Academy Museum of Motion Pictures facts for kids
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The Saban Building, a restored 1939 Streamline Moderne May Company building (2021)
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| Established | 2021 |
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| Location | 6067 Wilshire Boulevard Los Angeles, California United States |
| Type | Motion picture history |
| Collection size | over 13 million objects |
| Architect | Renzo Piano Kulapat Yantrasast |
| Owner | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences |
| Public transit access |  Wilshire/Fairfax (2025) 20 720 |
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is an awesome film museum in Los Angeles, California. It opened in 2021 and is the first big museum of its kind in the United States! This amazing place has over 13 million items. It's all about the history, science, and cultural impact of movies.
The museum is inside the historic May Company Building. It's part of a famous area called Museum Row on the Miracle Mile. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) built this cool museum.
Contents
History of the Museum
The museum was supposed to open in 2020. But its opening was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It finally opened to special celebrity guests on September 25, 2021. The public could visit starting September 30.
After it opened, some people felt the museum didn't focus enough on the Jewish people who helped create the movie industry. In response, the Academy Museum announced plans. They will create a special exhibit about these important movie pioneers. This new exhibit, called "Hollywoodland: Jewish Founders and the Making of a Movie Capital," will open in May 2024.
Museum Design
A famous Italian architect named Renzo Piano designed the museum. The main building is called the Saban Building. It got this name after a big donation from Cheryl and Haim Saban. The outside of this old building was made new again. It now has fresh limestone and shiny new gold leaf tiles on its round corner.
Inside the Saban Building, you'll find two cool exhibit areas. These are the Spielberg Family Gallery and the Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Gallery. There's also the Shirley Temple Education Studio. This studio is for workshops where you can learn about filmmaking. It also has many items from Shirley Temple's amazing career.
A giant sphere-shaped building was added next to the main Saban Building. It's connected by special walkways. This sphere has a glass-domed terrace called the Dolby Family Terrace. The museum has two movie theaters for film showings and special events. The biggest one is the 1,000-seat David Geffen Theater in the Sphere. The smaller one is the 288-seat Ted Mann Theater in the Saban Building's lower level.
Amazing Collections
The Academy Museum has over 13 million objects! These include cool costumes, costume sketches, film reels, posters, movie props, and screenplays. Some of these items date all the way back to 1927. For example, in 2020, the museum bought the "May Queen" dress. Florence Pugh wore it in the movie Midsommar (2019).
Here are some of the awesome things you can see in the museum:
- A cape worn by Bela Lugosi in the 1931 film Dracula.
- Shirley Temple's tap shoes from The Little Colonel (1935).
- Dorothy's famous ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz (1939).
- Stone tablets from The Ten Commandments (1956).
- The typewriter used to write the script for Psycho (1960).
- The Aries 1B spaceship model and a space suit worn by Keir Dullea. These are from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
- The only remaining shark mold from the movie Jaws (1975).
- An E.T. prop from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982).
- The yellow dress worn by Emma Stone in La La Land (2016).
- The costume of the amphibian man from The Shape of Water (2017).
- Pillars named after important people in movie history. These include Rita Moreno, Cher, Barbra Streisand, and Hattie McDaniel.
Cool Exhibitions
The second and third floors of the museum feature the "Stories of Cinema" exhibition. The first special collection in the Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Gallery was all about Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. This exhibit opened on September 30, 2021. It was the first time Miyazaki’s work was shown in such a big way in the United States. Many pieces were also shown outside of Japan for the very first time.
This huge exhibition had over 300 objects. These included original drawings, character designs, storyboards, and posters. The museum worked with Studio Ghibli and the Ghibli Museum in Japan to get all these materials. There are also interactive displays inspired by Miyazaki's films, like the "Mother Tree" and the "Magical Forest."
After that, there will be an exploration of the history of Black cinema up to 1971.
Other galleries in the museum focus on different topics, including:
- Pedro Almodóvar
- The movie Citizen Kane (1941)
- Bruce Lee
- Spike Lee
- Oscar Micheaux
- The movie Real Women Have Curves (2002)
- Thelma Schoonmaker
There's also an area with Oscar statuettes. It celebrates historic Oscar winners like Ang Lee, Barry Jenkins, Sidney Poitier, and Buffy Sainte-Marie.
Academy Museum Gala
The Academy Museum Gala is an event held every year. It helps raise money for the museum. At the gala, they show off the filmmaking process or the history of cinema.
The Academy Museum Gala 2023 was the third one. This year, the Academy raised $10 Million! The gala honored amazing stars like Meryl Streep, Michael Jordan, and Oprah Winfrey.
Film Premieres
The museum is also a place where new movies have their first showings in Los Angeles. Some films that have had their premieres here include:
- Last Night in Soho (2021)
- Belfast (2021)
- House of Gucci (2021)
- Nightmare Alley (2021)
- Being the Ricardos (2021)
- Ambulance (2022)
- Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)
- Babylon (2022)
- Elemental (2023)
See Also
In Spanish: Museo de la Academia de Artes para niños
