History of Movie Making

The history of motion pictures and movie making involves several processes and developments including actual storytelling, sound, color, and other developments that have helped make the movie industry what it is today. To understand where we are at in movie-making, you must first understand where it all came from.

History

The earliest forms of movie making started in 1877 over a bet to whether a horse lifted all four of its legs up into the air while it was running. In order to do this, a photographer named Eadward Muybridge set up a camera to take pictures fast enough to capture the jump. A painter named Jean Lousi Meissonier took these photographs and put them into a spinning disc where viewers would see frame by frame to create a moving pictures.

These moving pictures were developed by several other inventors including Thomas Edison who created a Kinetoscope. Kinetoscopes were little booths that individual people would look into to watch movies, but when people craved more, movie making eventually advanced to the big screen.

One of the first full length movies that featured an actual story was "The Great Train Robbery" in 1903. This film was created by Edwin S. Porter. This was one of the first films to feature editing techniques and the last shot in the movie featured a cowboy who actually shot directly towards the camera. Audience members thought they were getting shot at and fled the theater in some cases.

Time Frame

With the success of "The Great Train Robbery," more feature films started getting produced. Special effects started getting implemented into movies and one of the landmark special effect movies was Georges Melies' "Trip to the Moon." This movie featured dissolves, quick cuts and double exposures that added special effects to the final cut. An actual face was on the moon.

Sound was introduced into films with the "Jazz Singer" in 1927. These films were known as "talkies." As movies with sound gained popularity, silent film stars started falling out from Hollywood. A studio system was being formed.

Significance

Along with the end of silent film stars, the popularity of movie making took over theaters. Vaudeville stage productions ended as well. Movie making progressed into the invention of television, and now cameramen could find jobs doing motion pictures, television programs, news programs, and documentaries. Movie making also progressed into multiple novelties that are still seen today like 3-D movies, Smell-O-Vision and other interactive features.

Geography

As movie making developed through time, many different countries focused on different styles. Early cinema in the United States cinema was filled with lavish musicals and epic war films. German film had a unique style referred to as "German Expressionism," and this was filled with landmark films like "Nosferatu," "The Last Laugh" and "Metropolis." France was also experimental in film, having characters talk directly into the camera, doing movies with hidden meanings and changing stereotypes that could be seen in American films.

Potential

Movie making has developed into the digital age. Film is constantly being abandoned for high definition digital recording processes. Professional filmmakers making movies in a whole new way, and independent film has risen to popularity. Using cheap digital cameras that still provide high quality images have spread the growth of internet filmmaking.