International Film History Review Ch. 1-3

The Kinetophone

(aka Phonokinetoscope) was an early attempt by Edison and Dickson to create a sound-film system.

The Lonedale Operator, Suspense (Nickelodeon Era)

1911, directed by D.W. Griffith, when her father becomes ill, a young woman takes over the telegraph at a lonely western railroad station. She soon gets word that the next train will deliver the payroll for a mining company. The train brings not only the money, but a pair of ruffians bent on stealing it. All alone, she wires for help, and then holds off the bad guys until it arrives.

Feeding the Doves

Abundance of movements, historically interesting: sending prints for copyright, negatives were lost bc loud noises sent doves flying, 1894, girl feeding the doves, no sound, produced by James A. White for the Edison Manufacturing Co

The Cinematographe

16 lb. hand-cranked camera

Workers Leaving The Lumiere Factory

1895 French short black-and-white silent documentary film directed and produced by Louis Lumière. It is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, first official theater experience

The Great Train Robbery

A 1903 American silent short Western film written, produced, and directed by Edwin S. Porter, a former Edison Studios cameraman. At twelve minutes long, considered a milestone in film making, expanding on Porter's previous work Life of an American Fireman. The film used a number of then-unconventional techniques, including composite editing, on-location shooting, and frequent camera movement. The film is one of the earliest to use the technique of cross cutting, in which two scenes are shown to be occurring simultaneously but in different locations. Some prints were also hand colored in certain scenes.

Early Narrative Films

A Trip To the Moon, The Gay Shoe Clerk, The Great Train Robbery, Rescued by Rover

The film industry's move to Hollywood was prompted by what:

A cheap labor pool in a mainly non-union city, the variety of natural settings and backgrounds for movies close at hand, an average 350 sunny days per year in Southern California, a desire to distance themselves from the Edison Trust Forces

The feature film

A feature film is a film (also called a motion picture, movie, or just film) with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole film to fill a program. The notion of how long this should be has varied according to time and place. ... The majority of feature films are between 70 and 210 minutes long. a feature-length motion picture must have a running time of more than 40 minutes and must have been exhibited theatrically on 35mm or 70mm film, or in a qualifying digital format

Black Maria

Amy Muller danced in this on March 24, 1896, black background and patch of sunlight from the opening in the roof were standard traits of kinetoscope films

Lumiere Bros Films

Arrival of a Train, The Gardener Gets Sprinkled, Feeding the Baby, Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory

Before entering into motion picture production, most Hollywood chiefs of the studio era had worked:

As motion picture exhibitors

"Cinema of Attractions" vs "Cinema of Narrative Integration"

Attractions-"a cinema that displays its visibility, willing to rupture a self-enclosed fictional world for a chance to solicit the attention of the spectator." This meaning that cinema could be created, not necessarily as an entertainment function but more along the lines that a film would attract its spectators by presenting something exclusive, something unique.

Sandow:

Body Builder Eugen Sandow, building of muscles posed, new medium detailed image of movement. Now known as "the father of modern bodybuilding" 1894 Director: William K.L. Dickson

CF Barry Salt

Book by Barry Salt Film Style and Technology is a history of film style and its relationship to film technology. It also includes a theory of film analysis and demonstrates this theory using the films of Max Ophuls.

The Glenroy Bros Comic Boxing:

Boxer with classic style vs unorthodox approach The Glenroy Brothers perform a portion of their vaudeville act, "The Comic View of Boxing: The Tramp & the Athlete", which depicts a boxer with a classic style trying to contend with an opponent who uses a very unorthodox approach. 1894

Opposed Edison's Trust

Carl Laemmle

The Gay Shoe Clerk

Comedy, short, 1903, A woman being fitted for shoes exposes her ankle to the shoe clerk, who is intrigued. He kisses her, but her chaperone hits him with her umbrella. "Close up" of leg with tights. Director: Edwin S. Porter

Griffith's innovations of film style

D.W. Griffith was one of cinema's earliest directors and producers, known for his innovations and for directing the 1915 film Birth of a Nation, which was a blockbuster but was also highly racist in content. Later work included Intolerance, Broken Blossoms and Orphans of the Storm. Griffith died on July 23, 1948.

Serpentine Dance:

Dance performed by Annabelle; color which was hand-tinted: lock-off shot. Highlighted the new medium's ability to portray movement and light. Two particularly well-known versions were Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1894), a performance by Broadway dancer Annabelle Whitford from Edison Studios, and a Lumière brothers film made in 1896. Many other filmmakers produced their own versions, distributing prints that had been hand-tinted to evoke (though not quite reproduce) the appearance of colored light projection.

Chaplin and the star system

Early films, in the East, had not named the actors in the credits for fear of creating stars (and thus raising salaries). As Hollywood grew, in the early 1900s, the industry came to rely increasingly on stars to bring people back to the movies again and again. -CHARLIE CHAPLIN (The Little Tramp) one of the most recognized Silent Film Stars of all time!

The Vitascope

Edison's projector system

Director of Edison Co. Films

Edwin S. Porter

The Kinetograph

Electric powered camera

The Rice-Irwin Kiss:

First film shown in public, 18 secs, Black Maria Studios, culturally significant bc caused scandalized. an 1896 film, and was one of the first films ever shown commercially to the public. Around 18 seconds long, it depicts a re-enactment of the kiss between May Irwin and John Rice from the final scene of the stage musical The Widow Jones. The film was directed by William Heise for Thomas Edison. The film was produced in April 1896 at the Edison Studios of Edison, the first movie studio in the United States. At the time, Edison was working at the Black Maria studios in West Orange, New Jersey.

The Black Maria

First movie studio facility

Feeding The Baby

First official theater experience, 1895, French short black-and-white silent documentary film directed and produced by Louis Lumière and starring Andrée Lumière.

Tableaux scenes

French for 'living picture', is a static scene containing one or more actors or models. They are stationary and silent, usually in costume, carefully posed, with props and/or scenery, and may be theatrically lit. participants make still images with their bodies to represent a scene. A tableau can be used to quickly establish a scene that involves a large number of characters. Because there is no movement, a tableau is easier to manage than a whole-group improvisation - yet can easily lead into extended drama activities. It can be used to explore a particular moment in a story or drama, or to replicate a photograph or artwork for deeper analysis.

Griffith's Cameraman

G.W. "Billy" Bitzer

Pioneered trick films

Georges Melies

The rise of Hollywood

In cinema's earliest days, the film industry was based in the nation's theatrical center, New York, and most films were made in New York or New Jersey, although a few were shot in Chicago, Florida, and elsewhere. Beginning in 1908, however, a growing number of filmmakers located in southern California, drawn by cheap land and labor, the ready accessibility of varied scenery, and a climate ideal for year-round outdoor filming. Contrary to popular mythology, moviemakers did not move to Hollywood to escape the film trust; the first studio to move to Hollywood, Selig, was actually a trust member. By the early 1920s, Hollywood had become the world's film capital. It produced virtually all films show in the United States and received 80 percent of the revenue from films shown abroad. During the '20s, Hollywood bolstered its position as world leader by recruiting many of Europe's most talented actors and actresse

In 1900, people could view motion pictures:

In traveling exhibitions at carnivals, amusement parks, etc and in Vaudeville theaters

Lumiere Brothers:

Louis and Auguste invented a projection system that helped make the cinema a commercial viable enterprise internationally

Warner Bros

Nickelodeon Films launched their careers, Cascade Theater in Newcastle Pennsylvania

The Barber Shop

Premiere presentation of vita scope motion picture production, an 1894 American short narrative film directed by William K.L. Dickson and William Heise. It was produced by the Edison Manufacturing Company at the Black Maria Studio, in West Orange, New Jersey. The Kinetophone film has been described as Heise's most ambitious film production.

Seminary Girls

Several younger women having a pillow fight in dorm, authority figure comes in to stop it, amusing/life-like sense, intimate, forbidden women/females specifically to be watched, 1897, Edison

Lumieres

Shot their film at 16 frames per second vs 46 frames per second like Edison did, this rate became the most comply used international film speed for about 20 yrs

American Biograph

Supported Edison's Trust

Edison's Studio was called...

The Black Maria

The film editing technique of cross-cutting was used in:

The Lonedale Operator

The Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC, also known as the Edison Trust)

The MPPC was preceded by the Edison licensing system, in effect in 1907-1908, on which the MPPC was modeled. During the 1890s, Thomas Edison owned most of the major American patents relating to motion picture cameras. The Edison Manufacturing Company's patent lawsuits against each of its domestic competitors crippled the American film industry, reducing American production mainly to two companies: Edison and Biograph, which used a different camera design. This left Edison's other rivals with little recourse but to import French and British films.

Edison's Patent's Trust vs the Independents:

The Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC, also known as the Edison Trust), founded in December 1908 and terminated 7 years later in 1915 after conflicts within the industry, was a trust of all the major American film companies (Edison, Biograph, Vitagraph, Essanay, Selig Polyscope, Lubin Manufacturing, Kalem Company, Star Film Paris, American Pathé), the leading film distributor (George Kleine) and the biggest supplier of raw film stock, Eastman Kodak. The MPPC ended the domination of foreign films on American screens, standardized the manner in which films were distributed and exhibited in America, and improved the quality of American motion pictures by internal competition. But it also discouraged its members' entry into feature film production, and the use of outside financing, both to its members' eventual detriment.

Edison Films:

The Rice-Irwin Kiss, Serpentine Dance, Sandow, The Glenroy Bros Comic Boxing, Cockfight, The Barber shop, Feeding the Doves Seminary Girls

"The Independent" film producers who opposed the Edison Trust were:

The future leaders of Hollywood

Kinetograph

Thomas Alva Edison's 1889 Kinetograph, the first camera to take motion pictures on a moving strip of film.

Edison's Trust Co.:

Tried to monopolize the film business by pooling and controlling patents

Cockfight

Two gamecocks fight in the Edison Company film studio. This feature was remade later in the same year, with additional detail added. 1894 Director: William K.L. Dickson

Developed the Kinetograph

W.K.L. Dickson

The shooting style of early cinema such as Sandow the Strongman, The Rice-Irwin Kiss, or the films of Melies:

Was often conceived from the model of a stage performance and placed the camera at the point of view of a front-row theater Spectator.

Edison's phonograph

Worked by recording sound on cylinders, tried to make rows of tiny photographs around similar cylinders

Lumiere Bros first film and importance:

Workers Leaving the Factory, it embodied the essential appeal of first films: realistic movement of actual people

A Trip To the Moon

a 1902 French adventure film directed, produced, and written by Georges Méliès. Inspired by a wide variety of sources. The film follows a group of astronomers who travel to the Moon in a cannon-propelled capsule, explore the Moon's surface, escape from an underground group of Selenites (lunar inhabitants), and return to Earth with a captive Selenite. Projected at 16 frames per second, first known science fiction film, and uses innovative animation and special effects, including the well-known image of the spaceship landing in the Moon's eye.

Rescued By Rover

a 1905 British short silent drama film, directed by Lewin Fitzhamon, about a dog who leads its master to his kidnapped baby, which was the first to feature the Hepworth's family dog Blair in a starring role. An advance in filming techniques, editing, production and story telling.

Vaudeville

a type of entertainment popular chiefly in the US in the early 20th century, featuring a mixture of specialty acts such as burlesque comedy, song and dance

The Edison Co.'s Kinetoscope:

allowed one person at a time to view a short film loop

Kinetoscope

an early motion picture exhibition device. The Kinetoscope was designed for films to be viewed by one individual at a time through a peephole viewer window at the top of the device. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector, but introduced the basic approach that would become the standard for all cinematic projection before the advent of video, by creating the illusion of movement by conveying a strip of perforated film bearing sequential images over a light source with a high-speed shutter

Cinematographe

an elegant little camera designed by the Lumiere Freres family, used 35mm film and an intermittent mechanism modeled not hat of the sewing machine, was a printer and modeled the front of the magic pattern served as part of the projector

Arrival of the Train

aspect of everyday life, no camera movement, continuous real-time shot, cinematographe, 1895

The Gardener Gets Sprinkled

comedy, first film to portray fictional story, 1895, A gardener is watering his flowers, when a mischievous boy sneaks up behind his back, and puts a foot on the water hose.

George Eastman:

created flexible celluloid film stock

Edison's Kinetoscope

early motion picture exhibition device, one individual at a time (1988), had help from W.L.K Dickson, a peephole device that ran the film around a series of rollers. Viewers activated it by putting a coin in its slot.

Early "chase films" including Rescued by Rover:

helped provide the beginning of continuity narratives

Series Photographs

horse rack

Cross Cutting

in which two scenes are shown to be occurring simultaneously but in different locations.

Edweard Muybridge:

made series photographs on a running horse

Nickelodeon Theaters

most had one projector, could run the same brief programs over and over, continuously, many exhibitors made huge profit, "store theaters", not seasonal, cheaper and more regularly available

Vaudeville Theaters:

presented live variety show acts and sometimes included motion pictures as part of a show.

Lumiere Frères

the biggest European manufacturer of photographic plates

The magic-lantern

the first projector and one of the leading antecedants of the movies -- was invented in the 1650s, probably by a prominent Dutch scientist, Christiaan Huygens. It soon became a showman's instrument.

The Arrival of a Train and The Gardener Gets Sprinkled

typified the documentary and comic scenes of Lumiere bros.' films

The Edison Co.'s Kinetograph:

was a behemoth weighing 500 pounds

The Lumiere Brothers' Cinematograph:

was a combined camera, printer, and projector all in one

A trio To the Moon:

was a complex narrative told in sixteen tableaux scenes

The Great Train Robbery:

was a complex story film running about 12 minutes

A Trip to the Moon:

was an example of the "trick" film popular in early cinema

D.W. Griffith's Biograph Co. films such as The Lonedale Operator:

were shown in nickelodeons and often featured multiple lines of story action created by film editing

Nickelodeons:

were the first permanent, movie-only theaters