Key Developments
This blog post will pinpoint the history of film as well as highlight the main facts to be learnt.
It is difficult to pinpoint when the first moving images were created. Humans found out that to make something look like it’s moving, we would have to have about 12 pictures be shown to us in rapid succession. The people credited with the first moving picture are the Lumière Brothers who made a short clip of a train moving into a station. It was created in 1895. Due to these not having stories, these were often credited as “cinema of attractions” because instead of having story and a narrative plot, it was instead short clips of something. When the train clip was shown in cinemas, some people ran out of the cinema believing there was actually a train coming towards them. This was because it was so new to them.
From 1895 to around 1927, “cinema of attractions” became extremely popular beating music and opera by miles. Overtime, these short clips eventually became Narrative stories but people still had to overcome the barrier that was the fact that they were in Black and White and there was no sound. People also discovered the Key Elements Of Film Form (Cinematography, Editing, Sound, Mise-en-scéne) and began to use them effectively.
In the 1920s, due to film’s new growing popularity, many studios were created to create and distribute their films. These were known as the Big Five and the Little Three, these were:
The Big Five: Paramount, Warner Bros, MGM, Twentieth Century Fox and RKO.
The Little Three: Columbia, Universal and the United Artists.
These studios ran the film industry until 1948.
In 1927, the first film with synchronised sound was created by Alan Crosland. It was called the Jazz Singer. It talks about a young man who defies his devout Jewish family. It led many people to the cinema to see this breakthrough in cinema.
In 1935, the first film with colour was created by Rouben Mamoulien. It was called Becky Sharp. This film did not contain colour as we know it today. Instead it used a method called the three strip colour method where you record the film three times in different colours each time and then combined them together.
In 1948, there was a massive court case named the Paramount Court Case, however it was aimed at all film making studios. The government began to worry about the power the studios were getting. They asked that they stop taking control of the entirety of the film industry and let others create movies as well. The studios instead decided to completely ignore the government and continued to control everything. And so in 1948, there was the Paramount Court Case which involved all studios. In this court case, the government stated that no studio was allowed to own and be in control of the studios anymore. They couldn’t only distribute their films and instead had to distribute anyone’s films. This court case started the train of ordinary people being able to create films.
In the 1950s, the television became cheap enough for ordinary people to obtain. This rivalled cinema massively as TV was just cinema but at home. This led to cinema upgrading with 2 main aims. Widescreen and 3D films.
In the late 1950s, the first lightweight portable cameras had been created. This technology allowed independent filmmaking and documentaries got a boost. These were embraced by young French people known as the New French Wave
In 1975, cinematographer Garrett Brown invented something called the SteadiCam, this was a stabilising device which allowed you to hold a camera handheld but not have any of the shaky cam. this took the world by storm.
In the 1990s onwards, there was more use of Computer Generated Imagery or CGI. One of the best examples of this new CGI is Jurassic Park. There was one special effects company that dominated the area was called industrial light and magic. This was a George Lucas company. This led to less things being done by camera and more being done post production.
The first film entirely completed by CGI in 1995 was Toy Story directed by John Lasseter. He worked for Pixar Animation Studios.
In the 2000s, technology had developed to the point where ordinary people could collect cameras. This was called Citizen Filmmaking.
In 2007, the IPhone was created, everyone now had the internet in the pocket and changed the world completely.
Also, in 2007, Netflix was the first legal streaming service for TV.
In the 2010s, the first films wee created just from IPhone. The first was called Tangerine by Shaun Baker in 2015, the second is called Unsane by Steven Soderberg in 2018.
In 2017, streaming and download sites overtook DVD sales for the first time. Notable ones are Netflix, Sky, Prime and Apple TV+.
In 2018, the first Hollywood to be created with just an IMac cameras. This was Avengers: Infinity War.
Include my mind maps…