The movies
The movies have been entertaining us for over a century now. Yet how did movies come about? And how do they work?
Out of obscura and darkness
The story of movies began in the 1500s, in a way. Artists found that a "camera obscura" could help them as they drew landscape. Take a dark room or booth with the only light being through a small hole facing what you want to draw. Place a screen opposite the hole; a faint image of the landscape can be seen.
The artist can then sketch what he sees, and then do touch-ups later. Such a camera is now known as a pinhole camera.
Later, a lens replaced the small hole, allowing in more light and could make a crisper image.
The big advancement comes with the Daguerreotype. Here the image is put onto a glass plate containing the compound silver nitrate. Silver nitrate turns dark when exposed to light, and so can be used to preserve the image.
Here's how:
Take your camera obscura and place a thin film containing silver nitrate at the image.
The bright spots of the image will turn the film dark at those places and leave the dark spots alone.
"Develop" the film, or fix the dark spots, so they stay in place. We don't have the image proper, but the opposite – called a negative.
To get the real image, repeat the process, this time taking a picture of the negative – a negative of a negative gives back the original.
Photography was born.
Daguerreotype of a young Abraham Lincoln
It's alive!
Advancement in pictures and moving pictures came, of all things, because of a bet.
Leland Stanford, former governor of California and future founder of Stanford University, had a bet to settle. At any time, do all four horse hooves leave the ground at the same time when in gallop?
So Mr. Stanford hired a photographer by the name of Eadweard Muybridge to settle the bet. Mr. Muybridge set up 12 cameras to take pictures of the horse in motion. The bet was settled; all four hooves do sometimes leave the ground.
Yet a strange thing happened with he quickly thumbed through the photographs. The horse appeared to move!
Here was the key to making moving pictures. Rapidly take photos of some action, about 20 every second or so, onto a long roll of film.
All you need is a special camera to take lots of pictures quickly, a movie camera.
The movies
Shooting film is just the first part of the process; showing the movies to audiences is the second. The first approach was with the Kinetoscope (moving scope). The person watched the film, each machine being loaded with a particular movie, through a viewer on top. The number of movies a paying guest could watch was based on how much they paid.
At first, movies showed common, everyday actions (See a sampling here). Later, movies would change in ways that make it more familiar with us today.
Movie producers decided it would be more profitable to group movie viewers into a single room and project them onto a screen. The movie theater was born.
Movies began being developed into a way to tell stories instead of just depicting ordinary acts of life. An early example by the Edison company is The Great Train Robbery (1903).
In 1927, a way was invented to record sound onto the film. By bringing sound and moving pictures together, the movies could "talk." The "talkies" began.
From Safety Last
From Roaring Twenties
Nowadays
With the exception of computer animation and improved special effects, film-making fundamentals have changed little from the release of the first talking picture.
The most significant change came with digital technology, mostly due to the invention of the "Charge-coupled device" (CCD) chip.
Now the light in a movie camera (or any digital camera) shines not on film, but a CCD chip. The chip contains millions of bits called pixels that record the color and brightness of the light at its point and, together, these pixels make up the image.
Movies have come a long way; from short films depicting ordinary life in silence, to the modern high-tech theater experience. Yet the goal remains the same – take us to lands real or fictional for our amusement or enlightenment.
Fun for the family
See how a movie works by making a stop motion movie. Make a stop motion using a camera and taking a series of pictures. Take a picture of a scene consisting of toys, objects, or people. Move the objects a little bit in the direction of the desired motion. Take another photo and keep repeating until you've finished. You can either use software to piece the pictures together into a movie or simply show the images, quickly, one at a time.
There is a site giving some help in making a stop motion.
On the Web
DIY pinhole camera or How to Make a Pinhole Camera
Both sites show how to make a pinhole camera – formerly known as a camera obscura. The first uses an old potato chip can and shows the image formed. The second is in a box and includes an “emulsive sheet film” to capture actual images.
The First Movie Camera: Crash Course Film History #2
This gives a brief history of the development of the movies.
This is a clip from the movie "Chaplin," starring Robert Downing Jr. This clip from the film shows when Chaplin first shows up at an American film studio. This clip highlights how silent films were made and showcases the comic style of Chaplin himself. It is in English – with subtitles in, I believe, Spanish.
A Boy And His Atom: The World's Smallest Movie
The world's smallest movie, made as an IBM promo. The "bits" of the film's images are actual atoms that had been scanned by a powerful microscope. Other than this, it's your basic stop-motion film with added sound.
Great Films
The Jazz Singer
(1927) This is the first talking picture. Even though this is a talking picture, the format is mostly the same as a silent film. The only exceptions are when the main character sings or is talking with his mother. Warning for modern viewers – The main character performs a blackface minstrel show. Some might be uncomfortable.
Jakie Rabinowitz grows up in a Jewish home where all the men have, for generations, been Cantors who sung as part of their worship. The problem is, he wants to be a jazz singer instead. Tensions between father and son build up and Jakie gets kicked out of the house. Years later, he gets his big break on Broadway, but his family needs him on opening night. There is an important religious ceremony, and his father is far too sick to perform his role. The Broadway producer tells him if he walks out to come to his family's aide, instead of performing, he's all washed up.
So, does he come back to help his mother and reconnects with his religious roots, and in so doing, say goodbye to any hope of realizing his career goal? Or, does he pursue the career he had worked hard for, at the loss of his family and heritage?
(1920) Silent comedy film starring Buster Keaton and Sybil Seely. A happy and newly married couple emerges from the chapel and learns that, as a wedding gift, they receive a house-kit so they can build a house of their very own.
Their happy expectations get turned upside down when a jealous ex-boyfriend messes up their kit. The result is less than perfect.
The Circus
(1928) Silent comedy film starring Charley Chaplin. Chaplin's character is chased into a circus and causes comic mayhem the audience loves. The failing circus owner hires him on-board as a clown but learns he is only funny when he is not trying to be.
The Music box
(1932) Classic early talkie with Laurel and Hardy. The duo goes into business moving pianos. Their first job, deliver a piano to a house, purchased as a birthday gift by the wife.
Simple? Not really.
Singing in the rain
(1952) Classic musical starring Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds. This movie tells of the challenges faced by Hollywood during the switch to talkies in light of the Jazz Singer's success.
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