Ever wondered how film has kept its popularity for years? During the 1890’s filmmaking has become longer and contained more shots. The very first film studio was built in the year of 1897, where the first rotating camera that took “panning shots” were built. This camera gave special effects, including action movements. In addition, in the 1900’s “continuity of action” shots were the first shots introduced by D.W. Griffith. Because of this invention most films were being called, “chase films”. “The Nickelodeon” was the first successful theatre in 1905 in Pittsburgh. Then, a Australian production became the first feature length multi-reel film in the year of 1906. Furthermore, by the year of 1910, actors started to get screen credit for their
roles and then on the “creation of film stars” had finally opened. About 1910, American films started to become the market in Australia including all European countries, however, not in France. Soon after, new film techniques were started to be created: lighting, fire effects, and low-key lighting for sinister scenes. Specialist writers began to write paraphrase stories from novels and plays into easier understood stories. Years on, generes turned into categories. The most popular ones were drama and comedy. However, during WWI there were difficulties for the film industry. From then on, films started to change from short one-reels to feature films. Locations started to expand its venues and began charging higher prices. By 1914, cinemas became the creation of “commercial cinemas” which was one of the state-of-the-art techniques involving “accurate and smooth transitions from one shot to another”.
Lewis, J. (2008). American Film: A History. New York, NY. W.W. Norton and Co. Inc. (p. 405,406,502).
During this decade, the film industry went through massive changes that would completely change what movies were or stood for. After the Great War, more people began considering movies as a form of entertainment. This increased attention caused change in the industry, allowing the experience of the movie goer to massively change for the better. Many new genres, ideas and technologies emerged in the 1920s that would later dominate the industry. The 1920s saw massive changes happening in the movie industry that would help it to get one step closer to what it is today.
Beginning the mid 1920s, Hollywood’s ostensibly all-powerful film studios controlled the American film industry, creating a period of film history now recognized as “Classical Hollywood”. Distinguished by a practical, workmanlike, “invisible” method of filmmaking- whose purpose was to demand as little attention to the camera as possible, Classical Hollywood cinema supported undeviating storylines (with the occasional flashback being an exception), an observance of a the three act structure, frontality, and visibly identified goals for the “hero” to work toward and well-defined conflict/story resolution, most commonly illustrated with the employment of the “happy ending”. Studios understood precisely what an audience desired, and accommodated their wants and needs, resulting in films that were generally all the same, starring similar (sometimes the same) actors, crafted in a similar manner. It became the principal style throughout the western world against which all other styles were judged. While there have been some deviations and experiments with the format in the past 50 plus ye...
Stanley, Robert H. The Movie Idiom: Film as a Popular Art Form. Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc. 2011. Print
In the mid 1960’s to and early 70’s a new generation of film making came about. A generation of young film-makers who pushed the boundaries of sex, drugs, nudity, and violence. They changed the way of how Hollywood films are produced and marketed. There was many revisions of Hollywood’s old films. They re-worked and re-imagined some of Hollywood’s classic genres – such as the crime film, the war film and the western – and by so doing, presented a more critical view of America past and present. () These films mostly represented the issues of the youth, this was known as the generation gap. Location shooting also became almost the exclusive norm.
Watching a movie in the 1920s was a cheap and easy way to be transported into a world of glitz and glamour, a world of crime, or a world of magic and mystery. Some of these worlds included aspects of current events, like war, crime, and advances in technology; while others were completely fictional mysteries, romances, and comedies. Heartbreakers, heartthrobs, comedians and beautiful women dominated movie screens across the country in theaters, called Nickelodeons. Nickelodeons were very basic and small theaters which later transformed into opulent and monumental palaces. When sound was introduced into film by Warner Bros. Pictures, “talkies” took top rank over silent films. “Movies were an art form that had universal appeal. Their essence was entertainment; their success, financial and otherwise, was huge” (1920-30, 3/19/11). Films offered an escape from the troubles of everyday life in the 20s, and moviegoers across the country all shared a universal language: watching movies.
The origin of film started in the late 1800’s with the invention of kinetoscopes. With the perfection of a moving picture camera in 1892, and the ensuing invention of the peephole kinetoscope in 1893, the stage was set for the modern film industry. The kinetoscope was built to handle only one customer at a time. When putting a penny or nickel in the coin slot, someone could watch a brief, black and white motion picture film. These kinetoscope parlors opened in New York, Chicago and several other countries by the end of the 1800’s. Even thought the kinetoscope pretty much disappeared by the 1900’s, it created the innovation of new advancements in film. With the combination of new audiences as well as a growing class of small entrepreneurs, the film industry resulted in an explosion of nickelodeons after 1905. These nickelodeons were five-cent films that garnered several admissions daily. “In 1911 the Patents Company reported 11,500 theaters across America devoted solely to showing motion pictures, with hundreds more showing them occasionally; daily attendance that year probably reached five million. By 1914 the figures reached about 18,000 theaters, with more than seven mil- lion daily admissions totaling about $300 million” (Czitrom). Although these motion picture shows were very popular, they had several issues as well. Poor sanitation, dangerous
D. W. Griffith is widely recognized as a pioneer and father of early filmmaking, though in reality he was just a creature of circumstance. In 1907, Griffith departed his theatrical career as failed playwright and somewhat accomplished stage actor to work for the Biograph Company with his first role as the Father in Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest. Griffith entered the American film industry at crucial moment that would shape and define his career. During this time Edison Company was waging a war to monopolize the American film industry through lawsuits against other American companies using versions of Edison’s patented Kinescope without paying royalties. These lawsuits ravaged and prevented the industries growth as film’s popularity was increasing in the United States. In 1907, to meet the growing popularity of nickelodeons (early movie theaters that would charge a nickel for admission and show case 3-4 short films), 1,200 films were released in the United States, of those only ...
The 1920s was a time of the great success and thrive of the film industry. It was the beginning of the studio era, as the main eight studios emerged (The Big Five: Warner Brother Pictures, Metro Golden Meyer, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, RKO; The Little Three: United Artists, Universal, Columbia Picture). Especially in 1920s the market started to grow rapidly. First of all it was because of technology progress, (such as the ability to create longer movies; starting from 1910s there were experiments for sound creation), growing interest from the audience and growing popularity of actors. Also one of the main reasons was commercial side, as lots of people saw a great opportunity to raise money from the film making.
According to historians like Neil Burch, the primitive period of the film industry, at the turn of the 20th century was making films that appealed to their audiences due to the simple story. A non-fiction narrative, single shots a burgeoning sense
The ‘New Hollywood Cinema’ era came about from around the 1960’s when cinema and film making began to change. Big film studios were going out of their comfort zone to produce different, creative and artistic movies. At the time, it was all the public wanted to see. People were astonished at the way these films were put together, the narration, the editing, the shots, and everything in between. No more were the films in similar arrangement and structure. The ‘New Hollywood era’ took the classic Hollywood period and turned it around so that rules were broken and people left stunned.
Sklar, Robert. " History of Motion Pictures, " Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2000 October 24, 2000 <http://encarta.msn.com>.
The end of the 1900s marked a time of movies as a cultural phenomenon. Going to the movies became a weekly ritual for the public. In order for people to
Society in most places was beginning to change in the late 1800s. The cinema was invented in 1895 a few years after Art Nouveau began. There was technological progress the industrial era was co...
Many people, almost all of America, choose to watch movies, whether it is in theatres or on a TV at home. Children used to flock to the old theatres where they would watch black and white silent movies. For example, popular movies such as the original Wizard of Oz (1939) and It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) were in black and white and movies like Pandora’s Box (1929) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925) were silent films. These types of films mark the transition into a new era. Nowadays one cannot turn on the television without being bombarded with the new release of movies or shows. Aside from the obvious transition of color and sound, the entertainment industry has improved and changed greatly since the 19th and 20th century due to technology, content and convenience.