History of film

History of Film

Period: Jan 1, 1875 to Dec 31, 1940

Sallie Gardiner

Jun 1, 1878

Edward Muybridge took 24 consecutive pictures of a moving horse. This was taken with static cameras and wasn't acutally a film.

photographic gun invented

Jan 1, 1882

Étienne-Jules Marey invented a photogun (fusil photographique) that took 12 pictures a second. Marey is said to have almost perfected slow motion cinematography. He mainly filmed animals and motion of objects.

Roundhay Garden Scene

Oct 14, 1888

Louis le Prince filmed the first celluloid film. It was 24 frames of his family walking around in circles in their garden.
FIlmed using the Le Prince single lens camera.

Black Maria

Dec 1, 1892

America's first movie studio. Owned by Thomas Edison.

Fred Ott's sneeze

Jan 9, 1894

This was the first copyrighted motion picture. It was produced by the Edison Manufacturing Company.

Exiting the Factory

Mar 22, 1895

Shot on location documentary. The Lumiere brothers were mainly playing with the camera.

The Sprinkler Sprinkled

Aug 1, 1895

FIrst movie with a staged plot. Also by the Lumiere brothers.

Haunted Castle

Dec 24, 1896

By Georges Melies, "Father of special effects". It had artificial lighting, set design, and jump-cuts. It was supposedly a horror film, but it comes off as hilarious to people who have seen better edited films.

A trip to the moon

Sep 1, 1902

First sci-fi film. Also by Georges Melies. Blended animation and live action.

Life of an american Fireman

Jan 1, 1903

BY Edwin S. Porter, the father of the story (narrative) film. Used cutscenes and picture in picture (cross cutting) editing to move the story along.
35mm film.

The great train robbery

Dec 1, 1903

Edwin S. Porter directed this film. it used cutscenes and better use of filming on location. Obviously fake acting and now goofy-looking edits were revolutionary for the time. The way it used cross-cutting was the beginning of montague.

Camera dolly invented

Sep 1, 1907

This meant the camera could move around on wheels.
Segundo de Chomón was the first person to do this.
I can't believe it took that long for someone to figure out that you could move a camera around more easily if you put it on wheels.

The birth of a nation

Feb 8, 1915

Directed by D.W. Griffith, who is still considered a film genius. It portrayed emotions by film angles, content, and the pace of the editing.
So incredibly offensive that there were protests against it in 1915.

invention of technicolor film

Sep 1, 1916

two colors

SOUND

Sep 1, 1919

De Forest added sound recording for the first time. The first film to have this added to it was The Jazz Singer.

Kuleshov effect

Jan 1, 1929

Showed a neutral expression with cutaways to different images. People thought the person on film was being a good actor just because they assumed the character was looking at what the images were.

Hays Code

Feb 9, 1930

This was the first Motion Picture Production Code. It wasn't enforced very well until 1934.

first film festival

Sep 1, 1932

Venice Biennale was an art festival held every two years in Venice, Italy, It's still running today.

First Full-length musical score

Sep 1, 1933

King Kong was the first full length "talkie" that had a full musical score instead of just random background music. The score was played using a 46 part orchestra and was the first that was set to match the film.