Introduction to Early Cinema - PowerPoint Presentation

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Introduction to Early Cinema

By Nisha and Liam Slide2

Documentary

A documentary is a movie or television or radio program that provides a factual record or report.Slide3

“Just as in literature, as the taste has moved from fiction to nonfiction, I think it’s going to happen in film as well. In a way you’re on a serendipitous journey, a journey which is more akin to the life experience… So for that period of time, as you watch the film, you are, in effect, in the shoes of another individual. What a privilege to have that experience.”

-Albert

Maysles on documentariesSlide4

Timeline of Early Cinema

1827

 First still photograph taken1834- Zoetrope-William George Horner..1839 Henry Fox Talbot-introduction of negatives on paper instead of glass. 1877 Emile Reynaud introduces the

Praxinoscope. Similar to Zoetrope, the illusion of movement produced by the Praxinoscope was viewed on mirrors in the center of the drum rather than through slots on the outside.

First started by Photographs and Illusion Toys….Slide5

Timeline of Early Cinema

1846 Important in the development of motion pictures was the invention of intermittent mechanisms - particularly those used in sewing machines

.1878 Eadweard Muybridge- produced Zoopraxinoscope.Asked by ex-governor of California to settle a bet as to whether horses hooves left the ground when they

galloped--set up a bank of twelve cameras with trip-wires connected to their shutters, each camera took a picture when the horse tripped its wire. Muybridge developed a projector to present his finding. Time to capture movement….Slide6

Timeline of Early Cinema

1894 The Lumière

family-Louis and Auguste design a camera which serves as both a recording device and a projecting device. They call it the Cinématographe.The Cinématographe uses flexible film cut into 35mm wide strips and used an intermittent mechanism modeled on the sewing machine.The camera shot films at sixteen frames per second (rather than the forty six which Edison used), this became the standard film rate for nearly 25 years

.1895 The first film shot with the Cinématographe camera is La Sortie de l'usine Lumière a Lyon (Workers leaving the Lumière factory at Lyon).Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory at LyonSlide7

Timeline of Early Cinema

4/21/1895 

Lanthams showed a film to reporters..they succeeded in creating a camera and a projector. In

May they opened a small storefront theatre. The projector did not receive much attention, but it was able to loop the film so less able to break the film—still used in today’s projectors. 12/28/1895 One of the most famous film screenings in history at Grand Cafe in Paris. ..twenty-five minute programme

of ten Lumière films. These included Feeding the Baby, The Waterer Watered and A View of the Sea. The Sprinkler SprinkledSlide8

Timeline of Early Cinema

1905 Cecil Hepworth produced, with

Lewin Fitzhamon "Rescued by Rover". Rescue by RoverFamous Movies you still know of Today: Titanic (1912) Alice in the Wonderland (1915) Silent ClassicSlide9

Can you guess where the first movie theatre in the world was?

Can you guess where the first movie theatre in America was?Slide10

First Movie Theatres…

First movie theatre in the world was in Paris in 1897!The first movie theatre in America was in 1902, a 200-seat Electric Theatre in Los Angeles.

The building survived long after the theatre closed but has now been demolished.Slide11

Travelogues

Also known as “scenics,” travelogues were popular from 1900-1920.

One travelogue was In the Land of the Head Hunters (1914), which presented Native Americans as a primitive and exotic people in a staged story, despite being staged.Another film, South was released in 1919 about the Antarctic expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in 1914.In the Land of the Head HuntersSlide12

Romanticism

Romanticism is a late 18th

century artistic movement, its purpose to evoke a sense of emotional awe and wonder at the world. Documentary makers in the early 20th century embraced this aesthetic (influenced by travelogues) by filming exotic locations with staged plots.Nanook of the NorthSlide13

John Grierson

Coined the term “documentary” in 1926 for nonfiction film In 1933 Grierson became Films Officer at the

General Post Office film unit, and in both these capacities he played what has later been argued to be a pivotal role in British film culture. While Griersons specific achievements are hard to assess, he played a central role within the burgeoning British documentary scene. He would become more important in the post-war years.Slide14

Movies about the Great Depression

The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) showed the suffering of Depression-era Dust Bowl farmers. The film was subsidized by one of Roosevelt’s New Deal organizations.Other documentaries of this era were also funded by the New Deal. As such they were often government propaganda promoting left viewpoints and social and ecological awareness.Slide15

Wartime Propaganda

Triumph of the Will (1935), a German documentary, was basically just propaganda, but depicted the Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg in 1934.

Triumph of the WillOlympia (1938) documented the 1936 Berlin Olympics.Slide16

Documentaries from then to now

Many post-war documentaries were politicized in nature and used the more modern technology available to them at the time. The format expanded to be used in different ways, such as

mockumentaries like This is Spinal Tap and reality television series.Today documentaries are more popular than ever, owing to the success of films like Fahrenheit 9/11 and Super Size Me.Slide17