Early CinemaAn introduction to Film Studies

This session should...• Make you start to think about a range of

issues in Film Studies

• Give you a basic historical understanding of the beginnings of Cinema

• Allow you to see the birth and growth of cinematic language and think about this in relation to more recent films

What are Moving Pictures?

“Photography is truth. Cinema is truth 24 times a second.”

Jean-Luc Goddard

Film cameras take photographs in very quick succession - originally at 16 frames per second. 24 fps became standard in the 1920s

Our eyes can’t cope. Persistence of Vision kicks in and instead of seeing individual still images we think we’re seeing moving images.

Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory (Lumiere Brothers, France, 1895)

The first film to be projected and shown in public to a paying audience - the first piece of Cinema

What key elements of film language can you see in the film?

* Editing?* Sound?* Cinematography?* Mise en Scene?* Performance?

* Narrative?* Genre?

... and yes, Cinema is French.

Not quite so early film

• The Great Train Robbery (Porter, USA, 1903)

• Watch and answer the following questions...1. What is the genre of this film? How do you know?

2. How have things moved on since the Lumiere film?

3. What cinematic language is there in this film that you recognise form modern films?

4. What is still missing from this that you expect to see in modern films?

You should now...• Have an idea about the early years of

cinema

• Be able to identify cinematic techniques, even in very simple films

• Be able to identify the development of storytelling in early cinema