History of FilmBeginnings to 1941

First Photographs of Motion*1877 and 1878 by Eadweard Muybridge, a

British photographer working in California

who photographed a running horse by setting up a row of cameras with strings attached to their shutters. When the horse ran by, it broke each string, tripping the shutters.

Thomas Edison

• Company displayed the first commercial motion picture machine, the kinetoscope, at the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893

• An individual would look through a peephole in a cabinet and watch the film

Lumiere Brothers

• Held first public screening of projected motion pictures on Dec., 28, 1895, in a Paris cafe

Early Motion Pictures

• Re-created news events and dramatized folk tales

• No soundtrack but sometimes accompanied by live music, lectures, off-screen actors speaking dialogue, and later printed titles

• Dominated by Edison’s company

Edwin S. Porter

• Leader in shifting film production from current events toward storytelling

• Porter’s The Great Train Robbery portrayed a train robbery and the pursuit and capture of the robbers

• Only 11 minutes long but a huge hit

The Nickelodeon Theater

• Thousands opened in American cities beginning 1905

• Small stores became Nickelodeons by adding a screen and folding chairs

• Admission $.05• Attracted new audience for movies & laid the

foundation for the movie industry

The Birth of Hollywood

• Filmmakers drawn to Southern California because the climate is suitable for year-round shooting (average low 57; high 75; 15” rain annually) and the availability of varied scenery

After World War I ended in 1918, American movies became dominant worldwide

DW Griffith – most influential film director of Hollywood’s early years

• Set the “Hollywood Standard” for film making• Brought wider appreciation to movies as art

and attracted more educated and wealthier audiences

• 1st to shoot scenes from different angles and distances and edit the shots together into 1 scene

• 1st to include action from multiple locations within 1 film

• Invented the close-up shot• The Birth of a Nation = his most famous film

Movies Become Big Business

• “Star System” – publicizing performers became the most effective means of promoting movies and attracting audiences

Vertical Integration

• Movie studios owned production facilities, distribution channels, and movie theaters, giving them control of all elements of movie making

• Allowed them to make LOTS of movies but in familiar, repeatable genres (specific types)ex: Western, Screwball Comedy, Musical, Gangster Picture, Horror

The Movies Talk

• The Jazz Singer (1927) = first popular movie with sound (sound recorded on a record mechanically synched with the film; by 1929, sound recorded directly on the film strip using electronic signals)

• Disney’s Steamboat Willie (1928) = first animated short film to use synchronized sound

• Some stars were able to transition to sound, but others weren’t

Movies in the 1930’s

• Hits in all major genres• Hollywood’s prewar period ended with 2

celebrated films:

Gone With the Wind (1939)

• American Civil War drama and rocky love story of Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler

• Starring Vivian Leigh as Scarlett and Clark Gable as Rhett Butler• Famous line spoken by Clark Gable as Rhett

Butler (to Vivian Leigh’s Scarlett): “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Citizen Kane (1941)

• Story of a powerful American newspaper publisher

• Produced, directed, and starring Orson Welles, who experimented with startling camera angles and dramatic lighting, resulting in brilliant photography that helped make Citizen Kane one of the most honored films in American film history