film and media studies slides 2015-16 mrs hill cca

“....WHEN THE FIRST IMAGE PERISHES AND A SECOND IS THEN PRODUCED IN

ANOTHER POSITION, THE FORMER SEEMS TO HAVE ALTERED ITS POSE. OF COURSE THIS MUST BE SUPPOSED TO TAKE PLACE

VERY SWIFTLY; SO GREAT IS THEIR VELOCITY, SO GREAT THE STORE OF

PARTICLES IN ANY SINGLE MOMENT OF SENSATION TO ENABLE THE SUPPLY TO

COME UP”

Titus Lucretius Carus98-55 BC

Saturday, August 29, 15

FATHER ATHANASIUS KIRCHERInvented the Magic Lantern in 1646 in theory. It was a drawing of a box that could reproduce

images by a means passing through a lens. First working model was created by

Christiaan Huygens 1659The first images produced by the Magic Lantern were pictures of The Devil.


EADWEARD MUYBRIDGEFirst to break a continuous action into discrete photographic units in 1872. He invented the

“Zoopraxiscope” which means “life-constructing viewer” in Greek. He mounted his photos on a wheel and used the magic lantern to project the images on the wall.


EMILE REYNAUDInvented the Praxinoscope in 1877 and combined it with the magic lantern, mirrors and

sequential paintings. The miniature paintings were painted on long transparent strips of paper and rolled on to a reel.


THOMAS ALVA EDISON 1847-1931Famous inventor-businessman and considered the “Father of the Movies.” After seeing Muybridge’s Zoopraxiscope, he begin to work on a device that he described as “....doing for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear.” His lab workers actually invented the first “motion pictures” but he

used the concept with his phonograph and a projector to create one and two cylinder machines that

held both images and music and turned in sync in 1890.


GEORGE EASTMAN AND WILLIAM HEISE Eastman perfected celluloid film and mass produced it naming his company Eastman Kodak Company in 1892. William Heise built a camera that used Eastman’s celluloid film and ran horizontally through

the camera. When Edison saw it he secured the patents and rights to the first movie camera. George Eastman on left and one of the first movies by Heise called “The Kiss” 1896.


THE KINETOSCOPEFrom the Greek meaning “motion writer.” Patented and mass produced by Edison. He opened the first Kinetoscope Parlors in America in 1894. People would put a nickel into a slot in the side of the machine and watch one of Heise’s little movies. They lasted only about 20-30 seconds and were

film strips of famous people, animals, clowns, staged events or people dancing or moving.


THE BLACK MARIAThe first movie studio, West Orange, New Jersey 1893. Owned by

Edison, Heise filmed the first studio film here called “Blacksmithing Scene”


THE LUMIERE BROTHERSAuguste and Louis Lumiere began experimenting with Edison’s Kinetoscope and developed their own machine within a year. Unlike Edison’s that was restricted to indoors the brothers invented a portable camera that could be carried anywhere. Also even more important the same machine that shot the pictures also printed and projected them. They called it the Cinematographe and in 1895 they

filmed their first movie called, “Workers leaving the Factory.”


GEORGES MELIESA magician by trade, Melies was fascinated by the idea that the camera could start and stop and start

again. He developed “stop-motion photography” an effect achieved in the camera rather than by cutting the film. Melies combined his love for magic and the technology of the moving camera to make movies creative and enjoyable beyond the marvel of technology. One of his most famous

movies is “A Trip to the Moon” 1902.


EDWIN S. PORTERPorter was one of the first to move the camera, show time transitions, use close-ups, build scenes out

of multiple shots and create a real narrative story line. One of his later films “The Great Train Robbery,” 1903, created an interplay between filmed event and mental connection. It was the most popular movie until 1912. The Great Train Robbery made the audience ask, “what will happen next?

who did it? and how will the hero get out of that?” The final scene is a close up of a bandit shooting at the camera.


CECIL MILTON HEPWORTH“Rescued by Rover” 1905 first use of “plan-sequencing” the

complicated blocking of a lengthy shot.


FILM TIMELINE

• The Kiss- William Heise 1896

• A Trip to the Moon- Georges Melies 1902

• The Great Train Robbery- Edwin Porter 1903

• Rescued by Rover- Cecil Hepworth 1905


FILM TERMS• the shot- the unit of film

• unity of action- a succession of images that produces the desired narrative continuity, the intended meaning and the appropriate emotional tension.

• auteur- the director, producer or writer whose work expresses the complete vision of the film or group of films.

• celluloid- transparent material chemically derived from cellulose; cut into strips to be used as film sheets called cels

• close-up- a shot whose field of view is very narrow; in terms of the human figure a face or hand will fill the entire frame.

• plan sequence or sequence shot- a scene that is covered in a single long take whose camera movements are, in most cases, intricately blocked.

• stop action photography- also known as stop motion; stopping the camera, making a change or letting a change happen in the action area and then restarting the camera, creating what appears to be continuous shot within which everything suddenly shifts position or something is changed into something else.


BIOGRAPH VS VITAGRAPHThe Business wars begin. While filming a fight, a fight

breaks out among the filmmakers.


The Nickelodeon is Born* originally movies were shown in Kineticscope

machines inVaudeville theaters or amusement arcades*In 1902 a Los Angeles entrepreneur opened the first

theater “Thomas L. Tally’s Electric Theater. This wasthe first permanent movie theater in the U.S.

* In 1905 a Pittsburgh theater showed its movieswith an upscale lounge area and live piano music.

Customers paid a “nickel” for the night. * Nickel theaters or Nickelodeons were so popular

that in 1908 they were serving 80 million viewers a week in 5000 theaters.


FILM TERMS

full reel- 1000 feet of 35 mm film. 16 frames per foot. It takes 16.67 minutes to project the reel. However, today a full reel is actually 2000 feet.

reel of sound- the sound that is mixed and edited to to go with the film.* Films are still measured in reels.

Three level structure of the film industry- The early Nickelodeons required about 6 films of one or one-half reel a week. In order to keep customers coming back there was a lot of turn over

and the theater owners had no interest in owning the films, just renting. This created the 3 level structure of the film industry. The film producer made the film, a middle-man or distributor who bought

the film or leased it from the producer. This middle man made sure the film got the most effective circulation to the public. The last person in the structure is the exhibitor. He showed it in his theater

and made money.That structure is still basically the same today.


Film d’ ArtIn 1907 French film companies intended to usethe film strip to record famous artists, actors,

dancers, musicians, composers and playwrights of the day. The first Film d’Art shown in America was“Queen Elizabeth” 1912 featuring Sarah Bernhardt.


film and media studies slides 2015-16 mrs hill cca

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