THE CONTINUED DEVELOPMENT OF FILM

Let’s Review  Who created the kinetoscope?  Who used his name to add credibility to his vitascope?  Why was the vitascope a big deal?  Which American tycoon bet on the ponies? £$  Who helped him win? And how?  What is “persistence of vision”? And who created it?  Who is the “father of special effects”?  What film did Milies create?  What is one contemporary connection to Milies’ film?

Who created it? Edwin Porter, former Edison cameraman Why is it important? The first narrative film Established that film could be a commercially viable medium The Great Train Robbery

Where we left off...  Film has come a long way from making bets about a horse (1876) to The Great Train Robbery (1903)  What are some aspects of TGTR that were new or innovative (How does it compare to ATTTM?)  At this point film still has quite a ways to go: What are some missing aspects?

Ways to improve film  Need technology in which actors speak (Won’t happen for a long time)  Need technology that enables color (Won’t happen for an even longer time)  A need arises for l o n g e r films  Another need arises for better films (What literary elements are missing?)  Finally, the films themselves need work (DO MORE THINGS WITH THE CAMERA): What can be added?

Ways to Improve Film Sound

Point One: Make Films Longer  As movie going became more of a shared experience (thanks to the VITASCOPE), the industry grew more and more popular  “Nickelodeons” began to spring up  Movie halls in which patrons paid a nickel for about an hours worth of short films  Generally located in large working or middle class populations  Successful because overhead low; turnout high

The Emergence of Griffith  David Wark Griffith comes on the scene around 1907, originally as an actor  Background:  Born 1875 in KY (Son of a former Confederate soldier)  Sixth grade education  A failure of a writer and stage actor; 1907 turns to film  Not a great actor; by 1908 writes/directs his first short film, The Adventures of Dolly

Griffith’s revolution...  Between , Griffith directs almost 500 short films, revolutionizing film with the following techniques:  Scene changes: By 1912, using on average 68 scene changes (How many in TGTR?) Others had 4-15 scenes  Use of different Shots to create tension: cutting back and forth between characters, a.k.a. cross cutting  Excessive use of close ups: Both of people and of objects, used to further illustrate points  Character development

1915 Birth of a Nation

Birth of a Nation (1915)  First full length movie (Three Hours)  History of the Civil War and its aftermath from the point of view of two families  One Northern Family  One Southern Family  Controversial  Blackface  Recruiting tool The eldest son of the Southern family goes on to found the Ku Klux Klan and help “Restore” the South

Success of Birth of a Nation  Ten to Fourteen Million dollars initially made  A film this long had never been seen before  Audiences flocked to see such a tale  Characters fully developed  America’s Civil War had only ended 50 years prior  Griffith was essentially able to produce an epic story, something that had not been done in American film up to that point

Conclusions  American Film continued to develop throughout the 1900’s  Griffith and his contemporaries revolutionized how a film was made and also began to feature a lot of the same actors (Face recognition amongst the crowd)  Birth of a Nation, though controversial, was hailed as a breakthrough movie that paved the way for other full length films