Movie History

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Movie History

• Objective As a TGV 40/4M student, you must
  create a PowerPoint or Pages Movie history project

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AS a TGV 40/4M student you must

• Pick a Movie history topic
• Research your topic (Use Internet, Digital
  Overdrive, books, video, etc)
• Create a WEB graphic organizer to develop
  sub-topics (including an Introduction
  conclusion)
• Research your topic according to your sub topics
• Create a PowerPoint slide show that follows your
  WEB (Use your English or Quote source, Add
  relevant pictures, information, etc)
• Record (copy) your sources create a Source
  (last) page!
• Present your project to the class

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Example
SUB TOPICS Get help if you dont know
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Classification may be required
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Studio System

• Explain how the system became established
• How did the system benefit movie production?
• What happened with the license to film?
• What were some of the negative effects?

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Why is Movie history important?

• It gives us cultural perspective
• It gives us critical insight into the development
  of camera technology, story-telling, editing,
  SPFX, movie business, audience expectations, etc
• To be a good video-grapher, film student or
  editor, you should know a little about film
  traditions, the evolution of film genres, past
  popular stories, technical innovations, etc
• It is full of fascinating stories

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Movie History

• Now for a concise
• Overview
• (pay attention you want to
• Pick your topic!)

Plays and dances had elements common to films-
scripts, sets, lighting, costumes, production,
direction, actors, audiences, storyboards, and
scores. They preceded film by thousands of years
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Introduction

• Silent Era (1900s the birth of cinema) Noted for
  Star system famous actor/directors
• Sound Era (1930-1960)
• The evolution of genres Studio system
  evolves
• Post Classical Era produces Auteur Style
  directors (1970- 1980) Noted for directors
  personal visions creative insights sex,
  drugs, taboo__ eg West Side Story
• Blockbuster/Sequel Era (1980-1990)
• Independent Film Era (1995-present)

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Silent Era

• 1895- Lumiere brothers create the
  Cinematographe which used a projector to show
  Workers Leaving the factory birth of cinema
• 1896 Thomas Edison projects 1st film in North
  America
• 1902- A Trip to the Moon George Melies uses
  stop motion and other SPFX that were advanced for
  his time
• 1909 9000 movie cinemas (show 10-12 minute
  films) and many film genres emerge
• 1912 Universal Studios Hollywood dominates
  with DW Griffith, Cecile B DeMille, Charlie
  Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford

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Auguste and Louis Lumière

• It all began in 1895 when the Lumiere brothers
  shot
• Workers leaving the Lumiere factory
• Unfortunately They thought that Film was an
  invention without a future, and gave it up for
  colour still photograph

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Silent Era

• Thomas Edison hires WKL Dickson (below) to create
  the first movie camera

• W K L Dickson creates the Kinetograph and
• Kinetoscope to watch a movie using Kodak film
• In 1893

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35 mm filmstrip of the Edison production
Butterfly Dance (ca. 189495), featuring
Annabelle Whitford Moore,
Interior view of Kinetoscope with peephole viewer
at top of cabinet NOTE Only 1 person can watch
this!
Visit link to see this Film
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LumiC3A8re
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Only One person can view the Kinetoscope at a
time

• In 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene (2 sec) first movie
• The first movie projector invented by C F Jenkins
  R W Paul in 1894
• In 1895 the Lumiere brothers projected 12 short
  films in Paris (including the Workers)

cinematographe
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Cinematographe

• Note Lumiere can record, develop and show his
  film on this one machine!

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At Edisons Black Maria
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French Movies (after Lumieres)

• By 1898 Georges Méliès was the largest producer
  of fiction films in France, and from this point
  onwards his output was almost entirely films
  featuring trick effects, which were very
  successful in all markets. The special popularity
  of his longer films, which were several minutes
  long from 1899 onwards (while most other films
  were still only a minute long), led other makers
  to start producing longer films.

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Edwin S Porter

• In 1905, Edwin Porter made How Jones Lost His
  Roll, The Whole Dam Family and the Dam Dog.
• Both of these films had inter-titles which were
  formed by the letters moving into place from a
  random scattering to form the words of the
  titles.
• This was done by exposing the film one frame at a
  time, and moving the letters a little bit towards
  their final position between each exposure. This
  is what has come to be called single frame
  animation

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Like George Melies

• Edwin Porter continued the idea of Continuity
  -that one scene led to the next
• He also put cross-dissolve transitions from 1
  scene to the next.
• 1905 Great Train Robbery The one-reel film,
  with a running time of twelve minutes, was
  assembled in twenty separate shots, along with a
  startling close-up of a bandit firing at the
  camera.
• A shot in production, defined by the beginning
  and end of a capturing process, is equivalent to
  a clip in editing, defined as the continuous
  footage between two edits

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D W Griffith

• 1915 Birth of a Nation uses 12 different
  Reverse-Angle cuts (Action/Reaction)
• 1916 Uses Cross-cutting between parallel action
  in Intolerance.
• Was considered the leader in creating film as art
  for his editing techniques, action and
  story-telling (content- themes)

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Sound Era

• Experimentation with sound film technology, both
  for recording and playback, was virtually
  constant throughout the silent era, but the twin
  problems of accurate synchronization and
  sufficient amplification had been difficult to
  overcome (Eyman, 1997).
• During late 1927, Warners released The Jazz
  Singer, which was mostly silent but contained
  what is generally regarded as the first
  synchronized dialogue (and singing) in a feature
  film

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Sound Era

• 1927 Jazz Singer first feature film with sound
  signals the end of the Silent Era
• 1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs first
  feature length (1hr plus) animated film
• 1930/40s- Golden era where genres (horror,
  action, etc) are perfected (Frankenstein 1931
  King Kong 1933)
• 1941 Citizen Kane Orson Welles creates
  non-linear story-telling, layered sounds, low
  angle shots, etc, that is considered greatest
  film of all time
• 1950s Emergence of FIM THEORY and innovative
  European films
• 70/80s Star Wars SPFX prompts sequels,
  blockbusters, videotape
• 90s-now Better Sound, Digital Cameras/Editing
  explode higher resolution formats and Independent
  films- give rise to improved video BETA VHS
  formats

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The Jazz Singer

• As conversion of movie theaters to sound was
  still in its early stages, the film actually
  arrived at many of those secondary venues in a
  silent version
• In 1927 it was a huge success (like Avatar today)

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1920s

• Many full-length films were produced during the
  decade of the 1920s.
• The transition to sound-on-film technology
  occurred mid-decade with the talkies developed in
  1926-1927, following experimental techniques
  begun in the late 1910s.
• With sound, the concept of the musical appeared
  immediately, as in The Jazz Singer of 1927,
  because silent films had been accompanied by
  music for years when projected in theaters.
• Also, in 1927, the International Academy of
  Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was formed.
  Later, "International" was removed from the name.
  Today, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
  Sciences is most famous for its annual
  presentation of The Academy Awards, also known as
  the Oscars

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Impact of Sound

• Many major silent filmmakers and actors were
  unable to adjust and found their careers severely
  curtailed or even ended.
• Sound films emphasized and benefited different
  genres more so than silents did.
• The Musical was born

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1929

• In Blackmail, Alfred Hitchcock both benefited
  from, and pushed further, technical advances in
  microphones and cameras, and capabilities for
  editing and post-synchronizing sound (rather than
  recording all sound directly at the time of
  filming).

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1930s Genres established

• 1931 Universal releases Gothic horror
  Frankenstein and Dracula
• Merian C Cooper monster film King Kong
• Gangster movies Little Caesar Public Enemy
• Animation hits Snow White the Seven Dwarves
• 1939- Gone with the Wind Wizard of Oz

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1940s

• Disney Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi
• 1942 Yankee Doodle Dandee (James Cagney)
  Casablanca (Humphrey Bogart)
• Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)
• Its a Wonderful Life
• 49th Parallel, Went the Day Well?, The Way Ahead
  all War propaganda films

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1950s

• Due to the THREAT of TELEVISION studios sought to
  get audiences back in cinemas through improved
  technology (cinemascope, cinerama-146 degrees,
  wide-screen format, 3-D)
• BIG Budget productions The 10 Commandments (56)
  Ben Hur (59) 20.000 Leagues Under the Sea (54)
• The emergence of SCIENCE FICTION genre (The War
  of the Worlds, The Day the Earth stood Still,
  Them! (56))
• Alfred Hitchcock at the peak of his craft (Dial M
  for Murder, Rear Window (56), Vertigo (58))
• FILM THEORY is popularized by published magazines
  with a new grammar taken from earlier works of
  Griffith/Porter/Melies

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Mid Century Theorists

• In 1951 Andre Bazin, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze
  Jospeh-Marie Lo Duca found Cahiers du Cinema.
• Many of the authors become directors with the
  guidance of Bazin.
• Above contributors include Jean-Luc Godard
  Francois Truffaut
• Many 1950s directors influenced by the magazine
  start the French New Wave period of films
  (dismissing Hollywood conventions for Russian and
  early theorists, eg Marxists).

From Digital Overdrive, Chapter 11, p 146
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FILM GRAMMAR
SHOT A single continuous recording made by a camera (similar to a word in a sentence).
SCENE A Scene is a series of related shots. It is similar (analogous) to a sentence. The study of film transitions is like punctuation in written language.
SEQUENCE A sequence is a series of scenes which together tell a major portion of the story. In a DVD sequences are usually denoted by chapter selections. Sequences are similar to paragraphs in a story. All the sequences together make up the entire film narrative
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Film Theorys evolution

• 1911- Riciotto Canudo (Italian) published The
  Birth of the Seventh Art which proposed that
  film merged the tangible arts (sets/props) with
  performing arts (dance/music) to create a new art
  form (film or cinema).
• 1920s Kuleshov used Marxist film theory
  montage (shot of face- then soup, face-then
  coffin) to evoke audience emotions
• 1925 Eisenstein (Russian) used montage/editing
  to create The Battleship Potemkin which was
  considered an art film.
• 1954 Truffaut (French New Wave) promotes Auteur
  theory (which champions that movies should
  reflect personal vision of director)

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Film Theory explained

• Formalism Action/Reaction with seamless flow
  (How well does the film elements (shots, music)
  communicate ideas (not themes))
• Marxist Film narrative a MONTAGE of conflicting
  scenes- ACTIONgtClashing shot of something
  differentgt Disjointed flow
• Genre Film Theory categorizes film by setting,
  mood, format (Western, Crime, Science Fiction)
• Apparatus Theory (1970s) Film reflects
  societys dominant ideologies (ways of thinking)
• Structuralist Film Theory Film use conventions
  or codes to convey meaning how the shots are put
  together (Montage)gtmoneygtfacegtmoney creates a
  message that a person desires money. DW
  Griffith and Alfred Hitchkock

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1960s

• The decade is known for being prominent in
  historical drama, psychological horror, and
  comedy, as well as the sub-genres of spy film,
  sword and sandal, and spaghetti westerns, all
  peaking during this decade.
• Historical gt The Guns of Navarone (61), Lawrence
  of Arabia (62) Cleopatra (63)
• Psychological Horror Psycho
• Comedy The Pink Panther
• Spy film Bond movies with high tech gadgets
• Spaghetti Westerns A Few Dollars More

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Film Terms

• MONTAGE Editing a large of shots with no
  intention of creating a continuous reality
• Narrative telling a certain story in a
  particular way
• Film Noir Filmed with Shadows, darkness,
  protagonist often has meaningless victory or dies
• Mis en Scene how the elements and components in
  the film (eg sets, lights, framing) are put
  together on the film set (during filming)

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Post Classical Auteur Era

• In cinema all over the world, the seventies
  brought about vigor in adventurous, cool and
  realistic complex narratives with rich
  cinematography and elaborate scores
• With young filmmakers taking greater risks and
  restrictions regarding language and sexuality
  lifting, Hollywood produced some of its most
  critically acclaimed and financially successful
  films since its supposed "golden era."
• A deeply unsettling look at alienation and city
  life, Taxi Driver earned international praise,
  first at the Cannes Film Festival and then at the
  Academy Awards
• Mid-70s blockbusters (large budget/ making
  film) Jaws and Star Wars appear

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1980s Blockbuster Cinema SEQUELS

• Big budget (multi-million ) movies like Star
  Wars, Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Superman
  produce franchises or Sequels (part 2 of the
  story)
• Post-apocalyptic Science Fiction like MadMax 2,
  Blade Runner, Escape from New York, become
  popular
• Fantasy Conan the Barbarian, Dragonslayer
  Excalibur,
• Drama On Golden Pond, The Color Purple, Out of
  Africa
• Comedies Ghostbusters ( its sequels) outsold
  all Indiana Jones films. Spoofs like Airplane!
  Mock previous disaster films
• Teen Comedies Animal House, Porkys, Police
  Academy
• ACTION Rocky and Rambo series (sequels)

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Independent Films (1990s)

• Thousands of films made
• Rise of the Independent film maker Independent
  Film studios (Miramax, New Line, Lions Gate
  (Canadian))
• CGI- (computer generated imagery) widely used in
  Terminator 2, Jurassic Park Forrest Gump,
  Twister.
• Disney renaissance (The Little Mermaid, Lion
  King)
• Titanic (1.9 billion)
• HOME VIDEO almost doubles profits

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2000

• Film genres not known for their popular appeal in
  North America became increasingly attractive to
  filmgoers films in foreign languages like
  Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Passion of
  the Christ and Letters from Iwo Jima
• Documentary films like An Inconvenient Truth,
  March of the Penguins, Super Size Me, and
  Fahrenheit 9/11, became very successful.

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Sources

• Wikipedia General source of great info
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_film
• http//www.haroldlloyd.com/
• Digital Overdrive Chapter 11
• http//www.imdb.com/genre

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Sources page 2