-magic lantern plus revolving picture shows

-horses galloping on stage

-Muybridge, an English photographer working in California, used a group of electronically operated cameras to produce a series of photos that gave illusion of MOTION --> horse gallops.

-people wanted the illusion of a play; this is why we have curtains at movie theaters.

Whatever moves us to believe in fantasy - we believe what moves us can convince us of reality or fantasy -

"Movies are verisimilar when they convince you that the thing son the screen, people places, what have you, no matter how fantastic or antirealistic are 'really there'"

Wedgwood, Talbot, Herschel, Niepce, Daguerre, Eastman

-Wedgwood made the first recorded attempt to produce photographs

-Talbot devised a chemical method for recording the images he observed in his camera obscura ("dark chamber"); he invented the negative.. on transparent material.

-Eastman begins mass production of a paper "film" coated with gelatin emulsion in 1887

In 1889, Eastman begins mass producing this raw film stock, which consists of long strips of perforated cellulose acetate on which a rapid succession of still photographs (frames) can be recorded.

-One side of the strip is layered with an emulsion consisting of light-sensitive crystals and dyes;

the other side is covered with a backing that reduces reflections

-One side of the strip is perforated with sprocket holes that facillitate movement

Auguste and Louis Lumiere and George Melies established two basic directions that the cinema would follow:

Lumiere's REALISM (an interest in or concern for the actual or real) --Lumieres hired kids to shoot first documentary with films around the world

Melies's ANTIREALISM (an interest in or concern for the abstract, speculative, fantastic)

-George Melies in 1902 with Bishop Theater Company

-Lumiere wouldn't sell him a camera but Melies managed to get one

-Films about 13 - 15 minutes long; about length of a TV show

-Melies is the first film ARTIST; he develops Anti Realism: abstract, adventure, science fiction

-Melies creates "special effects"; he could make people disappear by switching camera frames

-"A Trip to the Moon" in 1902 was 13 minutes long

-Stage bathing beauties like chorus line

-Mocks scientists in Paris who go on space trip --> rocket flies through space and slams into eye of the moon -->put wheels on painting of moon with a rocket in its eye ad moved the moon towards the camera like stage scenery

-never thought to move the CAMERA to the moon

-Directed by Edwin Porter, who had a dayjob as a mechanic and loved invention

-Two sides of events simultaneously -- shots of fire, horrified faces in crowd, cut bath and forth --> this is termed INTERCUTTING --> PARALLEL stories

-Directed by Edwin S. Portner

-Cuts between two stories -Bad guy ties up girl and robs train and runs to NJ --> posse comes

-Hired 12 to 14 year old kids with little hands to paint each frame --> child labor

-These hand tinted frames create MOOD

-First close up shot at the end of film

-10 companies in Manhattan; 8 to 10 films a day after WORK SHIFTS LET OFF

-The 2 biggest companies of the time were ...

BIOGRAPH: biggest and best VITAGRAPH: formed monopoly with compolation of companies; run by Edison

-Cost a nickel

-1905: first Nick in New York City

-Storefronts with 75 chairs

-Hire a band of 2 to 4 people

-One to one and a half hour shows with 8 - 10 shorts

-After show someone sings a song or 2

-"QUEEN ELIZABETH" in 1912 starring Sarah Bernhardt, the most famous actress in the world at the time

-First theater/movie posters created

-First press agent; gossip sells tickets   --rumor that she slept in a coffin

-The New York city Elite prefer to see FRENCH foreign films and NOT American films --> Foreign films not like American films at the time; foreign films were still more "literate" and "non-commercial"

-"Big Stories" for wealthy Americans

   --"QUO VADIS" 1912; two and a half hour long epic --> Italian film shown in Broadway theater and the wealthy and middle class buy tickets

-"THE SQUAW MAN" 1914 --> First American epic (6 reels long)

--Directed by Cecil B. DeMille from Broadway who said that he shot ALL OVER THE WORLD, but this was A LIE; he only shot in California! --> CA perfect for Westerns, deserts, mountains and hills, sea and ocean port, later develops into city (Hollywood becomes exotic real estate capital)

--First film in which the leading actors had an AFFAIR

--Plot: White man marries Indian woman in the Wild West and they travel to England

-Film companies and filmmakers fled from NYC to Jacksonville, Florida, then to MIAMI, then to Cuba, then finally to California where there is sunlight and year-round filming

-Cuba was too difficult for filming due to government 

-Cowboy films would later spread throughout world

-Silent film actress and the First Movie Star

-Known as "The Biograph Girl" in Brooklyn (the mafia and gangs would later get involved, spurring film business to move to California)

-Worked with W.D. Griffith

-Carl Laemmle publicity stunt; had Florence disappear for 9 months and Laemmle initiated an urgent search--> SHE'S BACK and it's big news!

D.W. Griffith

-First films that utilized individual shots, wide shots, medium reaction shot

-First 2 shots going back and forth b/w 2 people usually facing each other - tension, climax

-First to MOVE CAMERA in order to get better shots

-Directed "BIRTH" after bitter childhood of Southern defeat (father's history)

-BIRTH demonstrates REAL/FICTION mix

-Joseph Briele puts together 90 piece LA symphony with title song being a huge hit

-3 hour movie cut to 2hours; they deleted most offensive scenes

-Taken from THEATER!

ACT 1: Setup; sense of place, story, character, exposition and back story

ACT 2: Conflict; these are all the battle scenes

ACT 3: Resolution; Griffith has the South lose the war

--Plot points: irreversible problem at the end of each act

--GRIFFITH spoke to his actors about the character's "motivation" - what in the past influences the present? Exploration of characters

-In the movie blacks are shown raping whites

-Played for 1 year in ATLANTA; KKK was instantly revived and they marched Peach Street with a Confederate flag

-Played for one year in RUSSIA; Lenin ordered copy for film students to study

-Middle class AND wealthy saw "BIRTH"

-In theaters ticket was $2 a seat (same as Broadway)

-Grossed $50 million in the USA alone

-Greatest long career star in films; known as an ARTIST

-"WAY DOWNEAST" directed by Griffith in 1920 with new editing and use of inter-cutting girl on frozen river on the edge of a waterfall with a man searching for her

--> story of pregnant girl with father and boyfriend

--> audience fills in missing pieces

-1919 Griffith joins Fairbanks, Pickford, and Charlie Chaplain in the FIRST artist controlled production company

-They left Hollywood to shoot ON LOCATION

-Between 1920 and 1930 there were over 20,000 American movie theaters and the USA is movie capital of the world

-In 1910 Max Sennett founds "Keystone Cops" in order to "make short comics for laughs"; there is no sound yet

-Sennett uses STAGE COMEDIANS and BATHING BEAUTIES to sell sex

-13 to 14 frames a second; jerky, quick, mindless, no thought

-For immigrants this was a form of ESCAPISM.

-Slapstick physical comedy

-A most immigrant audience loved jokes mocking authority, politicians, bosses, tax collectors --> idea that COPS ARE DUMB!

-There is no LANGUAGE barrier so everyone can enjoy; looks painful; aka "low comedy"

-First star; fat New York comedian whose career was ruined after a sex scandal in the 1920s

-Played a Keystone Cop

-Charlie Chaplain's famous character -Convinced Sennett he needed a persona

-Little Tramp taken from Commedia dell "Arte Harlequin," popular European theater character for 200 years

  --> Chaplain wears patchwork clothes, has a ragged tux with derby hat, a cane, and is a street urchin with a heart of gold

-Poor person with dignity and master of movement

-Always looking for food; hungry, poor

-Always looking out for underdog and beat up on Bad Guys

-Second star and arguably the greatest in history

-Violent comedy

-Wrote music for "SMILE," wrote and directed and starred in films shown all over the world: White House, jungle clearings, Buckingham Palace, Kremlin, China

-Walt Disney would later make a CARTOON Chaplain in the form of Mickey Mouse

-Silent comedy is universal; comedies that don't work are "too verbal"

-Chaplin and Keaton were the most famous, highest paid artists in world at the time the SILENT ERA ENDED

   --> both had problems with sound films - better at pantomime than dialogue

-First 2 wives were 16; his third wife was 18

-At age 54, he had an affair and marriage to an 18 year-old daughter of American Nobel playwright Eugene O'Neill --> she is still his widow and has 8 children

-FBI smeared him with false paternity suit

    --> Chaplain refused to appear before McCarthy communist inquiry

    --> Traveled to England and was knighted

    --> But USA still refused readmission to USA as an alien; Hollywood fought State Department to allow him to return for a lifetime achievement Oscar in 1972

    --> Never won an Oscar for PERFORMANCE

CITY LIGHTS 1931

THE GREAT DICTATOR released in 1940 with sound; it is Chaplin's only talking picture

-Too controversial; Chaplin played identical twins: Hitler and a Jewish barber - comedy, satire

-Lost money like all of his SOUND films

-"MODERN TIMES" 1936: mostly silent -released before DICTATOR as a last silent film as Little Tramp encountering the machine age (satire)

-"LIMELIGHT" and "THE FREAK" bombed

-Hal Roach's studio hires him --> Sennett's competition!

  --> Roach created LAUREL AND HARDY; duo comedians who Sennett had turned down at age 21

-LLOYD created YUPPIE character: virgin, dweeb, pleasant, college

-"SAFETY LAST" did all of his stunts with a fake finger

-Music hall family; violent joking act; thew him into drum and audience --> parents put fake beard on him to make him look like a MIDGET to avoid abuse accusations

-Buster never laughed and was known as "Stone Face" - expressionless comedy

-Real stunts: he would let buildings fall around him

-Better director than Chaplin

-"THE GENERAL" great Civil War film

-Comes in with SOUND; Fields plays an overweight drunk who hates children and water

-Very suggestive and highly censored

-End of WW1 in Europe; European movie houses, studios, DESTROYED in cities, actors lost

-Nitrates used in bombs, not movies

    --> Decline of European film

-Hollywood Land becomes Hollywood and the First motion pictures Artist's Academy Awards is held in 1927

-At the time there are 9 Major STUDIOS in LA

    --> Studios run like factories, with assembly line

-Eastman Kodak sells 24 FRAME 16 MM FILM for amateur and educator filmmakers

First USA Documentary film in 1922; traces daily life of Canadian Inuit Eskimo family

-Ford's automobile allowed people to escape WITHOUT movies

-Radio was more affordable; people preferred to stay home to listen to radio shows like cable TV today

 --people prefer entertainment in their own homes

-Dr Lee DeForest, "father of amplification," invented tube that amplified sound in 1920

-Theodore Case put sound on film; he was hired by Fox and interviewed famous people.

-Warner Brothers: at the time of SOUND was losing money so they bought Vitaphone sound system that synchronized sound and picture; films shown with records (bad synchronization)

   --> Then GENERAL ELECTRIC and WB STUDIO invent sound for shorts, which are later used for features

-Dr Lee DeForest, "father of amplification," invented tube that amplified sound in 1920

-Theodore Case put sound on film; he was hired by Fox and interviewed famous people.

-Warner Brothers: at the time of SOUND was losing money so they bought Vitaphone sound system that synchronized sound and picture; films shown with records (bad synchronization)

    --> Then GENERAL ELECTRIC and WB STUDIO invent sound for shorts, which are later used for features

FIRST SOUND FILM; silent with a few sentences and songs in sound

-Al Jolson was the star (Broadway)

-Great musical number

-Sings "Mammy" in black face

-Made by Warner Brothers

SECOND SOUND FILM

-Al Jolson for a second round: 80% talking/singing and 20% silent

-Mega hit! Forced other studios and movie theaters to go to SOUND

    --> have to get new equipment

-Studios made silent AND sound version; people could see one depending on choice

-Each studio had to remodel "sound stage" which had to be insulated

-Need newer, quiet cameras; BLIMP invented, a big booth to hold noisy camera and cover hidden microphones

    --> actor and camera movement restricted

    --> bigger cameras, actors need to talk into mic, immobile cameras

-need new PROJECTORS and SOUND SYSTEMS in theaters

-need new ACTORS with VOICES so they go to Broadway

-Need scriptwriters for dialogue - playwrights

-French movie 3hr 42min directed by D. ABLE GLANCE

-Montage editing, tinted frames for emotion -- innovative

-Hand-held camera

-Final reel on 3 screens

-Shown in 8 European cities, first at Paris Opera

    -->Failed in USA til Francis Ford Coppola wrote new score 

-Chesty blond Broadway comedian; plays liberated woman who views men as her playthings

-West wrote her own material and wore her own fashions

-Sexually suggestive innuendo "I think you're going to like what I have in mind!" --> this would later lead to CENSORSHIP

1920s: Jazz Age meant booze, introduction of marijuana and coke, one scandal after another in Hollywood which becomes known as a Party Town

-Police demand that Hollywood clean up its act after FATTY ARBUCKLE is accused of raping and killing Virginia Rapp

  -- Arbuckle was a scapegoat in the wrong time and place; he was freed after his third trial but his career was destroyed

Ticket sales plunge and the Catholic Legion of Decency pushes religious groups to boycott Hollywood and politicians target the city as immoral

PEOPLE: Will Hays and Joseph Bream create and enforce Motion Picture Code..

THE RULES ARE:

-No kiss over 3 seconds and no open mouths

-No nudity, breasts, topless men chests

-One foot on floor for both male and female during love scenes

-No swears or vulgarity

-No prostitution or sex for money

-Criminals can't be heroes; crime doesn't pay

-No gratuitous or unpunished violence

-No homosexuality

-No adultery

     --THIS CODE WAS STRICTLY ENFORCED

-7 years old and biggest star in the world from 1936 to 1940

--Mae West is out and W.C. Fields is censored

--Not until 1969 will X rated film get Academy Award, "Midnight Cowboy"

-USA joins other countries (Russia and Germany) with WAR PROPAGANDA in THE WAY WE FIGHT

-Series of 7 Documentaries -"Teach audiences" on Hitler

-Free: generated War support

-1941: Hollywood is successful again and every studio at artistic and financial peak

-Everyone fights Nazis; Mickey Mouse, Tarzan, 3 Stooges

Women work around the clock and movies would play 24 hours; this was a form of escape and comedy

-- all the movies were patriot and pro-democracy

-- good to see movies; 25% goes to war bonds

--gov't support, extras, free