Download The Invention and Early Years of Cinema – Part I

The Early Years of
Cinema – Part I
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The Birth of Cinema
• Cinema was invented in the 1880s-1890s at
the tail-end of the Industrial Revolution
alongside other inventions such as the
telephone (1876), phonograph (1877) and
automobile (1890s).
• Like them, film was an invention that became
the basis of a large industry.
• However, before film (as we know it) could
be invented, several other technological
discoveries had to occur.
Preconditions for Motion Pictures
• Before cinema could be invented, several conditions had to be
in place:
• An understanding of ‘persistence of vision’
• The ability to photograph images (quickly)
• The ability to photograph images on a clear, flexible
material
• The ability to project images
Persistence of Vision
•Persistence of Vision – a commonly-accepted theory that the
human eye continues to see an image, briefly, once it is gone,
which explains how a series of still shots is perceived as moving,
when shown quickly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbHMLV4CZfI
•Now, people believe that when a series of still images is shown in
quick succession, the brain assumes there is motion by filling in the
gaps.
•Several optical toys were marketed that created the illusion of
movement by using a small number of drawings, each altered
somewhat, on a spinning device. When spun, the images move so
quickly that the brain blends them together, and the illusion of
movement is complete.
Optical Toys
The phenakistoscope (left) and zoetrope
(above).
Early Photography
First still
photograph taken
using a glass plate
technique.
Claude Niepce's
“The View from a
Window at Le
Gras” (1827) took
nearly eight hours
to expose.
Early Projection
In the 1800s, the Magic
Lantern was the only way to
project an image. Concave
mirrors behind a light source
gather light and project it
through a painted slide. The
light rays crossed an aperture
(an opening at the front), and
hit a lens. The lens projected
an enlarged picture of the
original image from the slide
onto a screen.
Development of new technologies
• As optical toys and photography gained popularity, inventors
began to experiment by combining these two technologies.
• One such example is Emile Reynaud’s “Projecting Praxinoscope.”
• This device was a spinning drum. The audience saw moving
images appear on a spinning mirror mounted inside a drum with
pictures painted on its walls. Around 1882, Reynaud devised a
way to use a lantern with additional mirrors to project images on
a screen, and then began to use long, broad strips of handpainted frames. These were the first public exhibitions of
moving images, though the effect on the screen was jerky and
slow.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez_UJAafRMs
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4zQ49zgclM
Projecting Praxinoscope
Towards Moving Pictures . . .
• As photographic exposure
times became quicker and
film itself was invented,
photographs were no longer
recorded on glass or metal.
Thus, the potential for
creating moving photographic
images improved.
Muybridge and Motion
•Muybridge’s still photos
of a galloping horse.
When exhibited in rapid
succession, these stills
gave the illusion of
movement and therefore
became one of the best
known precursors to
motion pictures.
• At a California race track, he set up a
bank of twelve cameras with tripwires connected to their shutters.
• Each camera took a picture when the
horse tripped its wire, creating a
successive line of photos depicting
the horse galloping.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYKZif9ooxs
THOMAS EDISON
•Film was invented by
George Eastman in 1885. • http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/edhtml/edmvhist.html
Later, Thomas Edison, his
assistants William Dickson,
Charles A. Brown and
William Heise collaborated
in the lab experiments that
led to the invention of one
of the first movie cameras.
The Kinetoscope was
shown to the public in
1891.
Lumiere Brothers
• In 1894, two brothers from France,
Louis and Auguste Lumiere, designed
a camera which served as both a
recording device and a projecting
device. They call it the
Cinématographe.
• The Cinématographe used flexible
film cut into 35mm wide strips.
• The camera shot films at sixteen
frames per second which became the
standard film rate for nearly 25 years.
Early Cinema- The ‘Actualitie”
• Due to the inventions of Edison, Dickson, the Lumiere Brothers
and Casler (who improved projectors), the invention of cinema
was largely completed by 1897.
• However, cinema in 1897 was a significantly different
entertainment medium than it is today.
• Most films were nonfiction and were referred to as ‘actualities’
or actuality films.
• These were films that simply captured reality – workers leaving
a factory, a theatre performer dancing, a travelogue or film of a
distant land, a fire carriage racing to a fire.
Arrival of a Train
• Arrival of a Train (L’arrivee d’un train en
gare de La Ciotat) is among the Lumiere’s
most famous films.
• It was first publicly projected in January
1896.
• Typical of films of the day, Arrival of a Train
is a single, unedited view of a real life
event http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjtXXypztyw
• Less than 1 minute in length, the film is
composed in one continuous, real-time
shot.
Georges Melies
• A performing magician who owned his own theatre, Georges
Melies decided to add films to his program after seeing the
Lumiere Cinematographe in 1895.
• Accustomed to performing and thinking imaginatively, Melies
did not create actuality films, but creative movies that were
replete with camera tricks, elaborate scenery, theatrical sets and
fantastical stories.
• Melies often incorporated stop-motion and other special effects
to create more complex and magic and fantasy scenes.
•
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPmKaz3Quzo
A Trip to the Moon
• From the late 1890s to the early 1910s,
Melies films were widely successful.
• Among his most celebrated works is A Trip
to the Moon, (Voyage a la lune) 1902
•
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FrdVdKlxUk (the film)
• However, Melies did not alter his theatrical
methods as filmmaking evolved. By 1912,
his small company was in debt and he
stopped producing films, having made 510
films of which about 200 survive.
• He died in 1938, after decades of working in
his wife’s candy and toy shop.
Summary
•Several technological developments had to be in place in order for the
medium of film to be invented.
•There were many people who contributed to the invention and
development of early film – early photographers, inventors and
filmmakers such as Niepce, Muybridge, Edison, and the Lumiere
Brothers all made significant contributions.
•As is the pattern with film development today, the innovations and
discoveries of one filmmaker led to the next (cause and effect
relationship).
•The developments made in early cinema from the 1880s to the mid1900s laid the necessary foundation for both the style and business
structure that would emerge in Hollywood in the 1910s.