 No one person created the art of movie making  As early as the Renaissance period Italians (Da Vinci) were experimenting with camera obscura (dark room)

Camera Obscura  is an optical device that projects an image of its surroundings on a screen. It is used in drawing and for entertainment, and was one of the inventions that led to photography. The device consists of a box or room with a hole in one side. Light from an external scene passes through the hole and strikes a surface inside where it is reproduced, upside-down, but with color and perspective preserved. The image can be projected onto paper, and can then be traced to produce a highly accurate representation.imagephotography perspective

 Using mirrors, as in the 18th century overhead version, it is possible to project a right-side-up image.  jacked from wikipedia

 19 th century inventors discovered how to make lasting copies of the image. This advent lead to the creation of photography

 In 1820 Englishman William Talbot experimented with images on paper negative, trying to “write with light”.

 By 1839 Frenchman Louis Daguerre perfected the process of reproducing sharp permanent images on metal plates called daguerreotypes.

 Inventors experimented with the “persistence of vision”  What happens when the retina retains the images of an object for a fraction of a second in the dark  Because the view of objects persists, a succession of till images can appear if properly presented

 Inventors gave devices Greek names like thumatrope, zoetrope, and phenakistacope  These were little more than curiosities

 A combination of camera obscura, persistence of vision, and daguerreotype led to the creation of motion pictures as we know it.

So when was the motion picture invented?  When this advent occurred is a matter of debate among film historians.  As early as 1888, Frenchman Louis Le Prince produced several strips of film in Britain.  Little is known of Le Prince. He vanished in 1890 after boarding a train to Paris

In 1881 Thomas Edison’s assistant William K.L. Dickson used a roll of celluloid film to record sequential photographs in his Kinetograph  Perforated edges in film allowed for it to be lifted and exposed to light frame by frame  When viewed through a peep-hole device, he persistence of vision created the illusion of movement.

 Since peepholes are not film, some credit Frenchmen August & Louis Lumiere with creating the motion picture.  The Lumiere brothers created the cinematographe.  The borthers began showing films to audiences in 1895.

-Georges Melies- French Magician  Fascinated by films’ capacity for trickery and spectacle.  Was filming traffic in Paris when his machine jammed.  He fixed it and continued filming.  Later, during playback, he noticed that the taxi had morphed into a hearse.  Began experiments in stop-motion photography.

Films of Melies  A Trip to the Moon (1902)  The Palace of Arabian Nights (1905)

Lumiere Brothers  Filmed trains entering and leaving the station  Film split into reality and fantasy  It is uncertain who developed each new film technique  Early film makers expanded the language of film (deliberately and trial-and-error).

Edwin S. Porter American  Life of an American Airman – built with a sequence of individual shots.  The Great Train Robbery – cut between indoor and outdoor scenes, without playing each scene out to its dramatic conclusion (unthinkable on stage).

D. W. Griffith American  Discovered innovative uses of close-ups, long shots, pans, and cross cutting through the course of his career.  The Adventures of Dollie (1908)  Intolerance (1916)

 Film was growing away from its dependence on staged action to become an independent art form.

Rise of a New Art Form  Was considered ‘cheap’ entertainment for the masses well into WWI  Most run-of-the-mill leaned heavily on theatrical models and inexpensive formulas.  Became more widely accepted by the middle class as new studios began turning out full- length features.

Rise of a New Art Form…  Hollywood moguls got their start during this time (Carl Cammle, Jack Warner…)  Shrewd business deals led to the development of these major studios: Universal, Paramount, MGM and Warner Brothers