The History of Film

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The History of Film
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• Rooted in still photography - early to mid 1800s
• Considered 1st actual photograph,1826
• by French inventor Nicéphore Niépce

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Origins of Motion Pictures

• Early 1890s
• Simultaneous development
• U.S. - Thomas Edison
• France - Lumiere Brothers
• (Auguste Louis)

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America

• 1891 Edison and W. K. L. Dickson invent
• THE KINETOSCOPE

Individual viewing booths With film projected at
48 fps

• 1894, First Kinetoscope parlors
• NYC
• 5 cents 20 60 seconds

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America

• 1893 Edison builds the Black Maria in West
  Orange, NJ
• Attracted famous vaudeville acts / performances
• Shoots over 200 short films in its first 8 years.

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France

• Louis and Auguste Lumieres photo factory
• Cinematographe
• Lightweight and mobile doubled as a projector
  and developed film.
• Creates global presence of film

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France

• Cinema begins!
• Lumieres have 1st public screening on
  December 28, 1895 in Paris
• 10 Actualities shown

Meant to portray actual life

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America

• Cinema begins!
• Edison has first public screening April, 1896
• New York City Koster and Bials Music Hall
• Several single shot films as part of variety
  program (singing, dancing, performance)

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The earliest filmsup to 1902-03

• Primitive techniques
• Usually just showed a view
• 1 angle
• Stationary
• generally less than 1 minute

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Films after 1902-03

• Multiple shot productions
• Fiction films and theatrical films begin
• Types
• Trick films film increased the power of
  illusion
• Comedies mostly nonsensical
• Chases mini-stories

Trick film The Golden Beetle, 1907

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Exhibition of new multiple shot films--
Nickelodeons --

• Small (under 200 seat), family owned movie house.
  
• They tended to have continuous daily showings of
  a few (three or four) short "feature" films.
• These theatres attracted a wide clientele which
  included women and children.

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Exhibition of new multiple shot films--
Nickelodeons --

• 1st Nickelodeon opened in Pittsburgh
• June 1905.

Entrance to the Harris nickelodeon Smithfield
Street in Pittsburgh, 1919

• 8,000 American Nickelodeons by 1908.
• The film industry evolved from the demands of
  these
• small store front theatres.

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Narrative story filmsearly 1900s

• Classical or scenic moments from famous stories
  (the Bible, history, etc.)
• 2 pioneers of new multiple shot films
• Georges Melies (France)
• Edwin Porter (USA) hired by Edison

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Georges MeliesThe Cinemagician

• Films characterized by
• Special effects
• Fantasy
• highly artificial sets
• many shots, most scenes only one shot
• dissolves

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Georges Melies--- most famous film ---
A Trip to the Moon (Le voyage dans la Lune) - 1902
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Edwin Porter

• Thomas Edison hired him to make films
• Porter is credited with establishing an editing
  language (with Life of an American Fireman,
  1903)
• Use of cross-cutting - to dramatize the action
  inside and outside of the house
• Various angles and shots
• Continuity of action introduced

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Edwin Porter-- his most famous film --

• The Great Train Robbery, 1903
• Considered the first real movie with a plot, it
  used
• Multiple scenes, locations
• Frequent cross-cutting, parallel stories
• Pans and tilts
• Other directors had presented multiple scenes
  sequentially before, but their films played like
  condensed versions of stage plays, The Great
  Train Robbery played like a movie

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Major developments after 1907

• Shots were closer (within 9 ft.)
• POV shots used
• More cross-cutting
• Use of intertitles

Screens with written dialogue Between shots
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Major developments after 1907Narrative
(storytelling) techniques improved

• David Wark (D. W.) Griffith
• Was the narrative pioneer
• Made first feature length films
• Made more serious films
• Used moving shots dollies, tracking shots, etc.

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D. W. Griffiths Most famous (and controversial)
film

• The Birth of a Nation (1915)
• The three hour ten minute film,
• based on The Clansman by
• Thomas Dixon, deals with
• The American Civil War and the
• rise of the Ku Klux Klan during the
• Reconstruction.

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Birth of a Nationtrailer, 1915

• Considered to be technically sophisticated and
  ahead of its
• time but extremely backward in ideas

Despite its controversial story, the film
continues to get praise from film critics such as
Roger Ebert, who said "'The Birth of a Nation'
is not a bad film because it argues for evil.
Like Riefenstahls 'The Triumph of the Will,' it
is a great film that argues for evil. To
understand how it does so is to learn a great
deal about film, and even something about evil. "

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Narrative feature length films, along with the
popularity of movie theaters, brought about the
Rise of Hollywoodand the first talkie (film
with sound) The Jazz Singer, 1927
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The Golden Age of Hollywood

• 1927 and 1928 beginning of Hollywood's Golden
  Age and the final steps in the establishment of
  studio system control of the American film
  business.
• The success of 1927's The Jazz Singer gave a big
  boost to the then midsized Warner Bros. studio.
  The following year saw the general introduction
  of sound throughout the industry.

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The Golden Age of Hollywood

• Studio System the practice of large motion
  picture studios
• producing movies on their own filmmaking lots
• pursuing vertical integration -- ownership or
  control of distributors and movie theaters,
  guaranteeing additional sales of films through
  manipulative booking techniques.

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The Golden Age of Hollywood

• During the Golden Age, only eight companies
  comprised the major studios in the Hollywood
  studio system. Of these eight, five were fully
  integrated, combining ownership of a production
  studio, distribution division, and theater chain
  
• Fox (later 20th Century-Fox),
• Loews Incorporated (owner of America's largest
  theater chain and parent company to MGM),
• Paramount Pictures
• RKO, and
• Warner Bros.

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The Golden Age of Hollywood

• Film historians list a few reasons why many great
  movies emerged during this period
• Quantity! With so many movies being made, not
  every one had to be a big hit. A studio could
  gamble on a medium-budget film with a good script
  and relatively unknown actors.
• In other cases, strong-willed directors battled
  the studios in order to achieve their artistic
  visions this is less common nowadays, but helped
  produce many unique and interesting films for the
  time period.

Famous Movies The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the
Wind, Casablanca, It's a Wonderful Life, the
original King Kong, and Snow White and the Seven
Dwarves many others!
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The Paramount Case

• This1948 Supreme Court case ruled against these
  unfair distribution and exhibition practices
  (vertical integration) and ended the studio
  system, which gave those Big 5 studios control
  of basically the entire film market this brought
  about the end of the Golden Age.

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The Rise of TV-- 1950s --

• Movie attendance peaked in 1946. There
• several reasons why it has never reached
• the same levels of attendance
• The invention and widespread ownership of
  televisions
• The post-World War II era led to
• Suburbanizationsuburbs sprouted up, making
  people less interested in traveling to the cities
  to see movies
• The Baby Boommore babies made many people more
  family-oriented

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The Rise of TV -- 1950s
New ways to attract audiences

• Cinemascope

3-D
A bigger, wrap-around Screen in theaters
(similar to IMAX).
Cinerama
3 screens combined to project a much
bigger Image more expensive
Smellovision!!
a system that released odors during the
projection of a film so that the viewer could
"smell" what was happening in the movie. The
process injected 30 different smells into a movie
theater's seats when triggered by the film's
soundtrack. Hilarious!
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New Hollywood

• Generally dated to the release of Jaws in 1975

• New Hollywood characterized by the Blockbuster
  Syndrome The Film industry is dominated by high
  cost, high stakes productions studios generally
  fund movies that are sure to be successful. This
  leads to
• Sequels
• High action / less dialogue movies
• Movies easily translated into other languages
  (for overseas success)

1975
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New Hollywoodmore characteristics

• Multi-plex theatres

Sequels
Younger viewers
Series
Less dialogue, more spectacle
Remakes