No one person created the art of movie making

As early as the Renaissance period Italians (Da Vinci) were experimenting with camera obscura (dark room)

Camera Obscura

is an optical device that projects an image of its surroundings on a screen. It is used in drawing and for entertainment, and was one of the inventions that led to photography. The device consists of a box or room with a hole in one side. Light from an external scene passes through the hole and strikes a surface inside where it is reproduced, upside-down, but with color and perspective preserved. The image can be projected onto paper, and can then be traced to produce a highly accurate representation.

Using mirrors, as in the 18th century overhead version, it is possible to project a right-side-up image. jacked from wikipedia

19th century inventors discovered how to make lasting copies of the image. This advent lead to the creation of photography

In 1820 Englishman William Talbot experimented with images on paper negative, trying to “write with light”.

By 1839 Frenchman Louis Daguerre perfected the process of reproducing sharp permanent images on metal plates called daguerreotypes.

Inventors experimented with the “persistence of vision” What happens when the retina retains

the images of an object for a fraction of a second in the dark

Because the view of objects persists, a succession of till images can appear if properly presented

Inventors gave devices Greek names like thumatrope, zoetrope, and phenakistacope These were little more than curiosities

A combination of camera obscura, persistence of vision, and daguerreotype led to the creation of motion pictures as we know it.

So when was the motion picture invented? When this advent occurred is a

matter of debate among film historians. As early as 1888, Frenchman Louis Le

Prince produced several strips of film in Britain. Little is known of Le Prince. He vanished

in 1890 after boarding a train to Paris

In 1881 Thomas Edison’s assistant William K.L. Dickson used a roll of celluloid film to record sequential photographs in his Kinetograph

Perforated edges in film allowed for it to be lifted and exposed to light frame by frame

When viewed through a peep-hole device, he persistence of vision created the illusion of movement.

Since peepholes are not film, some credit Frenchmen August & Louis Lumiere with creating the motion picture.

The Lumiere brothers created the cinematographe.

The borthers began showing films to audiences in 1895.

-Georges Melies- French Magician Fascinated by films’ capacity for

trickery and spectacle. Was filming traffic in Paris when his

machine jammed. He fixed it and continued filming. Later, during playback, he noticed

that the taxi had morphed into a hearse.

Began experiments in stop-motion photography.

Films of Melies

A Trip to the Moon (1902) The Palace of Arabian Nights (1905)

Lumiere Brothers

Filmed trains entering and leaving the station

Film split into reality and fantasy It is uncertain who developed each

new film technique Early film makers expanded the

language of film (deliberately and trial-and-error).

Edwin S. Porter American Life of an American Airman – built

with a sequence of individual shots. The Great Train Robbery – cut

between indoor and outdoor scenes, without playing each scene out to its dramatic conclusion (unthinkable on stage).

D. W. GriffithAmerican Discovered innovative uses of close-

ups, long shots, pans, and cross cutting through the course of his career.

The Adventures of Dollie (1908) Intolerance (1916)

Film was growing away from its dependence on staged action to become an independent art form.

Rise of a New Art Form

Was considered ‘cheap’ entertainment for the masses well into WWI

Most run-of-the-mill leaned heavily on theatrical models and inexpensive formulas.

Became more widely accepted by the middle class as new studios began turning out full-length features.

Rise of a New Art Form…

Hollywood moguls got their start during this time (Carl Cammle, Jack Warner…)

Shrewd business deals led to the development of these major studios: Universal, Paramount, MGM and Warner Brothers