Film

A film, also called a movie, motion picture or photoplay, is a series of still images which, when shown on a screen, creates the illusion of moving images due to the phi phenomenon. This optical illusion causes the audience to perceive continuous motion between separate objects viewed rapidly in succession. A film is created by photographing actual scenes with a motion picture camera; by photographing drawings or miniature models using traditional animation techniques; by means of CGI and computer animation; or by a combination of some or all of these techniques and other visual effects. The word "cinema", short for cinematography, is often used to refer to the industry of films and filmmaking or to the art of filmmaking itself. The contemporary definition of cinema is the art of simulating experiences to communicate ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty or atmosphere by the means of recorded or programmed moving images along with other sensory stimulations.

The process of filmmaking is both an art and an industry.

Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman (born Neta-Lee Hershlag; Hebrew: נטע-לי הרשלג‎; June 9, 1981) is an actress, film producer and film director with dual American and Israeli citizenship. Her first role was in the 1994 action thriller Léon: The Professional, opposite Jean Reno, but mainstream success came when she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (released in 1999, 2002 and 2005).

Born in Jerusalem to an Israeli father and American mother, Portman grew up in the eastern United States from the age of three. She studied dancing and acting in New York, and starred in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace while still at high school on Long Island. In 1999, Portman enrolled at Harvard University to study psychology, alongside her work as an actress; she completed a bachelor's degree in 2003. During her studies she starred in a second Star Wars film and opened in New York City's Public Theater production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull in 2001.

Portman starred in the 2004 drama Closer, appeared in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith the following year, and won a Constellation Award for Best Female Performance and a Saturn Award for Best Actress for her starring role in the political thriller V for Vendetta (2006). She played leading roles in the historical dramas Goya's Ghosts (2006) and The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), and also appeared in Thor (2011) and its 2013 sequel. In 2010, Portman starred in the psychological horror film Black Swan. Her performance received widespread critical acclaim and she earned her first Academy Award for Best Actress, her second Golden Globe Award, the SAG Award, the BAFTA Award and the BFCA Award in 2011.

Brad Pitt

William Bradley "Brad" Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and producer. He has received a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and three Academy Award nominations in acting categories, and received three further Academy Award nominations, winning one, as producer under his own company Plan B Entertainment.

Pitt first gained recognition as a cowboy hitchhiker in the road movie Thelma & Louise (1991). His first leading roles in big-budget productions came with the dramas A River Runs Through It (1992) and Legends of the Fall (1994), and Interview with the Vampire (1994). He gave critically acclaimed performances in the crime thriller Seven and the science fiction film 12 Monkeys (both 1995), the latter earning him a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and an Academy Award nomination. Pitt starred in the cult film Fight Club (1999) and the major international hit Ocean's Eleven (2001) and its sequels, Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007). His greatest commercial successes have been Troy (2004), Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), and World War Z (2013). Pitt received his second and third Academy Award nominations for his leading performances in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) and Moneyball (2011). He produced The Departed (2006) and 12 Years a Slave (2013), both of which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and also The Tree of Life, Moneyball, and The Big Short (2015), all of which garnered Best Picture nominations.

Jamie Foxx

Eric Marlon Bishop (born December 13, 1967), known professionally as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, singer, and comedian. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor, BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, for his work in the 2004 biographical film Ray. The same year, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the action film Collateral.

Other prominent acting roles include the title role in the film Django Unchained (2012), the supervillain Electro in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) and William Stacks in the 2014 version of Annie. Foxx also starred in the 1990-1994 sketch comedy show In Living Color and his own television show from 1996 to 2001, the sitcom The Jamie Foxx Show, in which he played Jamie King Jr.

Foxx is also a Grammy Award-winning musician, producing four albums which have charted highly on the US Billboard 200: Unpredictable (2005), which topped the chart, Intuition (2008), Best Night of My Life (2010), and Hollywood: A Story of a Dozen Roses (2015).