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Historical Perspective. Throughout the evolution of film making, studio executives, directors and inventors have worked to keep the medium relevant with continual adaptation. Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) British photographer, known for early use of multiple cameras to capture motion
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Throughout the evolution of film making, studio executives, directors and inventors have worked to keep the medium relevant with continual adaptation
Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) British photographer, known for early use of multiple cameras to capture motion and his Zoopraxiscope, a device for projecting motion pictures that pre-dated celluloid film strip.
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
Eadweard Muybridge, 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”
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.”
Thomas 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. Film was moved past a light
Thomas Edison/William Dickson • Kinetograph • 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
Thomas Edison - Kinetograph • 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 Sneeze One of the earliest films
Edison/Dickson Early Films 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
Lumiere 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 Cinematographieshortened to cinema • 1896 they opened theatres in London, Brussels, Belgium and New York to show films.
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 productionsof 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
George 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
Action-Adventures Edwin 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
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
D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, 1915 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
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
FRITZ 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
LENI RIEFENSTAHL Leni Riefenstahl influenced by Lang created Triumph of Will and many propaganda films for Hitler
SERGEI EISENSTEIN Battleship Potemkin Famous "steps" scene Odessa Steps--Quick editing to produces tension
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
Synchronizing Sound VitaphonevsPhonofilm 1920s two competing types of sound were being used Vitaphone was sound on disc Phonofilm was sound on film
Synchronized Sound Late 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
Al Jolson speaks: The Jazz Singer 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.
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
Colour First full length colour film was The World, the Flesh and the Devil, 1914 First three colour process was 1926 Disney used it early Technicolour in 1937 with A Star is Born and in 1939 Gone with the Wind Snow White & Seven Dwarfs 1937
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
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
Concerns about Content TheHouse 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 Joseph McCarthy
Cold War fears of Communism, led to Sci-Fi, Atom Bomb, and • Teenage Angst Movies • 3D and "B" Movies for Drive-Ins • Fall of Single Theaters • Hollywood Adapts • Rise in Television Production • Effects of Online and multimedia