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