Photography made the possibility of
capturing still images. The next attempt was to capture moving pictures.
Auguste and Louis, better known as Lumiere brothers patented a camera on
February 13, 1895 which could also project films. They made the first film which
was later screened on March 22, 1895 at a hall in Paris.
Cinema is the Latin spelling of the Greek
word kinema, meaning a motion. According to Webster’s dictionary, the word
derives from Cinematography. The use of the word comes about in the 1899 in
Britain. It is the British word for a movie theater.
Cinema, or motion picture, is the art of
moving images; a visual medium that tells stories and exposes reality. Created
in the tail end of the 19th century, cinema is the world’s most recent art
form. The history of film began in the late 19th century, with the invention of
'magic lantern' optical toys such as the Phenakistoscope and the Zoetrope,
which presented short, repetitive animations exploiting the eye's persistence
of vision. Coleman Sellers modified the Zoetrope, replacing its hand-drawn
images with photographs, creating the Kinematoscope in 1861. Henry Renno Heyl
then projected a series of Kinematoscope photographs, using his Phasmatrope
device, in 1870. Projection speeds for silent films were not standardised. The
first film the Lumieres projected was La Sortie Des Usines Lumiere A Lyon, in
Paris at the very end of 1895.
Early movie cameras were fastened to the
head of their tripod with only simple levelling devices provided. These cameras
were thus effectively fixed during the course of the shot, and hence the first
camera movements were the result of mounting a camera on a moving vehicle. The
Lumière brothers shot a scene from the back of a train in 1896. The first
decade of motion picture saw film moving from a novelty to an established
large-scale entertainment industry. The films became several minutes long
consisting of several shots. The first rotating camera for taking panning shots
and the first film studios were built in 1897. Then Special effects were
introduced and film continuity, involving action moving from one sequence into
another, began to be used. In 1900, continuity of action across successive
shots was definitively established by George Albert Smith and James Williamson,
who also worked in Brighton. Most films of this period were known as
"chase films". The first use of animation in movies was in 1899. The
first successful permanent theatre showing only films was "The
Nickelodeon" in Pittsburgh in 1905. By 1910, actors began to receive
screen credit for their roles, and the way to the creation of film stars was
opened. Regular newsreels were exhibited from 1910. Overall, from about 1910,
American films had the largest share of the market in Australia and in all
European countries except France. Regular newsreels were exhibited from 1910
and soon became a popular way for finding out the news
By 1910, the French film companies were
starting to make films as long as two, or even three reels, though most were
still one reel long. This trend was followed in Italy, Denmark, and Sweden. In
Britain, the Cinematograph Act 1909 was the first primary legislation to specifically
regulate the film industry.
New film techniques like the use of
artificial lighting, fire effects and low-key lighting (lighting in which most
of the frame is dark) for enhanced atmosphere during sinister scenes were
introduced in this period. As films grew longer, specialist writers were
employed to simplify more complex stories. Genres began to be used as
categories.
During the First World War, there was a
complex transition for the film industry. The exhibition of films changed from
short one-reel programs to feature films. Exhibition venues became larger and
began charging higher prices. By 1914, continuity cinema was the established
mode of commercial cinema. One of the advanced continuity techniques involved
an accurate and smooth transition from one shot to another. Innovations like
sound recording, sophisticated cameras, editing techniques, exhibition pattern,
production styles and narrative methods made cinema more impressive and
attractive. Earlier history of cinema can be divided into ‘Silent Era’ and the
‘Era of Talkies’. Silent era refers to the period during which films were
produced without sound due to the absence of adequate technology. The power of
the cinema during the silent era was the power of their stories. Talkies mean
the films with sound.
Films of the 1890's were under a minute
long and until 1927 motion pictures were produced without sound. Until 1927,
motion pictures for films were produced without sound. This era is referred to
as the silent era of film. During late 1927, Warners released ‘The Jazz
Singer’, with the first synchronized dialogue (and singing) in a feature film.
By the end of 1929, Hollywood was almost all-talkie, with several competing
sound systems.
Another categorization of the history of
cinema was on the basis of the color of visuals. Earlier films were produced
in black and white films. Color film revolutionized the medium as the
audiences were hugely attracted to color film as it provided them with a
colorful real life visual experience.
The desire for wartime propaganda created
a renaissance in the film industry in Britain, with realistic war dramas. The
onset of American involvement in World War II also brought a proliferation of
films as both patriotism and propaganda. During the immediate post-war years the
cinematic industry was also threatened by television, and the increasing
popularity of the medium meant that some film theatres would bankrupt and
close. Following the end of World War II in the 1940s, the following decade,
the 1950s marked a 'Golden Age' for Non-English world cinema.
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