In filmmaking

Filmmaking

Filmmaking is the process of making a film, from an initial story, idea, or commission, through scriptwriting, casting, shooting, directing, editing, and screening the finished product before an audience that may result in a theatrical release or television program...

, video production

Video production

Video production is videography, the process of capturing moving images on electronic media even streaming media. The term includes methods of production and post-production...

, and other media

Mass media

Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...

, the term live action refers to cinematography

Cinematography

Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...

, videography

Videography

Videography refers to the process of capturing moving images on electronic media even streaming media). The term includes methods of video production and post-production...

 not produced using animation

Animation

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...

. As it is the norm, the term is usually superfluous, but it makes an important distinction in situations in which one might normally expect animation, as in a Pixar

Pixar

Pixar Animation Studios, pronounced , is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide...

 film, a video game or when the work is adapted from an animated cartoon

Animated cartoon

An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn film for the cinema, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot...

, such as Scooby-Doo

Scooby-Doo (film)

Scooby-Doo is a 2002 American comedy film based on the Hanna-Barbera television cartoon series Scooby-Doo about a group of young detectives and their talking dog. It is the first installment in the Scooby-Doo live action film series...

, The Flintstones

The Flintstones (film)

The Flintstones is a 1994 American live-action comedy film based on the Hanna-Barbera cartoon television series of the same name about a Stone-Age man, his family and his best friend. The film was directed by Brian Levant, written by Tom S. Parker, Jim Jennewein and Steven E...

or Josie and the Pussycats

Josie and the Pussycats (film)

Josie and the Pussycats is a 2001 comedy film released by Universal Studios and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Directed and co-written by Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan, the film is loosely based upon the Archie comic of the same name...

films, or The Tick

The Tick (animated TV series)

The Tick: The Animated Series is an American animated television series adaptation of the New England Comics superhero, The Tick. The series debuted September 10, 1994 on the Fox network's Fox Kids block and was responsible for introducing the satirical comic book character to a mainstream...

television program

Television program

A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...

. Use of puppets in films such as The Dark Crystal

The Dark Crystal

The Dark Crystal is a 1982 British-American fantasy film directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz. Although marketed as a family film, it was notably darker than previous material created by them. The animatronics used in the film were considered groundbreaking. The primary concept artist was the...

is also considered to be live action, provided that stop-motion is not used to animate them.

The term is also used within the animation world to refer to non-animated characters: in a live-action/animated film

Live-action/animated film

A live-action/animated film is a motion picture that features a combination of real actors or elements: live-action and animated elements, typically interacting.-History:...

 such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a 1988 American fantasy-comedy-noir film directed by Robert Zemeckis and released by Touchstone Pictures. The film combines live action and animation, and is based on Gary K. Wolf's novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, which depicts a world in which cartoon characters...

or Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins (film)

Mary Poppins is a 1964 musical film starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, produced by Walt Disney, and based on the Mary Poppins books series by P. L. Travers with illustrations by Mary Shepard. The film was directed by Robert Stevenson and written by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi, with songs by...

, in which human

Human

Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...

s and cartoons co-exist, "live-action" characters are the "real" actors, such as Bob Hoskins

Bob Hoskins

Robert William "Bob" Hoskins, Jr. is an English actor known for playing Cockney rough diamonds, psychopaths and gangsters, in films such as The Long Good Friday , and Mona Lisa , and lighter roles in family films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Hook .- Early life :Hoskins was born in Bury St...

 and Julie Andrews

Julie Andrews

Dame Julia Elizabeth Andrews, DBE is an English film and stage actress, singer, and author. She is the recipient of Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy, BAFTA, People's Choice Award, Theatre World Award, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award honors...

, as opposed to the animated "actors", such as Roger Rabbit himself.

Live action can also mean that a film or a television show is adapted from comics

Comics

Comics denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual and verbal side in...

. Adaptations from comics include live-action film versions of Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics

Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...

' Spider-Man

Spider-Man

Spider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15...

 and X-Men

X-Men

The X-Men are a superhero team in the . They were created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, and first appeared in The X-Men #1...

, DC Comics

DC Comics

DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...

' Superman

Superman

Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...

 and Batman

Batman

Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...

, or manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 such as Death Note

Death Note

is a manga created by writer Tsugumi Ohba and manga artist Takeshi Obata. The main character is Light Yagami, a high school student who discovers a supernatural notebook, the "Death Note", dropped on Earth by a god of death, or a shinigami, named Ryuk...

and Great Teacher Onizuka

Great Teacher Onizuka

, officially abbreviated as GTO, is a Japanese shōnen manga written and illustrated by Tohru Fujisawa. It was originally serialized in Weekly Shōnen Magazine from May 1997 to April 2002. The story focuses on 22-year-old ex-bōsōzoku member Eikichi Onizuka, who becomes a teacher at a private high...

.

See also

• Animated cartoon
  Animated cartoon
  An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn film for the cinema, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot...
  
  
• Films with live action and animation
• List of live-action puppet films
• Live action role-playing game
  Live action role-playing game
  A live action role-playing game is a form of role-playing game where the participants physically act out their characters' actions. The players pursue goals within a fictional setting represented by the real world, while interacting with each other in character. The outcome of player actions may...
  
  
• Live television
  Live television
  Live television refers to a television production broadcast in real-time, as events happen, in the present. From the early days of television until about 1958, live television was used heavily, except for filmed shows such as I Love Lucy and Gunsmoke. Video tape did not exist until 1957...