The word 影片 is formed by combining two meaningful characters: 影 (yǐng), which means "shadow" or "image", and 片 (piàn), which means "a flat piece" or "slice". Together, they create a conceptual compound where 影 conveys the core idea of a photographic or cinematic image, and 片 specifies it as a tangible, flat medium or a segment thereof. The formation is purely semantic, resulting in a new meaning, "film" or "movie", that is logically derived from the union of "image" + "slice/piece", metaphorically representing a motion picture on a film strip or a video recording.