History of Cinema

Today here we are going to introduce with history of cinema, when born the human entertainment means and a mirror of society and human life.......

Credit:::::

Note: All content are copy from wikipedia...........

This is a article about the history of film as an artistic medium. 

Although the start of the history of film is not clearly defined, the commercial, public screening of ten of Lumière brothers' short films in Paris on 28 December 1895 can be regarded as the breakthrough of projected cinematographic motion pictures. There had been earlier cinematographic results and screenings but these lacked either the quality or the momentum that propelled the cinématographe Lumière into a worldwide success.

Soon film production companies were established all over the world. The first decade of motion picture saw film moving from a novelty to an established mass entertainment industry.

The earliest films were in black and white, under a minute long and without recorded sound.

During the 1890s films became several minutes long and started to consist of several shots. The first film studios were built in 1897. The first rotating camera for taking panning shots was built in 1898. Special effects were introduced and film continuity, involving action moving from one sequence into another, began to be used.

In the 1900s, continuity of action across successive shots was achieved and the first close-up shot was introduced (that some claim D. W. Griffith invented). Most films of this period were what came to be called "chase films". The first successful permanent theatre showing only films was "The Nickelodeon" in Pittsburgh in 1905. The first feature length multi-reel film was a 1906 Australian production. By 1910, actors began to receive screen credit for their roles and the way to the creation of film stars was opened. Regular newsreels were exhibited from 1910 and soon became a popular way for finding out the news. From about 1910, American films had the largest share of the market in Australia and in all European countries except France.

New film techniques were introduced in this period including the use of artificial lighting, fire effects and low-key lighting (i.e. lighting in which most of the frame is dark) for enhanced atmosphere during sinister scenes. As films grew longer, specialist writers were employed to simplify more complex stories derived from novels or plays into a form that could be contained on one reel and be easier to be understood by the audience – an audience that was new to this form of storytelling. Genres began to be used as categories; the main division was into comedy and drama but these categories were further subdivided. During the First World War there was a complex transition for the film industry. The exhibition of films changed from short one-reel programs to feature films. Exhibition venues became larger and began charging higher prices. By 1914, continuity cinema was the established mode of commercial cinema. One of the advanced continuity techniques involved an accurate and smooth transition from one shot to another.

D. W. Griffith had the highest standing among American directors in the industry, because of the dramatic excitement he conveyed to the audience through his films. The American film industry, or "Hollywood", as it was becoming known after its new geographical center in Hollywood, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, gained the position it has held, more or less, ever since: film factory for the world and exporting its product to most countries. By the 1920s, the United States reached what is still its era of greatest-ever output, producing an average of 800 feature films annually,^[1] or 82% of the global total (Eyman, 1997). During late 1927, Warner's released The Jazz Singer, with the first synchronized dialogue (and singing) in a feature film. By the end of 1929, Hollywood was almost all-talkie, with several competing sound systems (soon to be standardized). Sound saved the Hollywood studio system in the face of the Great Depression (Parkinson, 1995).

The desire for wartime propaganda created a renaissance in the film industry in Britain, with realistic war dramas. The onset of American involvement in World War II also brought a proliferation of films as both patriotism and propaganda. The House Un-American Activities Committee investigated Hollywood in the early 1950s. During the immediate post-war years the cinematic industry was also threatened by television and the increasing popularity of the medium meant that some film theatres would bankrupt and close. The 1950s was considered a 'Golden Age' for non-English cinema.

Roundhay Garden Scene is an 1888 short silent film recorded by French inventor Louis Le Prince. It is believed to be the oldest surviving film in existence, as noted by the Guinness Book of Records.^[2] The film Sortie de l'usine Lumière de Lyon (1895) by French Louis Lumière is considered the "first true motion picture "^[3]

The first eleven years of motion pictures show the cinema moving from a novelty to an established large-scale entertainment industry. The films represent a movement from films consisting of one shot, completely made by one person with a few assistants, towards films several minutes long consisting of several shots, which were made by large companies in something like industrial conditions.

The year 1900 marks the emergence of the first motion pictures that can be considered as "films" – at this point, film-makers begin to introduce basic editing techniques and film narrative.^[9]

Some ancient sightings of gods and spirits are thought to have been conjured up by means of (concave) mirrors, camera obscura or unknown projectors. By the 16th century necromantic ceremonies and the conjuring of ghostly apparitions by charlatan "magicians" and "witches" seemed commonplace.^[4] The very first magic lantern shows seem to have continued this tradition with images of Death, monsters and other scary figures. Around 1790 this was developed into multi-media ghost shows known as phantasmagoria that could feature mechanical slides, rear projection, mobile projectors, superimposition, dissolves, live actors, smoke (sometimes to project images upon), odors, sounds and even electric shocks. Similar spooky subject matter would form the basis of the horror film genre that emerged very soon after the introduction of cinema.

Moving images were possibly projected with the magic lantern since its invention; Christiaan Huygens' 1659 sketches for slides show a skeleton taking his skull off his neck and placing it back. Techniques to add motion to the painted glass slides were described since circa 1700. These usually involved parts (for instance limbs) painted on one or more extra pieces of glass, moved by hand or small mechanisms across a stationary slide which showed the rest of the picture.^[5] While the first magic lantern images seem to have been intended to scare audiences, soon all sorts of subjects appeared and the lantern was not only used for storytelling but also for education. In the 19th century several new and popular magic lantern techniques were developed, including dissolving views and several types of mechanical slides that created dazzling abstract effects (chromatrope, et cetera) or that showed for instance falling snow, or the planets and their moons revolving.

Invention and advancement of the camera

The first rotating camera for taking panning shots was built by Robert W. Paul in 1897, on the occasion of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. He used his camera to shoot the procession in one shot. His device had the camera mounted on a vertical axis that could be rotated by a worm gear driven by turning a crank handle, and Paul put it on general sale the next year. Shots taken using such a "panning" head were also referred to as 'panoramas' in the film catalogues of the first decade of the cinema.^[10]Early movie cameras were fastened to the head of their tripod with only simple levelling devices provided. These cameras were thus effectively fixed during the course of the shot, and hence the first camera movements were the result of mounting a camera on a moving vehicle. The Lumière brothers shot a scene from the back of a train in 1896.

Georges Méliès built one of the first film studios in May 1897. It had a glass roof and three glass walls constructed after the model of large studios for still photography, and it was fitted with thin cotton cloths that could be stretched below the roof to diffuse the direct rays of the sun on sunny days.^[11] Beginning in 1896, Méliès would go on to produce, direct, and distribute over 500 short films. The majority of these films were short, one-shot films completed in one take. Méliès drew many comparisons between film and the stage, which was apparent in his work. He realized that film afforded him the ability (via his use of timelapse photography) to "produce visual spectacles not achievable in the theater.^[12]

The Execution of Mary Stuart, produced by the Edison Company for viewing with the Kinetoscope, showed Mary Queen of Scots being executed in full view of the camera. The effect was achieved by replacing the actor with a dummy for the final shot.^[13] Georges Méliès also utilized this technique in the making of Escamotage d'un dame chez Robert-Houdin (The Vanishing Lady). The woman is seen to vanish through the use of stop motion techniques.