Ealry Film :: essays papers

Ealry Film Being able to capture motion has occupied the human psyche sine primitive times. This is evident through the Lascaux cave paintings which depict buffalo with multiple legs in a attempt to represent the animal running. Other simple innovations also led to the motion picture, these ‘optical toys’ demonstrated the eye’s persistence of vision. These ‘toys’ grew more advanced, but lifelike motion could not be achieved until the photographic process was nearly perfected. In the 1870’s Eadweard Muybridge was successful in capturing the complete motion of a horse galloping. This was the first step in bringing pictures to life. The next invention came from a Rev. Hannibal Goodwin, who devised a thin, flexible, plastic base he called celluloid, on which could be put photosensitive material. George Eastman was the first to market this celluloid film, and in 1890 Thomas Edison and William Dicksom successfully tested the Kinescope. The first motion picture captured and copyrighted on this Kinescope was titled â€Å"The Sneeze†, which is simply a man sneezing. Edison continued to make short films in his studio, nicknamed the Black Maria. His shorts usually were comprised of people performing vaudeville acts as a form of sideshow attraction. These films would be viewed in Kinescope parlors, from large wooden boxes with a eyepiece on top. On the other side of the Atlantic, in France, the Lumieres brothers improve on Edisons Kinescope, and create the Cinematograph, a smaller more portable camera, that can film and view motion pictures. With this new Cinematograph, the Lumieres brothers were able to film and then project the product for an audience. They filmed what was around them, daily life for upper-middle class Europeans, their first was a whole group of people leaving a factory at the end of a work day. Simple, but for its time it was amazing, seeing live people walking around and moving just as they normally would, but on a big screen! These types of films became the Lumieres trademark, slice of life documentary work that would be shown in front of audiences. One of the Lumieres films: Arrival of a Train in the Cioat Station, was a train coming straight for the camera on an angle, that terrified the viewers. Edison continued to make films, under his own, controlled conditions. Although both Edison and the Lumieres, saw the motion picture as nothing more than a sideshow act and both filmed very documentary-esque work, each had their own criteria for filming.