History of Film Notes Prehistory - 1905
Throughout human history, people have told stories through words and pictures, this can be seen through early cave drawings, myths and legends that have been passed down through time. movement is also seen depicted in many ancient pieces of art, such as roman vases depicting humans running in various poses and stages.
Film is somewhat of a new invention in the larger scheme of things and its invention was largely due to a paper published by Peter Roget in 1824, titled "The persistence of vision with regard to moving objects". The theory stated that our retinas will retain an image for a short period after the image disappears, meaning that the human brain will view a series of still images as a continuous moving picture.
this discovery led to many inventions and toys that explored this new found concept, this included the Thaumatrope, a disk with an image on each side that could be spun to combine the images and make it look as one picture. This was invented in 1925 by the English physician John Ayrton Paris. Many similar tools such as Joseph Plateaus Phenakitiscope of 1831, William Horner's Zoetrope of 1834 and Charles-Emile Reynaud's Praxinoscope of 1877 all improved on the earlier Thaumatrope, and featured moving images created through a spinning device. The Praxinoscope even allowed these images to be projected due to its use of mirrors in its design, which Reynaud achieved in a later invention he penned as 'Theatre Optique'.
Motion was also shown through photographs in the early years, and can be seen in Eadweard Muybridges works, where he documented the run cycle of a horse to prove that all four hooves were off the ground at one point. Etienne-Jules Marley also used his invention, A Chronophotographic gun to capture 12 pictures within a second to demonstrate the movement of both people and animals.
Projection was a large step forward in the industry, which was brought forth by the Lumiere brothers in 1895, with their invention of the Cinematographe. The machine shot at 16 fps, which became the standard for film for the next couple decades. Thomas Edison was another early filmmaker, although his works tended to focus on exaggerated subject matter and controversial topics and subject matter at the time (such as kissing, boxing, and animal fights)
From 1900 to 1905, early film began to develop more into having story lines with more complex camera techniques. These can be seen through a handful of films during this era, one of which was The Electric Hotel, directed in Spain by Segundo de Chomon, who was credited with developing the dolly, a device that captures smooth panning shots. his film feature stop animation to make it seem as though inanimate objects were moving on their own. Alice Guy was another influential director of this era her films mainly newsreels, instructional or for promotions and advertising. She is also credited as having one of the first films to have a plot, in her film The Cabbage Patch Fairy (1896).
Another notable director of this era was the American Edwin s. Porter, who filmed The life of an American Fireman (1903). This film in particular was remarkable due to its use of close ups to show a civilian activating the fire alarm, as often only wide/mid shots were used at this time. While the films was documenting the daily lives of firefighters, the combination of actual footage with acted scenes also set it apart from other films of that era.
Porter also directed The Great Train Robbery that same year, and demonstrated many techniques and themes prevalent in many western films that preceded the film. More advanced cuts, editting and shot types were also used in this work, and an element of suspense was added with the telegraph operator being incapacitated, and the audience wonders if he can save the day in time once he is woken up. The shot composition was also fairly groundbreaking, as it featured characters in the left and right sides of the screen, compared to the standard centre usually reserved for the characters of film.
Early animation films were also becoming increasingly complex and popular among audie nces, a notable artist of this era being American Winsor Mccay.
The cartoonist broke into the medium in 1911 with his animated short film Little Nemo. His use of drawing 3D shapes in a 2d form really sets his work apart from others, and continues to hold up to more modern animations. His art style obviously had a big influence on the other animations to come out after, with his cartoonist skills being used in the form of animation.
The last notable director we studied of this era was Englishman Cecil m. Hepworth.
His films included Rescued by Rover (1905), and featured himself, as well as his wife and child. This short film went on to inspire later Ips such as Rin Tin Tin and Lassie, featuring unprecedented chase sequences with editing and cuts of action shots to make one smooth sequence.
We were also asked to sort our top 10 favourite movies/series by genre from the exercise from the first week.
While many shows had what I would consider multiple genres, I tried to narrow it down to each film having 1-2 genres, just to make sorting them a bit easier.
Tangled is a film that I would consider to be an Adventure/Romance
Your Name's genre is Romance/Mystery
Brooklyn 99's main genre is Comedy
Star Wars: The force Awakens is a Science Fiction
Gravity Falls is an Adventure/Comedy
Howls Moving Castle is a Romance/Adventure
Perfect Blue is a Thriller
Thor Ragnarok is a Comedy/Action
Die Hard 4.0 is an Action,
and 10 Cloverfield lane is a Science Fiction/ Thriller.
I think I tend to be drawn more towards Science Fiction/ Thriller / Action films, most likely due to them being a big part of the medium I consumed as a child. I also tend to like more lighthearted and comedic films, like many animations tend to be. This is likely due to similar reasons.
Film is somewhat of a new invention in the larger scheme of things and its invention was largely due to a paper published by Peter Roget in 1824, titled "The persistence of vision with regard to moving objects". The theory stated that our retinas will retain an image for a short period after the image disappears, meaning that the human brain will view a series of still images as a continuous moving picture.
this discovery led to many inventions and toys that explored this new found concept, this included the Thaumatrope, a disk with an image on each side that could be spun to combine the images and make it look as one picture. This was invented in 1925 by the English physician John Ayrton Paris. Many similar tools such as Joseph Plateaus Phenakitiscope of 1831, William Horner's Zoetrope of 1834 and Charles-Emile Reynaud's Praxinoscope of 1877 all improved on the earlier Thaumatrope, and featured moving images created through a spinning device. The Praxinoscope even allowed these images to be projected due to its use of mirrors in its design, which Reynaud achieved in a later invention he penned as 'Theatre Optique'.
Motion was also shown through photographs in the early years, and can be seen in Eadweard Muybridges works, where he documented the run cycle of a horse to prove that all four hooves were off the ground at one point. Etienne-Jules Marley also used his invention, A Chronophotographic gun to capture 12 pictures within a second to demonstrate the movement of both people and animals.
Projection was a large step forward in the industry, which was brought forth by the Lumiere brothers in 1895, with their invention of the Cinematographe. The machine shot at 16 fps, which became the standard for film for the next couple decades. Thomas Edison was another early filmmaker, although his works tended to focus on exaggerated subject matter and controversial topics and subject matter at the time (such as kissing, boxing, and animal fights)
From 1900 to 1905, early film began to develop more into having story lines with more complex camera techniques. These can be seen through a handful of films during this era, one of which was The Electric Hotel, directed in Spain by Segundo de Chomon, who was credited with developing the dolly, a device that captures smooth panning shots. his film feature stop animation to make it seem as though inanimate objects were moving on their own. Alice Guy was another influential director of this era her films mainly newsreels, instructional or for promotions and advertising. She is also credited as having one of the first films to have a plot, in her film The Cabbage Patch Fairy (1896).
Another notable director of this era was the American Edwin s. Porter, who filmed The life of an American Fireman (1903). This film in particular was remarkable due to its use of close ups to show a civilian activating the fire alarm, as often only wide/mid shots were used at this time. While the films was documenting the daily lives of firefighters, the combination of actual footage with acted scenes also set it apart from other films of that era.
Porter also directed The Great Train Robbery that same year, and demonstrated many techniques and themes prevalent in many western films that preceded the film. More advanced cuts, editting and shot types were also used in this work, and an element of suspense was added with the telegraph operator being incapacitated, and the audience wonders if he can save the day in time once he is woken up. The shot composition was also fairly groundbreaking, as it featured characters in the left and right sides of the screen, compared to the standard centre usually reserved for the characters of film.
Early animation films were also becoming increasingly complex and popular among audie nces, a notable artist of this era being American Winsor Mccay.
The cartoonist broke into the medium in 1911 with his animated short film Little Nemo. His use of drawing 3D shapes in a 2d form really sets his work apart from others, and continues to hold up to more modern animations. His art style obviously had a big influence on the other animations to come out after, with his cartoonist skills being used in the form of animation.
The last notable director we studied of this era was Englishman Cecil m. Hepworth.
His films included Rescued by Rover (1905), and featured himself, as well as his wife and child. This short film went on to inspire later Ips such as Rin Tin Tin and Lassie, featuring unprecedented chase sequences with editing and cuts of action shots to make one smooth sequence.
We were also asked to sort our top 10 favourite movies/series by genre from the exercise from the first week.
While many shows had what I would consider multiple genres, I tried to narrow it down to each film having 1-2 genres, just to make sorting them a bit easier.
Tangled is a film that I would consider to be an Adventure/Romance
Your Name's genre is Romance/Mystery
Brooklyn 99's main genre is Comedy
Star Wars: The force Awakens is a Science Fiction
Gravity Falls is an Adventure/Comedy
Howls Moving Castle is a Romance/Adventure
Perfect Blue is a Thriller
Thor Ragnarok is a Comedy/Action
Die Hard 4.0 is an Action,
and 10 Cloverfield lane is a Science Fiction/ Thriller.
I think I tend to be drawn more towards Science Fiction/ Thriller / Action films, most likely due to them being a big part of the medium I consumed as a child. I also tend to like more lighthearted and comedic films, like many animations tend to be. This is likely due to similar reasons.
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