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Brief overview of motion picture history
Citation preview
Historical PerspectiveHistorical Perspective
Throughout the evolution of film making, studio Throughout the evolution of film making, studio executives, directors and inventors have worked executives, directors and inventors have worked
to keep the medium relevant with continual to keep the medium relevant with continual adaptationadaptation
Eadweard MuybridgeEadweard Muybridge
(1830-1904)
British photographer, known for early use of multiple cameras to capture motionand his Zoopraxiscope, a device for projecting motion pictures that pre-dated celluloid film strip.
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Muybridge invented the Zoopraxiscope, a machine that projected images to show realistic motion.Considered to be a precursor to the development of the motion picture
Muybridge’s Motion Study for Leyland Stanford 1872-78 Muybridge’s Motion Study for Leyland Stanford 1872-78
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Eadweard Muybridge, Eadweard Muybridge, 1872 - 1878 1872 - 1878
Hired by Leland Stanford to prove whether during horse's gallop, all 4 hooves were off the ground at the same time.
Findings: Hooves all leave the ground but not at the point of full extension forward and back, as illustrators imagined, but when all the hooves are tucked under the horse, as it switches from "pulling" from the front legs to "pushing" from the back legs
Photos show each hoof hits the ground just as another is leaving it. At full gallop it gets traction from one hoof at a time.
Series of photos, taken for Stanford University “The Horse in Motion”
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George Eastman George Eastman (1854-1932)
Roll Film, 1888
Developed dry plates, film with flexible backing, roll holders for the flexible film
Kodak camera: camera for novice, and an amateur motion-picture camera.
Kodak: “You press the button, we do the rest.”
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Thomas EdisonThomas Edison
Inspired by Muybridge’s work, Edison decided to develop a motion picture camera. He bought 90 Muybridge Motion Study Images.
1889 he filed a patent for his Kinetoscope to view moving pictures
Although Edison conceived of the idea, most agree that it was his assistant William Dickson who did most of the experimentation and work for the device.
Edison had idea to etch pictures on photographic cylinders.Dickson switched to celluloid film to demonstrate synchronized motion with sound.
Eastman and Edison
The Kinetoscope: A single-viewer peep-show device. The Kinetoscope: A single-viewer peep-show device. Film was moved past a lightFilm was moved past a light
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Thomas Edison/William DicksonThomas Edison/William Dickson
KinetographKinetograph
Edison's Kinetograph was a motion picture camera developed by William Dickson, 1892
Kinetograph uses rapid intermittent film movement to record the movement of images by taking pictures in quick succession. Played back it creates illusion of motion.
To record it uses a motor to run gelatin film over a photographic lens.
Thomas Edison
William Dickson
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Thomas Edison - Thomas Edison - KinetographKinetograph
Developed by Edison and William Dickson, 1892
Together they produced the first preserved motion picture Ott's Sneeze.
Their early movies showed dancers, clowns or other entertainers.
Fred Ott’s SneezeOne of the earliest films
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Edison’s early movies showed dancers, clowns or other entertainers. Edison’s patent did not cover Europe.
Robert Paul fitted the camera with a hand crank that allowed portable set-so filming could be done outside studio
Edison/Dickson Early FilmsEdison/Dickson Early Films
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Lumiere BrothersLumiere Brothers
Auguste and Louis Lumiere, 1895
1894 brothers invented camera that could make films, process and project movies- 35mm film at 16 frames per second Named it Cinematographie shortened to cinema
1896 they opened theatres in London, Brussels, Belgium and New York to show films.
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Lumiere Brothers 1895
One of the first films was Workers Leaving the factory.
Appeal of people "caught in the act of living,”
Edison's movies were staged productions of fiction, the
Lumiere's were everyday people
What people really wanted was a combination of both
fictionalized films in the real world
Lumiere brothers
Everyday scenes
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George MeliesGeorge Melies
Special Effects, 1902
Made a movie A Game of Cards in 1896
His movies were surreal films inspired by his experiences as a magician
Considered the founder of special effects.
Most famous is 10 minute
A Trip to the Moon
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Action-Adventures Action-Adventures
Edwin PorterEdwin Porter
Great Train Robbery, 1903
Edwin S. Porter worked for Edison and showed films under name Thomas Edison Jr.
Early Action/Adventure: Adding the “story”
The Life of an American Fireman
The Great Train Robbery 1903 Action and Drama
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Action-Adventures
D.W. Griffith
The Birth of a Nation, 1915
First Full-Length Feature
Tremendous Cost
Ku Klux Klan Revitalized
National Protests
Creation of United Artists, 1919
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D.W. Griffith's D.W. Griffith's
The Birth of a NationThe Birth of a Nation, , 19151915
First Full-Length Feature
Cost $83,000- very costly
Shows Griffith’s film techniques but is a racist story of struggling US attacked by African Americans (Played by whites in blackface) saved by the Klu Klux Klan
Many leading politicians condemned the movie; in Boston a race riot followed, but the film made $20 million; it was the first film shown in the White House
With others Griffith founded United Artists , 1919
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Documentary
Robert Flaherty
Nanook of the North 1913
A Canadian Inuit's struggle example of early documentary work.
First great nonfiction film. Nanook and his friends and family &
Flaherty re-created an Eskimo culture that no longer existed in a series of
staged scenes.
Controversy over staging
Conflict between the explorer-scientist
Flaherty began a tradition of participatory filmmaking which
continues today.Robert Flaherty
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FRITZ LANGFRITZ LANG
Metropolis
Fritz Lang's futuristic Metropolis in 1926 was noted for its visual
effects.
Lang invited by Hitler to make propaganda films, but he fled
Germany to Hollywood
Fritz Lang
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LENI RIEFENSTAHL
Leni Riefenstahl influenced by Lang created Triumph of Will and many
propaganda films for Hitler
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SERGEI EISENSTEIN
Battleship Potemkin
Famous "steps" scene Odessa Steps--Quick editing to produces tension
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The Silent Era
Movies Became a Business
Directors Learned the Craft Mack Sennett & Hal Roach Cecil B. DeMille & Sergei Eisenstein Charlie Chaplin & Buster Keaton
Star System Established in California
Mary Pickford: $1 Million a Picture or $10 Million in Today's Dollars
Numerous Scandals Pickford/Fairbanks & Roscoe Arbuckle
Academy Awards Established, 1929 as a public relations move to dignify the industry
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Synchronizing Synchronizing SoundSound
Vitaphone vs Phonofilm
1920s two competing types of sound were being used
Vitaphone was sound on disc
Phonofilm was sound on film
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Synchronized SoundLate 1920s
The Vitaphone process was sound on disc played along with a movie to give the illusion of talking pictures.
1926 Vitaphone publicly introduced with premiere of Don Juan, the first feature-length movie to have a synchronized sound system of any type throughout.
The soundtrack had a musical score and sound effects were added but there was no dialogue.
Vitaphone= Sound on Disc
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First Dialogue:
Vitaphone (Disc): Warner Bros.
The Jazz Singer, 1927
Only 4 sequences have sound and only a few moments of dialogue)
About the Jewish experience-the conflict between aged cantor and his young, assimilated son who wants to enter show business.
Actor who plays his role in blackface.
Story of assimilation and Americanization, but it contains a highly offensive racial image.
Racism combined with the expropriation of African American identity.
Al Jolson speaks: The Jazz Singer
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Sound on Disc : 1926-1931
Vitaphone Weakness: cumbersome equipment, vulnerable to severe
synchronization problems, inability to edit
Sound on Film: 1923-
Phonofilm
Versions of Phonofilm followed: Movietone and later Photophone were eventually adopted
Synchronization revived the slumping industry
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ColourFirst full length colour film was The
World, the Flesh and the Devil, 1914
First three colour process was 1926Disney used it early
Technicolour in 1937 with A Star is Born and in 1939 Gone with the Wind
Snow White & Seven Dwarfs 1937
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Colour
Tinted: Great Train Robbery, 1903
Kinemacolor: The World, the Flesh and the Devil, 1914
Technicolor: The Black Pirate, 1926
Cartoons: Flowers and Trees, 1933
Public's Acceptance:The Wizard of Oz, 1939
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FORMATS:
Wide Screen Formats
Aspect Ratio Changed with Sound
Cinerama, 1952
CinemaScope (Panavision), 1953:The Robe
Imax and Omnimax
Letterbox (Movies on Television)
3D
Cinerama from 3 projectors
33Joseph McCarthy
Concerns about Content
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) an investigative committee originally created in 1938 to uncover citizens with Nazi ties within the U.S.
Hollywood Blacklisting: HUAC, 1951 (300 blacklisted)
Senator Joseph McCarthy and his communist witch hunts
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Cold War fears of Communism, led to Sci-Fi, Atom Bomb, and
Teenage Angst Movies3D and "B" Movies for Drive-Ins
Fall of Single Theaters
Hollywood Adapts
Rise in Television ProductionEffects of Online and multimedia