Motion Pictures Persuasive Essay

The development of motion pictures into an industry can be explained with one word. Money. It actually began before motion pictures became what we call today movies. The kinetoscope, a device invented by Thomas Edison, would take still pictures and present them in such a way as to make it appear the images were moving. This was done, not by passing the image in front of a light to project an image on a screen, that comes later, but by flipping still pictures to give the illusion of movment. (American Film, pg 10) How it was done, however, is less important than why it was done. Edison was not interested in motion pictures as an art form but as a process. The process was what Edison marketed and the profits were what drove the growth of the

(American Film, Pg 13)
As the technical side of movie making advanced, so too did the creative side of the new industry. The images of a man sneezing or a woman doing cart wheels in Edison’s kinetoscpe, or workers entering and leaving work in the Lumieres cinematographe were not going to keep the public’s interest for long. The motion picture industry would need to come up with something to generate the interest of the viewing public and that was a story. A Narrative. (Annenberg Collection, American Cinema Series, The Hollywood Style)
Advances in the process were going to happen out of sheer necessity. Always, in business, processes are streamlined to increase profit. The creative process was no different. In order to facilitate that process, the motion picture industry moved out west to California. There they had sunshine almost all year round as well as beaches, mountains, and deserts which made it an ideal location for filming. Better film, larger images, and movie palaces all contributed to the success of the industry, but the creative improvements such as camera angles, camera movement, and lighting, the elements that came to be known as cinematic language also played a