History of Movies

by TheWatcher, Jul 31, 2007

I have recently started a movie club.

5 min

The history of movies are very important, especially to those who haven't learned it yet. I have been filming for about 2 years, not a lot of time, but I have a lot to do ahead of me.

I had this idea about a year ago, but I had yet little time to do things. Now I have a whole summer worth of time to teach, but still that isn't enough either. Now, the history of movies start in about 1850.

Machines for producing two dimensional images in motion were introduced even as early as the 1860s with devices such as the zoetrope.

As you can see here, the moving slits would produce an image, which the bottom images fill. If you see here, the cylinder would have a top half with slits, and the bottom half with images. The zoetrope would spin, producing an image through the slits showing the motion image at the bottom if you looked at it from a certain angle.

The movies use a certain phenomenon called persistence of vision, which is when multiple pictures are displayed at a fast speed, creating a certain effect which looks like the picture is moving. Video cameras are just like cameras but take pictures frequently when activated.

With the development of still cameras, the capability of the "moving pictures" was possible. By the 1880s, the development of the motion picture camera allowed individual pictures to be able to be captured and stored on a single reel of tape.

That led quickly to the invention of the motion picture projector, which shines light through a hole and which the tape quickly passes through, creating a image which can be seen and an image which is enlarged. But these early short motion pictures were fast and not edited.

These motion pictures were purely visual art up to about the late 19th century, but these silent films had gained a hold on the public imagination. Around the turn of the twentieth century, films began developing a narrative structure by putting together scenes to tell narratives.

These scenes were broken up into multiple shots with varying sizes and angles. Other techniques such as camera movement were realized as effective ways to portray a story on film. But these weren't enough to satisfy their taste, so many, instead, rather than leave the audience in silence, would have hired an orchestra or a pianist to play music fitting the mood of the film at any moment.

By the early 1920s, most films came with a prepared list of sheet music for this purpose, with complete film scores being composed for major productions

The rise of European cinema was rudely interrupted by the breakout of World War I while the film industry in the United States flourished with the rise of Hollywood. However in the 1920s, European filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein and F. W. Murnau, continued to advance the medium. Also in the 1920s, new technology allowed filmmakers to attach to each film the soundtrack of speech, music, and sound effects! Broadening the horizon of capabilities.

The next major step in the development of cinema was color. The addition of sound quickly destroyed silent film and theater musicians, color was adopted more gradually. The public was relatively indifferent to color photography as opposed to black-and-white. But as color processes improved and became as affordable as black-and-white film, more and more movies were filmed with color after the end of World War II.

But the American industry quickly adopted color into film, as they were competing to captivate the audience from the still black-and-white television until the 1960s. By the end of the 1960s, color and been the normal for the film makers.

45 min:

Now, the introduction of how to handle a camera, their are these things:

Let them touch the camera and handle it themselves>
On/Off
Insert tape/ Eject tape.
Auto/ Manual/ Focus.
How to hold a camera.
Record Button.
Zooming/ how to zoom.
Lens - Don't touch it.
Cover lens when you're done.
180 degree view-screen.

30 min

Now, this is the menu, whenever you are handling a camera, you have to check the menu for any things that are wrongly set or improperly put.

SCENE MODE- Off, this setting is for cameras
RECORD SPEED- SP/ LP Choose SP for higher quality video/ LP is for lesser quality and more jumpy, but uses less tape.
WIND CUT- Cut the sound of wind when the wind is blowing hard.
ASPECT- Size of picture taken
CLOCK SET- No, do not turn this on for it shows the time.
PICT. QUALITY- Choose the 6 pic one. This takes more frequent pictures at a time, increasing smoothness.
PICTURE SIZE- One meter, default
O.I.S.- Turn this on, always, for it decreases shakiness
GUIDE LINES- Your choice. It shows lines to so you can straighten video clips
FADE COLOR- Black. Every time it changes clips it will show white.
AUDIO REC- 16 bit. It records better sound and higher quality.
USB FUNCTION- MOTION DV
D. ZOOM- Off, this allows digital zoom, don''t, because, it takes gets rid of quality.
ZOOM MIC- Turn this on and off when I tell you to. When you zoom, the sound gets closer.