on flim that it is incorrect. She said she would dock us a point if we put "A film by". Now because I want full points I'm of course adhering to what she wants, but for future if I shoot everything on video isn't still technically a "film"?
In the theater the audience is generally riveted to a single angle of observation. The movie director, though, can rapidly shift from objective to subjective—and to any number of subjective points of view—and in so doing seem to pull the audience directly inside the frame of his picture, giving the spectator the sense of experiencing an action from the viewpoint of a participant. Identification of the viewer with the film character, then, can be much more intimate than the analogous situation in the theater.
—Edward Murray, U. S. educator, critic. The Cinematic Imagination, ch. 1, Frederick Ungar Publishing (1972)
What are you're thoughts. Use examples and details if possible. Thanks.