FILM HISTORY

The Beginnings

Photography

The first photographTaken in 1826

By Joseph Niepce

Eadweard Muybridge

• Photographer hired in 1877 to prove a bet– A galloping horse has all

four hooves off the ground during stride

– Set up 24 cameras along a race track

– Experimented with motion sequences and set them up in viewing machines commonly called “Zoetropes.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYKZif9ooxs

Photography to Film

• Multiple cameras producing multiple still photos to

• One camera producing multiple photos– Glass plate to paper to flexible light sensitive

material – Ability to produce multiple photos in the

thousands

The Eye

• Persistence of Vision/Phi Phenomena– Motion is an optical illusion– The retina retains an image for a fraction of a

second– Early silent film was standardized at 16 frames per

second

George Eastman

• 1889 Perfected a process of nitro cellulose base on rolls that were transparent, thin, strong and standard in quality and began to manufacture them

THOMAS EDISON

• Laboratories in West Orange, New Jersey

• Invited Muybridge to his lab to demonstrate the Zoetrope device

• Interested in a visual accompaniment to his phonograph

Black Maria Studio (1893)-Kinetographic Theater

Early Edison Films

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQk5RftSdF8

W.K.L. Dickson

• invented the motion picture camera Kinetograph (motion writer) and Kinetoscope (motion viewer).

• Produced short bits of motion for single viewers and charged a nickel

• Fred Ott’s Sneeze and the Rice-Irwin Kiss

Edison’s Kinetoscope

The Black Maria

• Edison’s studio in West Orange

• All black and rotated to stay with the sun

Technical Inventions

– American Perforation• Allowed film to run smoothly in cameras and

projection (Dickson)

– Latham Loop, patented by Thomas Armet (worked for Edison)

• Intermittent Movement: Allowed film to stop momentarily at the gate

Lumiere vs. Dickson

Latham Loop and Intermittent Movement

Lumiere

• Simple shots– Train leaving station– Workers leaving the

factory– Steady camera

observing action

– Realism

The Lumiere Brothers

• France 1895: Short Documentaries

George Melies

Melies

Scorsese’s Hugo (2011)

A Trip to the Moon

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FrdVdKlxUk

Early Filmmakers

The Great Train Robbery 1903

Porter•First Narrative Film

•Worked for Edison

•1903

•One Reel ten minutes long

•First film with a storyline

•First film shot out of sequence/editing

•First Western

•First Smash Hit

Major Companies

• Edison• Biograph• Vitagraph• Essanay• Lubin

• Selig• Kalem• Melies• Pathe

Motion Picture Patents Company

• Nine major film companies

• Monopoly on Film• Exclusive contract

with Eastman Kodak• The General Film

Company for distribution

Birth of Cinema Short

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0jm6j3s_uE