Early History of Cinema
Presentation byChris Schloemp
Information by Tim Dirkshttp://www.filmsite.org
1891--William Dickson, an assistant to Thomas Edison designs Kinetoscope
1892--Kinetograph, camera with sprocket system
1893--”Black Maria”, first film studio in New Jersey
1894--Fred Ott’s Sneeze1896--The Kiss
The Birth of Cinema
The Lumiere Brothers
Louis and AugusteInspired by EdisonCinematographe--could
project to many spectatorsDecember 28, 1895--first
commercial exhibition of a projected motion picture to a paying public in the world’s first movie theater
Lumiere Films
La Sortie des Ouviers de L’Usine Lumiere (Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory)
L’Arroseur Arrose (The Sprinkler Sprinkled)
The Arrival of a TrainShort, slice-of-life documentaries
Georges Melies
Set up Europe’s first film studio in 1897
1902--Le Voyage Dans la Lune (Trip to the Moon)
Pioneer in illusion and fantasy: trick photography, dissolves, wipes, trick sets, stop-motion, slow-motion, and fadeouts
Further US Development
Edison Company, Biograph, American Vitagraph Company
Edwin Porter, first American documentary: The Life of an American Fireman (1903)
1903--Porter directs The Great Train Robbery
GreatMilestones
First narrative film with storyline
First film shot out of sequence
First use of cross-cutting
First WesternFirst smash hit
Nickelodeons
Spend an evening at the cinema for a nickel
First nickelodeon in Pittsburgh, 1905Cheap entertainment for the working
class
D.W. Griffith: Early Pioneer“Father of Film”--first cinematic
storytellerJoined Biograph in 1908,
made 60 films in 1909Created modern language of
cinema: composed shots, camera movement, split screen, flashbacks, dissolves, lens filters, and artificial lighting
The Motion Picture Patents Company
1908--East-Coast companies formed MPPC to monopolize the growing industry
Protected profits, limited artistic freedom, fought movie piracy, reduced power of distributors
Refused to give screen credit to playersSigned contract with George Eastman for
exclusive right to his famed film stock
IMP and UniversalMPPC fought by the
independents, led by Carl Laemmle
Founded Independent Moving Pictures (IMP)
1911--IMP acquires first studio in Hollywood (later Universal)
1913--Traffic in Souls, about white slavery
East Coast vs. West Coast
Laemmle encouraged US government to bring anti-trust suit against MPPC
1907--first film shot in Los Angeles1911--Nestor Company becomes first
West Coast motion picture studio1912--15 film companies operating in
Hollywood1917--Supreme Court disbands MPPC
Vitagraph
Early 1900s, major competitor with EdisonBecame known for filming historical
events: Roosevelt’s charge up San Juan Hill, the Boer War in South Africa, the Galveston flood of 1900, McKinley’s assassination in 1901, and the San Francisco earthquake of 1906
Eventually absorbed in Warner Bros. in 1925
Carl Laemmle and UniversalFounder of IMP and UniversalCinema taken over by
entrepreneursResponsible for creating the “star
system”Actors now earned screen creditsFlorence Lawrence and Mary
Pickford first movie stars, under Laemmle
Fan Magazines
Photoplay, first true fan magazine debuted in 1911
Gave rise to the idea of celebrity culture
Interviews and gossip columns about personal lives of stars
Serials
Films released in episodic installments extremely popular in period before WWI
Death-defying stunts, speedy plots, sensationalism, nice-girl leads in distress
1914--The Perils of Pauline1914--The Exploits of Elaine1915--Theda Bara became new movie
archetype: the “vamp,” the first tempting sex symbol
Thomas Harper InceDeveloped the “factory-studio system” to
mass produce filmsSupervised Bison Company (Inceville) a
20,000 acre ranch in the Santa Ynez CanyonPrototype for Hollywood studio: studio head,
directors, production staff, writers under one organization (the unit system)
Died 1924, mysteriously, on Hearst’s yacht (See the 2002 film The Cat’s Meow)
Keystone and Mack Sennett
Trademark slapstick comediesCanadian vaudevillian
Mack Sennett, the “King of Comedy”
1913--first of the Keystone Comedies
1914--Tillie’s Punctured Romance--first American feature-length comedy
Charlie Chaplin: the TrampFirst truly great film starBritish vaudevillianApprentice to Sennett in
1913Established familiar tramp
character with characteristic walk in The Tramp (1915)
1917--first million-dollar contract
Griffith’s Landmark Epics1915--Birth of a NationBeautifully-structured battle scenesRevolutionary techniques: dollying,
masking, irises, flashbacks, cross-cuts
1916--IntoleranceFour interwoven stories of
intolerance (modern, medieval, Judean, Babylonian)
Next time...
The Development of the StudiosThe Birth of the Talkies