The Seven Ages of Film

Pioneering Age

1896 - 1912

From Sideshow to Art Form

The Seven Ages of Film

The Silent Age

1913 - 1927

The emergence of Hollywood

World War I and the exodus from

Europe

The Seven Ages of Film

The Transition Age

1928-32

From Silent to Sound

The Seven Ages of Film

The Hollywood Studio Age

1932 - 1946

Domination by the Studio

Genre movies

World War II

The Seven Ages of Film

The Internationalist Age

1947 - 1959

Hollywood Studio decline

The challenge of TV

The Seven Ages of Film

The New Wave Age1960 - 1980

From France to the world

Technological innovation

Small scale productionsStrong social / political

value to film.

The Seven Ages of Film

The Mass Media Age1980 - present

Film & movies as part of the global

entertainment / communications

media Digital production

The Seven Ages of Film

Pioneering Age

1896 - 1912

From Sideshow to Art Form

History

Mechanisms for producing moving images had been demonstrated from the 1860s. - zeotropes

praxinoscopes kineoscopes

History

These relied on the “persistence of vision” to provide an illusion of movement if the images were moved at sufficient speed past the viewer.

Eadweard Muybridge1830-1904

• One of the first to show “moving pictures”

• Wagered that a horse leaves all four of its feet

• Created the Zoopraxiscope to prove it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEqccPhsqgA

Edison and the Kinetoscope

• Edison realized motion pictures could attract a paying audience

• Coin operated box that would show amusing films

• 1st copyrighted film April 14, 1894 - “The Sneeze”

• Opposed to showing movies on a screen - felt that you would lose money

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wnOpDWSbyw

History

• Early films were a visual art until the late 19th century when they developed into a narrative with a series of scenes linked together to tell a story.

• Scenes were broken up into multiple shots of varying sizes and angles.

• Camera movement was used to add to the story development.

• Music was used to create mood using a pianist / organist using either sheet music or a score as they accompanied the screen action.

Film History» The first audience to experience a

moving film did so in 1895. The film, by the Lumiere brothers was called “Workers leaving the Lumiere Factory (1895)”

» Their film “Train Entering the Gare de Ciotat (1895)” caused people to faint with fear as the train loomed from the screen into the theatre auditorium.

» These films did not carry a story or narrative - they merely showed a moving image on the screen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6i3uccnZhQ

Georges Melies (1861 – 1938)

• French Theatre Magician• First to use the fade-in/out

and dissolve• Made over 500 films• “A Trip to the Moon” (1902)

most famous• Used far off stationary

camera with single point of view.

• His style became outdated and he soon became bankrupt

A Trip to the Moon (1902)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my5PY0TqPQc

Meanwhile – Back in the USA• Creates the MPPC (Motion Picture Patents Company)

which corners the market on cameras, projectors, and production companies - enforced with armed henchmen who bullied independent film makers

• Independents move to Southern CA to avoid conflict• Audiences flock to the Nickelodeons (due to the 5 cent

admission price) Low cost appealed to the working class

• Soon became appealing to the middle and upper classes through the works of Edwin Porter. His Epic “The Great Train Robbery” was an astounding 12 minutes long and introduced the concept of a “story-driven” movie

The changing process of cinema

» The changes in film process involve several factors.

» George Huaco indentifies four factors:

1. Current events & achievements. (political climate)

2. The creativity of the film-makers who influenced the team of crafts-people involed in the films.

3. The technical developments that could be exploited.

4. The capacity of a sufficient audience to appreciate the results.

Novelty Stage

How do you make images MOVE???

• Flip book

• Eadweard Muybridge: pioneer– 700 cameras/trotting horse

Entrepreneurial Stage

• 1891: Thomas Edison – kinetograph (early film camera)– kinetoscope (single viewer projection)

KINE=movement (e.g. kinetic energy)

Entrepreneurial Stage

Kinetograph, 1891 Edison + Eastman, 1928

Kinoscope Kinparlors

Entrepreneurial Stage

1896, Lumières demonstrated their cinematograph--the first successful machine that could show moving photographs--to an audience,

Entrepreneurial Stage

Edison: vitascope– Made viewing by larger audiences possible– Bike-1899– Kiss-1900– Eggs-1902– School-1904

Vita=lifeScope=view“lifeViewer”

Mass Medium Stage

Narratives engage the audience’s imagination

• George Melies – Opened first theater

in France, 1896– The conjurer, 1899– Trip to the moo (1902)

Mass Medium Stage• Edwin Porter in U.S.

– Shot America’s first narrative film, Life of an American Fireman (1902).

– Shot scenes out of order -- later edit in sequence.

– Shot first close-up….

Mass Medium Stage• Edwin Porter in U.S.

– Shot America’s first narrative film, Life of an American Fireman (1902).

– Shot scenes out of order -- later edit in sequence.

– Shot first close-up (fire alarm)

Mass Medium StageNickelodeons:

storefront theatres in early 1900s.

Nickel + Odeon=

Nickelodeon

Nickelodeon in Toronto, 1910

Mass Medium Stage

Mass Medium StageThe rise of movie palaces

Mass Medium Stage

Mass Medium Stage

Mass Medium Stage

The Seven Ages of Film

The Silent Age

1913 - 1927

The emergence of Hollywood

World War I and the exodus from

Europe

Changing process of cinema» The division between film and movie creates two

views of quality and purpose.

» MOVIES = This is a commercial differentiation = popular entertainment with a mass circulation of copies of the movie. The audience being largely passive.

» The product of an industry dominated by the producer (money) in which there is no individual film-maker but a team under the producer’s control. (The studio system.) The director is hired to create the movie from the script. The final version is, however, the responsibility of the Producer and Editor.

» The director of a movie is known as: metteur en scene = an interpreter of a score / script.

Progressions - The Silent Film

» Film makers experimented to develop new techniques that would enhance their ability to tell a story.

» 1913: Giovanni Pastrone moved his camera laterally and slightly above the level of the foreground thus changing the perspective of the audience from that they’d previously had in the Lumiere films.

» 1923: Carl Mayer directing Last Laugh for F.W.Murnau proposed a forward movement of the camera at dramatic moments as if to thrust the audience into the action.

PastroneMarnua Last Laugh

Silent Film

• no dialogue, no sound recorded on film• live musical accompaniment• exaggerated expressionistic acting• use of inter titles• visual storytelling • slapstick/ physical comedy—Buster

Keaton and Charlie Chaplin• Black and white

Buster Keaton

Progressions - The Silent Film

» F.W.Marnau influenced the film making process with the introduction of the storyboard. This is a script visualized by drawings of every basic change of camera angles in the film.

Progressions - The Silent Film» The storyboard design focus introduced techniques

like “visual punning” that (e.g) involved showing the passage of time by tracking towards a candle flame then dissolving into a lighted gas jet or electric bulb from which they would track away to the next sequence of the story.

» This technique was replaced by nouvelle vague that introduced jump cuts to show or allow the passage of time and space.

» This was known as “kultur-film” in Germany.

AliceinWonderland

The Great Train Robbery (1903)

• First Western• First to use editing as a

storytelling technique• One of the first to use

panning and close-ups• Moved from documentary

to narrative• Based on a true robbery

by Butch Cassidy

Great Train Robbery