FILM HISTORYThe Beginnings
Inventors
Early film is a result of inventors, not artists.
Persistence of Vision• The ability of the brain to retain an image a split second
longer than the eye actually sees it.
• If we see 16 individual images in rapid succession the brain connects them to make a fluid sequence of movement.
Zoetrope• Circular drum with slits• creates illusionof movement
• 1834• *• *
Experimentation
• In many countries at the same time• France, Germany, England, and the U.S. all claim to have inventedthe movies
PHOTOGRAPHYPrecursor to film
Photography Emerges • 1816 - first photographic images.
• 1839 - clear, sharp images on silver copperplate.• Required 15 minutes
exposure time.
• 1841 - Only 3 minutes needed for exposure.
Beginning of Film
• Originally, films were a series of photographs shown one after another. • The speed was too slow for continuous motion
• Eadweard Muybridge• 1872 - Set up 12 cameras along a track, tied strings to
the shutters which were tripped as the horse ran down the track.
• Created movement with photography.
George Eastman• Developed celluloid film (1884)• made motion pictures
possible • it was flexible• allowed light to pass
through• was durable (it didn’t break
in projector)
First American Motion Picture (1889)
• Thomas Edison and William Dickson filmed a sneeze
*
Edison’s Kinetoscope
• 1889• in parlors• dancing, juggling, wonders of the world, some re-enactments
Open
Closed
•Kinetoscope for individual audiences•Edison did not see future in mass projection• But contributed: sprocket holes on film, first movie studio
Lumière Brothers
• 1895• Worked on Edison’s Kinetoscope
• Designed their own machine within a year
• Solved projection for mass audiences
Cinematographe
• Machine shot the pictures, printed, and projected them.
• The camera was portable.• A hand crank
provided the power.
December 28, 1895• First theater opens to the paying public
• Basement of a Paris café.• Lumières’ shows:
• Workers leaving the Lumière Factory.• Arrival at Lyon.• A Baby’s Meal.
Georges Melies
•One of the first to see
Lumières in Paris•Saw opportunity•Set up Europe’s first film
studio in 1897
- with artificially-arranged scenes
Le Voyage Dans la Lune
• 1902 - Voyage/Trip to the Moon• Pioneer of illusion and fantasy:
• trick photography• dissolves• wipes• stop-motion, slow-motion• and fadeouts
Pixar Zoetrope