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History
Reflection
of Light
Moving
Picture Toys
Action
in Pictures
Movies
with a Story
The
Industry Grows
Coping
with Television
Movies
Today
History
Reflection
of Light
Moving
Picture Toys
Action
in Pictures
Edison
and Lumiere
movies
with a Story
Timeline
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Nickelodeons
In early days of filmmaking, nearly anything that moved was cosidered
a good subject for a film. People paid to see ordinary events such as
workers leaving a factory or men playing cards. That all changed witht
he films of director Edwin S. Porter.
The
Great Train Robbery
Edwin S. Porter is known as the first director to use modern film techniques
to tell a story. He was famous for taking unrelated scenes and making
a dramatic film from them. He demonstrated that films could be shot "out
of sequence" and then pieced together for dramatic effect.
The "The Great Train Robbery", Porter tells the story of a train
robbery and the capture of the bandits. Porter created suspense by switching
form scenes of the fleeing robbers to scenes of the mob trying to catch
them.
Audiences loved "The Great Train Robbery". Music halls and vaudeville
theaters were packed with eager patrons night after night. This success
led to the first motion picture theaters called "nickelodeons"
because the price of admission was only a nickel.
In 1907 at least 5000 nickelodeons were operating around the world. In
the United States, a new theater opened everyday! Often, theaters were
just a screen and chairs piled into an old store or other large building.
Early movies were "silent". Actors told the whole story with
their movements alone. Often, a piano player would be hired to accompany
the movies.
movie
Studios
The sudden success of nickelodeons caused a shortage of new films. There
simply were not enough to go around. Pooling their talents, filmmakers
soon created the first motion picture "studios". These studios
were quickly making hundreds of films each year in the New York area.
In 1911 the Nestor Company built the first movie studio outside of New
York. The location chosen was a small town in the Southern California
named Hollywood. Within a few years, Hollywood was to become the movie
capital of the world--a position it still holds today.
D.W.
Griffith
Of the early filmmakers, one man stands out as the "father of motion
pictures." D.W. Griffith directed hundreds of short films during
his career. He spent these years making better and better movies and developing
his unique style. Griffith breathed new life into an industry that was
starting to go flat. His greatest contribution to filmmaking was the close-up.
He could move his cameras closer and closer to the actors to focus the
attention of the audience.
Until Griffith's time, all action in a scene had been filmed with one
camera. The camera usually stayed in the same spot. Instead of moving
the camera from scene to scene, the actors and scenery moved.
Griffith used several cameras and many different angles to let the audience
see more than one side of the action. To the audience, it was like being
in the center of things.
Griffith is famous for his two masterpieces, "The Birth of a Nation"
and "Intolerance". The former was made in 1915 at a cost of
more than $110,000. That was an unheard-of budget for a film in those
days. The sheer cost of the production drew plenty of attention to the
picture even before it reached theaterse. Today, it is still considered
by some critics to be the greatest motion picture of all time.
Mack
Sennett's Keystone Kops
Mack Sennett was one of the many actors employed by D.W. Griffith. Born
in Canada, Sennett came to America in 1909 and soon joined up with Griffith.
Sennett learned much of his directing technique from Griffith. When he
was still an actor, Sennett would study Griffith's style. At night, he
would stand near the studio doors, waiting for Griffith to leave work.
He would often join the great director on his walks home. On those walks,
Sennett learned a great deal about movie making.
By 1912 Sennett had his own motion picture studio, called Keystone. Sennett's
Keystone studio was famous for its wild comedies--many of which featured
the Keystone Kops. These were a bumbling bunch of policemen who always
found themselves in a wild chase after somebody or something.
Sennett's movies were circus-like, but they were rooted in reality. The
films were set in familiar settings--small towns and villages that people
across the world could relate to.
As a director, Sennett became famous for his sense of timing. To produce
special effects, he often used slow motion and creative camera angles.
Sometimes he even ran the film backwards--which audiences found hilarious.
The comoviens in Sennett's films each had an unusual personality or "lool"
which Sennett played up to grab extra laughs. These comoviens included
Fatty Arbuckle, Ben Turpin, Charley Chase, and Charlie Chaplin.
End
of Nickelodeons
As movies became more successful, they moved out of nickelodeons and into
real theaters. Vaudeville singers, dancers, and comoviens were replaced
by the "silver screen." Audiences poured into theaters by the
millions. In exchange for their ticket money, viewers demanded longer
and better productions.
Studios scrambled to keep up with the demand. Filmmakers began to adapt
popular plays and books into motion pictures. And dozens of famous stage
actors headed to Hollywood to seek their fortunes as movie stars.
 
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