1. Early History of Cinema
Presentation by
Chris Schloemp
Information by Tim Dirks

2. The Birth of Cinema
1891--William Dickson, an assistant to Thomas Edison designs Kinetoscope
1892--Kinetograph, camera with sprocket system
1893--”Black Maria”, first film studio in New Jersey
1894--Fred Ott’s Sneeze
1896--The Kiss

4. The Lumiere Brothers Louis and Auguste Inspired by Edison
Cinematographe--could project to many spectators
December 28, first commercial exhibition of a projected motion picture to a paying public in the world’s first movie theater

6. Lumiere Films
La Sortie des Ouviers de L’Usine Lumiere (Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory)
L’Arroseur Arrose (The Sprinkler Sprinkled)
The Arrival of a Train
Short, slice-of-life documentaries

7. Georges Melies Set up Europe’s first film studio in 1897
1902--Le Voyage Dans la Lune (Trip to the Moon)
Pioneer in illusion and fantasy: trick photography, dissolves, wipes, trick sets, stop-motion, slow-motion, and fadeouts

8. Further US Development
Edison Company, Biograph, American Vitagraph Company
Edwin Porter, first American documentary: The Life of an American Fireman (1903)
1903--Porter directs The Great Train Robbery

9. Great Milestones First narrative film with storyline
First film shot out of sequence
First use of cross-cutting
First Western
First smash hit

10. Nickelodeons Spend an evening at the cinema for a nickel
First nickelodeon in Pittsburgh, 1905
Cheap entertainment for the working class

11. D.W. Griffith: Early Pioneer
“Father of Film”--first cinematic storyteller
Joined Biograph in 1908, made 60 films in 1909
Created modern language of cinema: composed shots, camera movement, split screen, flashbacks, dissolves, lens filters, and artificial lighting

12. The Motion Picture Patents Company
1908--East-Coast companies formed MPPC to monopolize the growing industry
Protected profits, limited artistic freedom, fought movie piracy, reduced power of distributors
Refused to give screen credit to players
Signed contract with George Eastman for exclusive right to his famed film stock

13. IMP and Universal MPPC fought by the independents, led by Carl Laemmle
Founded Independent Moving Pictures (IMP)
1911--IMP acquires first studio in Hollywood (later Universal)
1913--Traffic in Souls, about white slavery

14. East Coast vs. West Coast
Laemmle encouraged US government to bring anti-trust suit against MPPC
1907--first film shot in Los Angeles
1911--Nestor Company becomes first West Coast motion picture studio
film companies operating in Hollywood
1917--Supreme Court disbands MPPC

16. Vitagraph Early 1900s, major competitor with Edison
Became known for filming historical events: Roosevelt’s charge up San Juan Hill, the Boer War in South Africa, the Galveston flood of 1900, McKinley’s assassination in 1901, and the San Francisco earthquake of 1906
Eventually absorbed in Warner Bros. in 1925

17. Carl Laemmle and Universal
Founder of IMP and Universal
Cinema taken over by entrepreneurs
Responsible for creating the “star system”
Actors now earned screen credits
Florence Lawrence and Mary Pickford first movie stars, under Laemmle

18. Fan Magazines Photoplay, first true fan magazine debuted in 1911
Gave rise to the idea of celebrity culture
Interviews and gossip columns about personal lives of stars

19. Serials
Films released in episodic installments extremely popular in period before WWI
Death-defying stunts, speedy plots, sensationalism, nice-girl leads in distress
1914--The Perils of Pauline
1914--The Exploits of Elaine
1915--Theda Bara became new movie archetype: the “vamp,” the first tempting sex symbol

20. Thomas Harper Ince
Developed the “factory-studio system” to mass produce films
Supervised Bison Company (Inceville) a 20,000 acre ranch in the Santa Ynez Canyon
Prototype for Hollywood studio: studio head, directors, production staff, writers under one organization (the unit system)
Died 1924, mysteriously, on Hearst’s yacht (See the 2002 film The Cat’s Meow)

21. Keystone and Mack Sennett
Trademark slapstick comedies
Canadian vaudevillian Mack Sennett, the “King of Comedy”
1913--first of the Keystone Comedies
1914--Tillie’s Punctured Romance--first American feature-length comedy

23. Charlie Chaplin: the Tramp
First truly great film star
British vaudevillian
Apprentice to Sennett in 1913
Established familiar tramp character with characteristic walk in The Tramp (1915)
1917--first million-dollar contract

24. Griffith’s Landmark Epics
1915--Birth of a Nation
Beautifully-structured battle scenes
Revolutionary techniques: dollying, masking, irises, flashbacks, cross-cuts
1916--Intolerance
Four interwoven stories of intolerance (modern, medieval, Judean, Babylonian)