LO 1 Film History Timeline Leah Rosborough PreClassical
LO 1 – Film History Timeline Leah Rosborough
Pre-Classical Cinema: 1816 - 1915 Creation of the first camera Eadweard Muybridge Creation of the first motion camera The Lumiere Brothers Colour and Sound Nickelodeons The Birth of a Nation (1915)
Pre-Classical Cinema: 1816 - 1915 Creation of the first camera For me the timeline of film history starts with the creation of the first camera. In approximately 1816 the first photograph was taken by Nicephore Niepce, on a home made camera. This was the first step in making the first motion camera. The scientific principles that were used in the first photography camera, were the foundations of the first film camera. Without photography, cinema would not exist.
Pre-Classical Cinema: 1816 - 1915 Eadweard Muybridge In 1878 Eadweard Muybridge made the first motion picture by lining up a number of camera attached to trip wires. This work was widely respected and was released in a number of scientific journals and it was formally released in the study, The Horse in Motion in 1882.
Pre-Classical Cinema: 1816 - 1915 Creation of the first motion camera It is very unclear on who first created the first motion camera as there are many claims from different groups around the world who have said to be the first to have created the motion camera within the 1880’s. Among these were Thomas Edison and the Lumiere Brothers.
Pre-Classical Cinema: 1816 - 1915 The Lumiere Brothers are known as one of the most influential film makers of all time. They are most well known for their invention of the cinematograph. At the end of 1895 the Lumiere Brothers premiered a number of short films in Paris which sparked an interest with the public about film. From here the Lumiere Brothers began to create more short films. At this time films did not consist of exciting narratives, the public went because of the spectacle.
Pre-Classical Cinema: 1816 - 1915 Colour and sound A lot of these films at this time were not just black and white. From as early as 1896, film makers would dye and hand paint the film to add colour. These films often involved sound as well, as cinemas would often have orchestras and live bands and sometimes have narrators to talk over the movies to explain some events.
Pre-Classical Cinema: 1816 - 1915 Nickelodeons It was not long for production companies to appear due to the high demand for films. They put an empathise on how quickly a film could be made and developed, rather than quality, as they just wanted to sell tickets and make money. In 1906 nickelodeons started to appear in America. They got their name for selling tickets for a ‘nickel’. Nickelodeons were very popular and were growing very quickly.
Pre-Classical Cinema: 1816 - 1915 The Birth of a Nation (1915) This feature created a lot of hype, the ticket prices were similar to those of Broadway plays in order for audience would take it more seriously. This film had a great use of parallel editing, in order to make the narrative more interesting for viewers. But in recent times this film has been disregarded, due to the racism within the film of how the African American people were represented.
Audience – Pre-Classical Cinema: 1816 – 1915 At the time of the Lumiere Brothers films did not consist of exciting narratives, the public went because of the spectacle. The audience began to want more from the movies that were being produced and began to complain about the unclear narrative. Between 1907 and 1917 the production companies had to take measures to satisfy the want of the public. This is when editing started to be used to build up the narrative.
Rise of the Studio System (1915 – 1930) The Trust Adolph Zukor Battleship Potemkin
Rise of the Studio System (1915 – 1930) The Trust (1908 -1912) Pathe Frere had taken over most of the international market of the film industry, in response to this Thomas Edison created “The Trust”. This was a motion picture patent company, which aimed to have complete control over the film industry by standardising the price of tickets and scheduling the release of films. In order to get around this, studios would road show their films, which meant that dependant producers started to arise.
Rise of the Studio System (1915 – 1930) Adolph Zukor was one of the independent producers that arose with his studio Paramount. He became very successful and gained complete control over production, distribution and the exhibition of films. He was a great business man and was one of the first to go to Wall Street for financial backing, which enabled him to purchase theatres and venues across the nation. He also understood the public and what they wanted. Zukor centred his promotion on his studio stars and influenced the public to idolise his stars that appeared in his films.
Rise of the Studio System (1915 – 1930) Battleship Potemkin (1925) Battleship Potemkin, directed by Serhei Eisenstein, is widely regarded as one of the best films in history. The film had a lot of influence on politicians at the time and also has inspired many film makers and their work like Coppola in “The Godfather” and De Palma in “The Untouchables”. Eisenstein used montage theory in his movie, to create an emotional response from the viewer, particularly in the famous Odessa step sequence.
Golden Age of Hollywood (1930 -1945) The Jazz Signer (1927) The Depression (1931) The Wizard od Oz Will H. Hays War Television
Golden Age of Hollywood (1930 -1945) The Jazz Signer In 1927, Hollywood released the Jazz Signer, the first “talkie” movie. Due of the large success of the Jazz Singer, within the next two years, American cinemas were fully integrated into “talkie” films and silent films were no longer. Having dialog in their films, Hollywood started to run into some problems with their international audience due to the language. This made it difficult for American studios to market their films to the wider international audience, to get around this by dubbing, where an audio track would be placed on top of the original film.
Golden Age of Hollywood (1930 -1945) The Depression The depression in America had caught up with the industry by 1931. At this point in time five major studios dominated the industry; RKO, MGM, FOX, Paramount and Warner Bros. Some of these studios experienced financial collapse, others had to take measures in order to survive. For example, Columbia and Universal studios produced low cost and low risk movies, which created the new movie category, the B movie.
Golden Age of Hollywood (1930 -1945) The Wizard of Oz (1939) Coming out of the depression The Wizard of Oz was a big undertaking for the studio MGM. The use of the start system, with actress Judy Garland the adaptation of literature based on L. Frank Baum’s novel, play a part in the success of the movie. With the use of colour, MGM done what most of the major studios were aiming to do at the time. Which is why it is the highest grossing film of all time, once inflation is accounted for.
Golden Age of Hollywood (1930 -1945) Will H. Hays At this time, each studio had their distinctive style of films. The studios aimed to give the audience the most exciting experience possible when they went to the cinema, so in order to do this, they would push cultural boundaries. Hollywood soon became under scrutiny for this, which lead to the Hays code, created by Will H. Hays. This was a list of ‘don’t’s and ‘be careful’s. They then tried to find ways around the code and how to legally push the boundaries, which led to the screwball comedy's.
Golden Age of Hollywood (1930 -1945) War By 1940, the government conducted a hearing on the major studios in Hollywood for influencing the public towards and anti-isolationist approach in World War II. So within a year of Pearl Harbour, almost a third of the films being made were about war or involved war material.
Golden Age of Hollywood (1930 -1945) Television Cinema was starting to be challenged with the introduction of TV. This gave the audience a similar visual experience at a much easier convenience, that of which the radio did not offer. So Hollywood tried to change its pictures with the widescreen format, but not all studios were quick to pick up this change and some did not like the idea.
Audience – Golden Age of Hollywood (1930 – 1945) Audiences began to idolise stars within films, as the Star System was starting to be used more by studios to engage the audience. Now that films are starting to be made with sound, the audience now relies more heavily on the narrative to be entertained.
The Foreign Wave (1945 -1970) The Foreign Wave Andre Bazin Jean Luc Godard Japanese Cinema
The Foreign Wave (1945 – 1970) The Foreign Wave This stage of film history brought a new attraction to cinema as art and also as a form of national expression. It is difficult to distinguish foreign cinema from main stream Hollywood at the time due to the variety. This movement arose in wake to the dominance of Hollywood after World War II.
The Foreign Wave (1945 -1970) Andre Bazin is seen to be one of the most influential thinkers of his time. He provided a frame work for film, which is still very much employed today. He very much favoured objective cinema and the use of deep focus and wide angle shots. He is most well known for his Auteur Theory, where he argued that the director is the primary author of the film.
The Foreign Wave (1945 -1970) Jean Luc Godard Europe soon led the world of cinema, with the backing of Andre Bazin. French directors Francois Truffaut and Jean Luc Godard were ahead of this movement. They both provided a turning point in film, with Truffaut’s ‘The 400 Blows’ and Godard’s ‘Breathless’. Both of these films had open ended stories. Godard also pioneered, by using jump cuts to illustrate the passage of time.
The Foreign Wave (1945 -1970) Japanese Cinema In the 1950’s, the cinema in Japan flourished. The film “Rashomon” directed by Akira Kurosawa introduced the world to a completely new method of filmmaking. With the help of cinematographer, kazoo Miyagawa, Kurosawa experimented with the camera and was most famous for shooting into the sun.
Audience – The Foreign Wave (1945 – 1970) Within the foreign wave of film, the audience became more active. The foreign wave brought new types of film with a lot less censorship than the Hollywood movies. “Active audience theory argues that media audiences do not just receive information passively but are actively involved, often unconsciously, in making sense of the message within their personal and social contexts. ” Munday, Daniel Chandler, Rod (2011). A dictionary of media and communication (1 st ed. ). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
New Hollywood (1960 – 1985) Censorship Television Teenage market
New Hollywood (1960 – 1985) Censorship Hollywood had always taken on the much safer and less risky strategy when it came to making films, but the publics taste was changing and Hollywood was forced to adapt. The European film industry had a lot less censorship on their films, so they could have more controversial story lines, this meant that Hollywood had to review the Hays code. This led to the MPAA allowing a new range of films to market films to audiences that would be old enough to handle sex and violence in films.
New Hollywood (1960 – 1985) Television By this point in the film timeline, the amount of people using television was on the rise and by 1965 about 70% of programming came from newly converted television facilities of major studios, which then led to the ‘made of TV’ film.
New Hollywood (1960 – 1985) Teenage market In 1977, Star Wars was released ad studios were now shifting their focus on high budget and more lucrative films. This meant that they would get more income from home media sales, merchandise and TV rights. They were also targeting the teenage audiences as they made up more of the box office returns at the time.
Audience – New Hollywood (1960 – 1985) The Mode of address can be applied in this time frame of film history. Teenagers now make up most of the box office revenue at this time, so films like Jaws and Star Wars, were written with teenagers in mind.
Contemporary Cinema (1999 – present) Studios Digital Cinema Franchises Netflix VR
Contemporary Cinema (1999 – present) Studios Hollywood has now sought to concentrate their power and control over the industry. The technology company Sony, have bought over Colombia, News Corp. have bought over 20 th Century FOX and Time and Warner have merged together for $20 billion. Now films have less dialogue in order to avoid confusion with non-English speaking countries and narratives also have safer plots to avoid offending other cultures.
Contemporary Cinema (1999 – present) Digital Cinema Digital cinema not means that the costs of the production and filming of movies can be brought down. This revolutionises what is possible for cinema and makes it more available for everybody to make and produce films.
Contemporary Cinema (1999 – present) Franchises Films like Harry Potter, Twilight, Lord of the Rings and the Cornicles of Narnia are all film and book franchises. Audiences that already enjoyed these book series, would have an interest in these films. Most of these films had a lot of hype around them in regards to the audience, and also received very high budgets from the studios.
Contemporary Cinema (1999 – present) Netflix Streaming services like Netflix have made it a lot easier for people to access films. Starting off as a DVD rental site, Netflix has evolved with the ever changing market. They have now moved on to streaming services and also produce TV series and films.
Contemporary Cinema (1999 – present) VR VR cinema is something that is relatively new to film. VR can date as far back as 1838, when the first stereoscope was created. In the early 1990’s it was made more assessable to the public, when SEGA announced that they would be making headsets to accompany some of there games. Now VR headsets are available to buy to use with a smart phone, making it very accessible. VR films, like Aurora, are not starting to be made. VR films are still not as easily accessible as the normal 2 D film, but it is going in the right direction, and soon we may even see ‘VR cinemas’.
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