In its broadest sense, a movie is defined as a video or film production that tells a story and shows characters engaged in particular activities, with some or other goal of entertainment in mind. A movie, also known as a motion picture, short movie, or short video, is typically a commercialized, animated work of visual art designed to simulate real-life experiences, stories, representations, emotions, beauty, or setting through the medium of moving pictures. Most movie industry experts agree that the three major factors that affect the success of a movie are the acting, the screenplay, and the director. Together these three play a critical role in creating the impact and lasting impression of a movie.
The internet has made it easy for people to search extensive movie information. Today there are websites dedicated to collating movie data, reviews, ratings, and information for viewers and critics. These websites and search engines make it easy for movie lovers to find and download information about new movies and trailers, as well as current favorites.
The majority of movie databases on the internet today are maintained by websites or organizations that specialize in finding, storing, and facilitating data on films. They have developed relationships with the studios have worked with them to license out the movie data. This licensing process allows them to host their databases and maintain control over them. For the website owner, this is the ideal scenario since it cuts costs for the organization. Movie data can be licensed per movie title or per genre, which means that a single movie data file can contain data on all of the titles or genres ever released, saving a significant amount of money over purchasing each title individually. In addition to this, some databases cater to a limited number of genres exclusively, such as the Disney and Lucasfilm library.
Users can access and search a movie database using either a standard web browser or a specific, built-in browser designed to access the IMDB and API. A built-in browser makes it easy for users to browse through the database and find relevant information. If a user wants to narrow their search to a particular category, they can simply click on a “film” or “movie” icon to narrow their results down. If they want to see all of the movie information about a specific film, they can simply click on the “info” icon next to the film name to reveal additional information. Built-in browsers allow users to access the same functionality that users would get from the built-in search function of an internet browser, saving the additional cost of purchasing online media.
Users can also check the movie information and historical data for a specific film by using the OMDB API. The OMDB API, which stands for Open Movie Database Community, is a standardized method of retrieving information from the database. The OMDB API is used to access statistics regarding past films, to determine if the film is profitable as well as to track viewer demographics. The OMDB API can be implemented in conjunction with proprietary data sources and is usually free of charge. The availability of this information allows for the easy extraction of audience demographics and box office performance by calculating DVD sales by age and geographic location.
Users can also search for specific movie information and historical data by using the Trademark Research Tool, a simple to use, quick way to search for specific movie names, generic terms and generic themes. Trademark research tools can be accessed through the OMDB API. The OMDB API allows a user to search for information based on the registered trademark of a title. The tool then provides search results based on the percentage of complete works, number of references, country of origin, and the names of the authors. The OMDB API makes it easy to retrieve detailed information about a title’s popularity, performance, and marketability.