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It Started With a Bet
Eadweard Muybidge and some of his friends were watching a horse race, when he stads up and proposes a bet. He said that he believed that when a horse is going at full speed, at some point, all of its hooves are in the air. To prove his proposition, he set up a line of cameras that, when a horse passed, the cameras would comence a rapid sequence of shots. Lookig at the pictures, he won the bet of $25,000, and the noticed that if you looked at each pcture quickly, the horse appeared to move. -
Kinetiscopes are Born
After the discovery of the magic of motion picture, Thomas Edison invented the kinetiscope, a machine built for an audience of one, where one could look through the eyepiece, and wtch a short clip of about 30 econds to a minute long. He believed that having an audience of one for eh viewing would esrn himself more money. -
Kinetiscopes Go Public
Thomas Edison shows off his invention. He patents his idea and begins to make money off of it. He opened the first movie parlor. -
Projector Patents
The Lumiere brothers, Louis and August, patent the projector invention. Thomas Edison had already invented it before them, however he didn't sho it because of his one-man-audience theorey. The two brothers showed off their projector in Paris with several people as an audience, rather than one. -
A Movie Epic
One of Edison's workers, Edwin Porter, showed the longest movie of their time, The Great Train Robbery. This movie introdiced the idea of different shot angles and techniques. It had 14 scenes and lasted for 12 minutes, a very long time for a movie in that period. -
Nickelodeon
Harry Davis opens up the first Nickleodeon in Pittsburgh. These were like the first indoor movie theatres. After the latest innovations, it was now possible to show projected films indoors. -
The MPPC
The Motion Picture Patents Company is formed. Edison ws the head leader of this company. The company basically stated that whatever it used in the production of their movies was strictly THIERS and if anyone tried to take or copy what they did, they would find a way to stop you. That's one of the reasons why Hollywood is located in California, opposite of New York; because it was away from Edison, and if he came for them, thy could make a break for Mexico! -
Monopoly Money
By this time, the Nickleodeons were attracting 28 million viewers per night. This number would eventually double in five years. This sparked an idea in Edison's mind to create a monopoly, where they would own everything in their company in order to make a lot of money. -
The Stars Get Their Spotlights
In contradiction to Edison's "monopoly" idea on the East Coast, people in California decided to let their actors and actresses get the credit they deserve. They figured thst if people liked them, and saw that they were going to be in that movie, they would want to go and see it. An example of some of these stars were Mary Pickford (also known as "Americas Angle,") and Charlie Chaplin. -
"You ain't heard nothin' yet!"
Throughout all of film history, no motion picture ever had contained the element of sound, until this time. The Warner Bros.'s The Jazz Singer was the first movie with sound. To make this possible, they used the Vitaphone method that involved recording the sound on discs. -
Rated R
At this time, the film industry decides to create a rating system for movies. The system went like this: "G" for general audiences/families, "M" for mature audiences, "R" for when no one under th age of 16 was prmited to watch the movie without a guardian, and "X" for just strictly noo one under 16 could see it. -
Not Even God Could Sink Her
This year, the film "Titanic" (released in 1997) became the highest grossing film in all of Hollywood history. It domestically earned $580 million. Te film included famous stars Leonardo Dicaprio, Kate Winslet, etc.
