-
The Horse in Motion
Photographer Eadweard Muybridge was hired by Leland Stanford five years prior to test his camera and see if he can capture a Thoroughbred in full motion. After several failed attempts, Muybridge reached success when he used multiple cameras to capture every frame of the horse galloping. This gave birth to the concept of the motion picture and is praised for the twenty-four cameras used and the film's authenticity. -
The Lumiere Brothers
Auguste Marie Louis Nicholas and Louis Jean Lumiere are credited with inventing a projector capable of projecting motion pictures against a screen. The brothers accomplished this in front of two hundred people at the Society of the Development of the National Industry by projecting stills on a seventeen-meter long strip of film. This revolutionized filmmaking technology and played a key component to the conception of the movie theater. -
The Arrival of a Train
Directed by the Lumiere Brothers, "The Arrival of a Train" was the first motion picture with the intention of creating a single, unedited portrait of mundane life. The urban legend that comes with the story of the theatrical release of the film consists of the audience being so overwhelmed by the life-sized train barreling closer to the screen that audience members ran out of the theater, screaming in hysteria. The film is fifty seconds long and is considered the first documentary. -
The Great Train Robbery
Written, directed, and produced by Edwin S. Porter, "The Great Train Robbery" was the first motion picture to actually have a narrative with a plot structure. Although it did not have sound or color, it was a huge commercial success and laid the foundation for the Western film genre. Porter, while making the film, intentionally incorporated editing and photography techniques popular at the time, such as the perspective shot of someone viewing a play and stop-motion photography. -
Nickelodeons
The term becoming more popular due to being the name of a network producing animated shows, the original nickelodeons were the very first type of movie theaters to display motion pictures. In 1910, twenty-six million Americans visited nickelodeons weekly after certain advancements in cinema, the term coming form the word "nickel" because of movie tickets being five cents at the time. Their popularity collapsed in 1913 due to nickelodeons becoming overcrowded and needing to grow. -
Charlie Chaplin
Known best for his character "The Tramp," Charlie Chaplin made a large contribution to the art of silent film and was the very first "movie star," in that he was the first famous cinematic actor. In addition, Chaplin was a director, composer, cinematographer, and is known best for the films "Modern Times," "The Great Dictator," and "The Kid." The biggest impact he had on film in terms of acting, Chaplin made silent films more expressive through nonverbal communication and facial expression. -
The Jazz Singer
At the time, due to films with sound being rare after this film's release, movies that had music, dialogue, and sound effects were referred to as "talkies." Although Alan Crosland's "The Jazz Singer" has received controversy for its racist context and having a white actor portray a white character in blackface, it is still remembered in cinematic history as the first feature-length film to introduce sound. It was the first film produced by Warner Bros. to have a score and audible speech. -
The Wizard of Oz
"The Wizard of Oz" was the first film to use color in its entirety, even in the scenes with sepia tone, which added a brown tint. The process MGM used to restore the color to "The Wizard of Oz" was called Technicolor, a three-strip color palette a large camera used consisting of red, blue, and green to create unique combinations of color to add to the final product. In spite of the constant testing and budgeting to accomplish this, it worked, but would eventually die in favor of the digital age. -
French New Wave
In the 1950s and 1960s, a movement in filmmaking emerged that is referred to as French New Wave, which had the biggest impact on cinematic history for specific reasons. For instance, directors like Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Goddard directed films that rejected traditional film conventions, had shoestring budgets, and did not have famous actors. They influenced contemporary directors like Stanley Kubrick and Wes Anderson and made a statement about filmmaking and how all is needed is vision. -
Jaws
Director Steven Spielberg released the film "Jaws" in 1975, grossing $100 million dollars at the box office and an audience lining up outside movie theaters to see it. It was the very first summer blockbuster and established studio conventions that are seen as commonplace today, such as the lack of emphasis on quality or substance. Another groundbreaking element of "Jaws" was the effects used on the shark, an animatronic with several technical problems, including sagging and snapping wires. -
Jurassic Park
In 1993, Steven Spielberg had once again worked on a movie that had not only made a breakthrough with animatronics, but special effects as a whole by combining animatronics with CGI. A decade or two prior, films like "Tron" and "Star Wars" used computer animation and stop-motion for their visual effects, but "Jurassic Park" was the first film to use CGI to hand-draw and render visuals that could not have been accomplished with practical effects. This technique makes the film hold up to this day. -
Avatar
Considered one of the highest-grossing movies of all time, James Cameron's "Avatar" had made an impact on filmmaking technology and CGI. The techniques used for these effects included photorealism and 3-D that gave the audience the experience of flying through the breathtaking world of Pandora, but with motion capture used for the Na'vi similar to Robert Zemeckis productions. The photorealistic CGI would go on to be included in future blockbusters, such as the Marvel movies.
