1. The History of Filmmaking
A snapshot view
of the motion picture!

2. Why study film history?
With less than 35 years from the first Lumiere to the first Hollywood film with sound… many of the conventions we take for grated in films, such as narrative form and continuity editing were established in these early years, creating a formal and aesthetic template which has endured to this day.
YOU are part of film history – this is still an evolving and ever-changing medium!

3. Ways to Study Film History
Aesthetic
Technological
Economic
Social History

4. Photography to Film
Eadweard Muybridge, a photographer, was the first to develop photographic sequences of moving objects.
On 5/4/1880, Muybridge showed his magic lantern and his zoopraxiscope - a version of the magic lantern, with a revolving disc that had his photographs arranged around the center and gave the first public demo of photo images in motion!
First motion picture film ... ever!

5. The Crystal Method “Born too Slow” … a music video with clear reference to Muybridge

6. The Early Days…
In the early days of film making, they would use the same camera to film as to project
Filming at this time focused on ordinary, everyday occurrences:
START OF REALISM
The camera at the time became a spectator to what was happening in the world
The Lumiere Brothers of France were pioneers that worked in this style
1895 first private screening
The brothers invent the cinematograph, a combination camera and projector 
The image of an oncoming train is said to have caused a stampede!
Exiting the Factory
Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat

7. Edison and Black Mariah Studio
The invention of the kinetograph and the kinetoscope made the 1891 movie “Fred Ott’s Sneeze” possible.
Edison opened the Black Mariah Studio which could move on circular tracks allowing it to turn and a skylight to assist in indoor shooting – this was the first movie studio - as it contained camera, technicians and actors.
The first kinetoscope parlor opens at  1155 broadway in new york City. Spectators can watch film for 25 cents
When it was realized that this was a “true” industry, film making moved to L.A. for “open air studios”
Early Edison Films focused on these
“every day” activities.
Fred Ott’s Sneeze

8. Edison Corporation & Continued Innovation
Edison Corporation mechanic Edwin Porter turns cameraman, director and producer to make 1903’s : The Great Train Robbery
With 14 shots cutting between simultaneous events, this 12 minute short establishes the shot as film's basic element and editing as a central narrative device.  
It is also the first western.

9. Georges Melies
Paramount among early innovators of film form was Melies who began to make short narrative movies based on the theatrical model of short, sequential scenes shot from a fixed point of view.  
Editing consisted of joining these scenes together.  
Melies was a magician and when he understood that he could make the camera stop and start he was able to make things vanish and reappear - he reveled in fooling the public!  
He is best known for his use of special effects -still captivating today
Start of ANTIREALISM
Voyage to the Moon, 1902

10. Smashing Pumpkins “Tonight, Tonight” a great reference to Melies

11. Classical Hollywood – the Silent Period, 1908-27
Charlie Chaplin is one of the most well known in the silent film industry
He shot with a 90 degree axis camera angle – a hold over from the stage
He would use a lot of theatrical makeup
1914 Charlie Chaplin debuted his trademark mustached, baggy-pants “Little Tramp” character – his most famous – and he made dozens of films to become filmdom’s first great star!
1916 The salary of Charlie Chaplain went from $125 to $10,000 weekly when he signed on with the Mutual Film Corporation
Although sound was not part of the picture itself, there was still SOUND at the theater (a musical score would accompany the film through live musical performance)
Ten Best Silent Movies Stars:
Charlie Chaplin The Lion’s Cage

12. Classical Hollywood – the silent period, 1908-27
Classic Hollywood Style is fundamentally built on the principle of "invisibility" : the movie's form (narrative, cinematography, editing, sound, acting and so forth) should not call attention to itself
Additionally, Hollywood became the enter of the industry and standardized the way movies were produced. This is called the “studio system”
Director DW Griffith's developments in narrative form distinguish this era.
DW Griffith’s most celebrated, and loathed, film was Birth of a Nation, 1915 which boasted a dazzling set of technical achievements, but it's topic was highly controversial.  
1921 D.W. Griffith’s film Dream Street, with experimental sound in the introductory prologue has been regarded as the first feature film to use sound.
Other Classical Hollywood achievements include:
Nanook of the North, regarded as the first significant documentary film.  
Major movie genres were created and films were modeled in those genres (Western, etc.)
Significant progression in animation: 1924 Animator Walt Disney, for Laugh-Gram Studios directed his first cartoon: Alice’s Wonderland
1910 Thomas Edison introduced his kinetophone, which made talkies a reality. However, his attempt to combine the phonograph and motion pictures failed commercially
Sound experiments abounded, transforming the movie industry after 1927

13. Elsewhere during this time… 1919-31 German Expressionism
Expressionist film presents the physical world on the screen as a projection, or expression of the subjective world, usually that of the film's protagonist.  
Its chief characteristics are:
distorted and exaggerated settings
compositions of unnatural spaces
use of oblique angles and nonparallel lines
a moving and subjective camera
unnatural costumes, hairstyles and makeup
highly stylized acting
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

15. Elsewhere during this time… 1918-1930 French Avant-Garde Filmmaking
 Three types:
short Dadaist and Surrealist films of an anti-conventional, absurdist nature;
short naturalistic psychological studies
feature-length films that also emphasize pure visual form.
An Andalusian Dog (1929) Dali Bunuel

16. Elsewhere during this time… 1924-30 The soviet montage movement
Master of the Soviet Montage: Sergi Eisenstein
Eisenstein developed his own theories of how an aesthetic experience can influence a viewer's psychological and emotional reactions.  Eisenstein viewed editing as a creative process.
Established the dialectic film montage technique as an important structural method to evoke a response via juxtaposing film shots.
His use of juxtaposition of individual shots not only calls attention to each of these shots but also forces the viewer to reach conclusions about the interplay between them.
Non-linear editing in future films, such as Pulp Fiction owe their stylistic techniques to this film….
Battleship Potemkin, 1925: Odessa Steps Sequence

17. Advances in Animation: Alice in Slumberland, 1926 – Disney http://www
mix and interaction of live actors & animation/complete reached it’s technical fulfillment 70 years later "Who Framed Roger Rabbit."
Who Framed Roger Rabbit

18. Classical Hollywood Style- Hollywood’s Golden Age, 1927-47
Mid-to-Late 1920’s Most of the major Hollywood motion-picture studios had been established by this time including the “Big Five” (Warner Brothers, Fox – later 20th Century Fox, RKO, Loew’s Inc – known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/MGM, Paramount) and the “Little Three” (United Artists, Universal and Columbia)
Silent to sound, consolidation of the studio system, exploitation of familiar genres, changes in the look of movies, and the economic success of feature-length narrative films.  
Studio system standardized the way movies were produced. Top-down organization with management controlling everything, especially the employees who were subject to the strict terms of their contracts. Actors were “studio actors” Directors were “studio directors”.
average of 744 movies/year ; movies produced.
Entertaining and successful at the box office : stylistic conformity, if it worked once, it would work in a string of similar movies.
All this and heaven too, warner bros; leave her to heaven, fox; the philadelphia story mgm; my favorite wife, RKO; for whom the bell tolls, paramount … all nominated for academy awards

19. Classical Hollywood Style- Hollywood’s Golden Age, 1927-47
Inextricably linked with the development of American culture and society.  From this point forward, the movies defined America and America defined itself through the movies.  
Genres: screwball comedies, musical, gangster, historical epics, melodramas, newspaper and horror movies, westerns and biographies.  
Predominant cinematographic style of the 30s was soft-focus, the new lighting an film stock made it easier to achieve greater depth of focus, which created the illusion of perspective.  

20. Classical Hollywood Style- Hollywood’s Golden Age, 1927-47 The “Big Five” Studios
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
established in 1924, by merger of Loew's, Inc. theater chain with three production companies (Metro Pictures/Goldwyn Pictures/Louis B. Mayer Productions)
leader in stars, glamour, spectacle: consider Gone with the Wind and Wizard of Oz, both 1939
a "galaxy of stars": Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Judy Garland, Greer Garson, Jean Harlow, Norma Shearer; Mickey Rooney, Spencer Tracey, Clark Gable
Wizard of Oz trailer:
All this and heaven too, warner bros; leave her to heaven, fox; the philadelphia story mgm; my favorite wife, RKO; for whom the bell tolls, paramount … all nominated for academy awards

21. “Big Five” Paramount Picture Corp
established as a distribution company in 1914, it was acquired by Adolph Zukor in 1917, who merged it with his production company, Famous Players-Lasky Corp., and then started buying theatres, making it the first fully vertically-integrated company
silent era stars: Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Gloria Swanson, William S. Hart, Fatty Arbuckle
directors: Cecil B. DeMille, Erich von Stroheim, Mack Sennet, D.W. Griffith, Dorothy Arzner (from one of few women directors in era)
comedy, light entertainment, occasional epics (like DeMille's Ten Commandments)
later stars: Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, Hedy Lamarr, Barbara Stanwyck, Marx Bros., Bing Crosby, Bob Hope
Sabrina Trailer:

22. “Big Five” Fox Film Corporation/20th Century Fox
established for exhibition in 1913 by William Fox; producing fims by 1915.
"20th C" after 1935 merger with production company headed in part by Darryl F. Zanuck, former Warners production head who had just left United Artists
known for musicals; westerns and crime films after 1948; The Robe (1953), 1st Cinemascope feature film
directors: John Ford, Elia Kazan, Joseph Mankiewicz
stars: Shirley Temple, Will Rodgers, Tyrone Power, Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda, Sonja Henie; in 1940s/50s Henry Fonda, Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, Gregory Peck
A clip from “Little Miss Broadway”

23. “Big Five”
Warner Brothers established in 1924 by Harry, Jack and Albert Warner
1st sound film: The Jazz Singer (1927)
fully integrated only by , with acquisition of First National Pictures theatre chain (which had come into being in 1917 to resist Adolph Zukor)
1930s: gangster films, backstage musicals, social realism
no "stable" but contact directors and stars: Raoul Walsh, Howard Hawks; Paul Muni, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Errol Flynn, James Dean, Bette Davis, Ingrid Bergman, Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck, Lauren Bacall
The Jazz Singer:

24. “Big Five” RKO Radio Pictures Incorporated
an immediate major, born of the 1928 merger of Radio Corporation of America with Keith and Orpheum theatres to exploit its "Photophone" movie sound system
"unit production" introduced by David O. Selznick (contracting with individual directors for a certain number of films, free of studio interference)
hence Citizen Kane (Welles), King Kong, Bringing Up Baby (Hawks), Notorious (Hitchcock)
associated with horror films and film noir in its B-movies; after , B-movies became the chief product
Citizen Kane Theatrical Trailer:
BY THE WAY>>> Citizen Kane 1941 revolutionized the medium and has since been considered the most important movie ever made.