Bronson: "a short history of the Motion Picture"

Dear avid readers, 

The History of motion pictures spans over 

a hundred years, from the beginning 19th century to the beginning of the 21st becoming one of the most important communication, 

entertainment and mass media tools of the 20th Century.

1878~ "the birth of film" - fast motion

O_O "wow, look it's a pony"

• invented: Eadweard Muybridge
  
• photographed a horsefast motion using a series of 24 stereoscopic cameras
  
• cameras were arranged along a track parallel to the horse's, and each of the camera shutters was controlled by a trip wire which was triggered by the horse's hooves.
  
• Muybridge pictures were cut into strips and used in a Praxinoscope

1877- Praxinoscope (one year before hand) a French dude called Charles Emile Reynaud invented a 'projector' device with a mirrored drum that created the illusion of movement. {wow, thats amazing}

• the fast motion picture was also viewed on a Mutoscope {below}

1895~ "l'Motion Picture Camera"

• Frenchman Louis Lumiere is often credited with the invention the first motion picture camera.
  
• (although there where several other similar motion picture devices in circulation at the same time Lumiere invented his). However what made Lumiere invention different was that it was a portable motion-picture camera, film processing unit and projector, called the Cinematographe. Three functions covered in one invention. {left}
• The Cinematographe made motion pictures very popular, Lumiere and his brother being the first to project, moving, photographic, pictures to a paying audience of more then one. (And it could be said that Lumiere's invention began the era of motion picture)

1926~"THE AGE OF SILENT FILM ENDS."

• For the first 30 years of motion pictures was spent in silence. The early pioneers in the film industry spent there time continuing to create new filming techniques, taking the film from one-reelers (created 1896 by French magician Georges Méliès) to multi-reelers (in 1912). 
• the first sound picture however was created in 1926 by Warner Brother Studios, using a process called a Vitaphone, that could record musical and spoken passages on a large disk that were then synchronized with the action on the screen.
• A Vitaphone-equipped theater used special projectors, an amplifier, and speakers. The projectors operated as normal motorized silent projectors would, but also provided a mechanical interlock with an attached phonograph turntable. When the projector was threaded, the projectionist would align a start mark on the film with the picture gate, and would at the same time place a phonograph record on the turntable, being careful to align the phonograph needle with an arrow scribed on the record's label.
• In 1927, Warner Brothers released The Jazz Singer, their first talking picture, starring the entertainer Al Jolson, and sound films were an immediate success with the public. Jolson's line “You ain't heard nothing yet!” from The Jazz Singer signaled the end of the silent era. 

"The Jazz Singer" (1927)

"Mammy" (1930)

1933~"The Advent of Colour"

• Experiments with color films had begun as early as 1906, and color was used occasionally as a novelty, but most of the processes developed, including early two-color Technicolor, were disappointing and failed to generate any enthusiasm on the part of the public.
  
• By 1933, the Technicolor process had been perfected as a commercially viable three-color system (cyan, magenta, and yellow), which was first used in the 1935 film "Becky Sharp".
• Technicolor became known and celebrated for its hyper-realistic, saturated levels of color, and was used commonly for filming musicals (such as Easter Parade, Singin' in the Rain, and Wizard of Oz)
• The popularity of color grew, and it was used increasingly throughout the 1940s.

"Singin' in the Rain" (1952)

1953~"CinemaScope"

• Created a wide-screen revolution in the film industry. 
  
• In rapid succession studios introduced a series of wide-screen processes.
  
• Although CinemaScope was shortly made obsolete by new technological developments, the anamorphic presentation of films initiated by CinemaScope in the 1950s has continued to this day.
  

1980's- "A New Digital Age" 

• as the world embraced the digital age so did film.
• Digital cinematography captures motion pictures digitally, in a process analogous to digital photography. While there is no clear technical distinction that separates the images captured in digital cinematography from video, the term "digital cinematography" is usually applied only in cases where digital acquisition is substituted for film acquisition, such as when shooting a feature film. The term is not generally applied when digital acquisition is substituted for analog video acquisition, as with live broadcast television programs.
  

..."and, THATS A RAP!"

bibliography:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cinema
• http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blmotionpictures.htm
  
• http://www.filmsite.org/filmh.html
  
• http://www.history.com/encyclopedia.do?articleId=216967
  
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technicolor
  
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_film_(motion_picture)
  
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinemascope
  
• http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/oldcolor/technicolor1.htm
  
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_cinematography