Motion Picture History A Chronological Look
Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures, which deem those cultures, and, in turn, affect them. The visual elements of cinema give motion pictures a universal power of communication.
The history of film spans over a hundred years (from the latter part of the 19th century to the beginning of the 21st). And since the birth of cinema, motion relate films have had a substantial impact on the arts, technology, culture, politics, and society.
Motion pictures were purely visual art up to the late 19th century, but these innovative peaceful films gained a hold on the public imagination. Around the turn of the 20th century, films began developing a narrative structure by stringing scenes together to tell narratives. The scenes were later broken up into multiple shots of varying sizes, angles, and cuts. Other techniques such as camera movement, camera tricks, and special effects were utilized for effective ways to portray a story on film.
The Birth of the Moving Picture
With the development of celluloid film for still photography, it became possible to directly capture objects in motion in exact time. With the captivating picture, it is formed with a celluloid strip containing a sequence of images. These images with incremental movements from each other are shown in succession onto a screen; thus, seeing the quiet images as challenging images. The early motion pictures were static shots that showed an event or action with no editing or other cinematic techniques. Film cameras were handcranked (and the usual speed of cranking is the speed seen with the classic films we see now sharp faster than ordinary human movements).
The early versions of the technology required a person to perceive into a viewing machine to see the pictures that were separate paper prints attached to a drum and turned by a handcrank. The pictures were shown at a variable speed of about 5 to 10 pictures per second depending on how rapidly the crank was turned. Some of these machines were coin operated.
After a while, the development of a motion portray projector to shine light through the processed and printed film and magnify these “moving picture shows” onto a screen for an entire audience became the norm.
The Silent Era
Inventors and producers had tried from the very beginning of entertaining pictures to marry the image with synchronous sound, but no practical method was devised until the late 1920’s. And so, for the first thirty years of film history, movies were more or less silent, although they were usually accompanied by musicians and sometimes sound effects, and with dialogue and narration presented in the so-called intertitles.
During the 1900’s, the word “art” was mentioned more and more in connection with films. And as a result of the increasing artistic ambitions of filmmakers, poems began to be transposed directly into these moving picture endeavors. Symbolic effects taken over from conventional literary and artistic traditions started.
The rise of European cinema was interrupted by the breakout of World War I while the film industry in the United States flourished with the rise of Hollywood.
Experimentation with sound film technology, both for recording and playback, was virtually constant throughout the peaceful era, but the problems on accurate synchronization and sufficient amplification was still quite difficult to overcome.
The Sound Era
By the 1920’s, new technology allowed filmmakers to attach to each film a soundtrack of speech, music, and sound effects synchronized with the action shown on screen. These sound films were initially noted by calling them “talking pictures,” or “talkies.”
The industry impact of sound made a remarkable swift. By the end of 1929, Hollywood was almost all-talkie, with several competing sound systems – which would soon be standardized.
Sound films emphasized and benefited different genres more than silents did. During this time, the musical film was also born.
The 1940’s: The War and Post-war Years
The desire for wartime propaganda became a serious agenda during the war and post-war years. The onset of US involvement in WWII also brought a proliferation of movies as both patriotism and propaganda.
Wartime also brought an interest in more fantastical subjects. And the era also produced a series of atmospheric and influential small-budget horror films.
The 1950’s: Post-war Years
During the immediate post-war years, the film industry was also threatened by television. The increasing popularity of the unusual medium caused the bankruptcy and closing of a number of theaters, especially the petite ones.
However, in the Philippines, this decade fulfilled the so-called “Golden Age of Phlippine Cinema.” During the 1950’s, Many Filipino films were internationally-acclaimed and reaping awards in the international scene.
The 1960’s: Foreign Films, Black-and-white vs. Color, Self-Expression and Propaganda
During the 1960’s, the studio system in Hollywood declined because many films were now being made on location in other countries, or using studio facilities abroad. Unlike Hollywood, other countries are unprejudiced starting to peak in their filmmaking industries. Hollywood movies were still largely aimed at family audiences, and it was often the more old-fashioned films that produced the studios’ biggest successes.
The growth in independent producers and production companies and the increase in the power of individual actors also contributed to the decline of traditional Hollywood studio production. There was also an increasing awareness of foreign language cinema. The nuclear paranoia of the age, and the threat of an apocalyptic nuclear exchange (including the 1963 close-call with the USSR during the Cuban missile crisis) prompted a reaction within the film community. Films like Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove” and “Fail Safe” with Henry Fonda were produced in a Hollywood that was then known for its overt patriotism and wartime propaganda.
The next major step in the development of cinema was the introduction of color. While the addition of sound fleet eclipsed silent film and theater musicians, color was then adopted more gradually. As color processes improved and became as affordable as black-and-white film, more and more movies were filmed in color. After the end of World War II, as the industry came to plan color as essential to attracting audiences in its competition with television, most films remained in the black-and-white medium until the mid-1960’s. By the end of the 1960’s, color had become the norm for filmmakers.
The 1970’s: The ‘New Hollywood’ and Post-classical Cinema
Since the decline of the studio system in the 1960’s, the succeeding decades saw changes in the production and style of film. The rise of film school educated independent filmmakers became a distinguished part of the changes the medium experienced in the latter half of the 20th century.
‘Post-classical cinema’ was also a term ragged to describe the changing methods of storytelling of the “New Hollywood” producers. The unique methods of drama and characterization played upon audience expectations were further utilized: tale chronology could be scrambled, storylines could already feature unsettling “twist endings,” main characters could behave in a morally ambiguous fashion, and the lines between the antagonist and protagonist may be blurred.
A new group of filmmakers also emerged during this time: Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Brian de Palma. This coincided with the increasing popularity of the auteur theory in film literature and the media, which posited that a film director’s films express their personal vision and creative insights.
The phenomenal success of “Jaws” and “Star Wars” in particular, led to the rise of the recent “blockbuster.” Hollywood studios increasingly focused on producing a smaller number of very large budget films with massive marketing and promotional campaigns.
During the 1970’s, some filmmakers increasingly depicted explicit sexual content and showed gunfight and battle scenes that included graphic images of bloody deaths. Moreover, by the mid-1970s, more pornographic theatres, euphemistically called “adult cinemas,” were established. The legal production of hardcore pornographic films also began.
The 1980’s: Sequels, Blockbusters and Videotape
During the 1980’s, audiences began increasingly watching movies on their home VCRs. During the early part of the decade, movie studios tried apt action to ban home ownership of VCRs as a violation of copyright, which proved unsuccessful. Eventually, the sale and rental of movies on home video became a significant “second venue” for exhibition of films, and an additional source of revenue for the movie companies.
George Lucas and Steven Spielberg started dominating Hollywood for much of the era – leading to much imitations. Two follow-ups to “Star Wars,” three to “Jaws,” and three “Indiana Jones” films helped to perform sequels of successful films more of an expectation than ever before. Lucas also launched THX Ltd, a division of Lucasfilm in 1982, while Spielberg enjoyed one of the decade’s greatest successes in “E. T.” the same year. The success of Tim Burton’s version of Bob Kane’s creation, “Batman,” made box-office history.
The porn cinemas died out during the 1980’s, when the popularization of the home VCR and pornography videotapes allowed audiences to watch sex films at home.
The 1990’s: New Special Effects, Independent Films, VCDs and DVDs
Cinema was increasingly dominated by special-effects films such as “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” (1991) and “Titanic” (1997), independent films like Steven Soderbergh’s “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” (1989) and Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs” (1992). They had significant commercial success both at the cinema and on home video.
The major studios began to create their own “independent” production companies to finance and produce non-mainstream fare.
Animated films aimed at family audiences also regained their popularity, with Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin,” and “The Lion King.” During 1995 the first feature length computer-animated feature, “Toy Story,” was produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Disney. After the success of “Toy Story,” Disney returned to traditional animation and made three more popular films: “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1996), Hercules (1997), and Mulan (1998).
During the late 1990s, another cinematic transition began, from physical film stock to digital cinema technology. Meanwhile DVDs became the new standard for consumer video, replacing VHS tapes.
The 2000’s: Documentary, Fable, Dismay, Fantasy, Adaptations, Animations, Digital Filmmaking and 3D
Documentary films rose as a commercial genre with the success of films like “March of the Penguins,” “Bowling for Columbine,” “Fahrenheit 9/11,” and “An Inconvenient Truth.” A new genre was created with Martin Kunert and Eric Manes’ “Voices of Iraq,” when 150 inexpensive DV cameras were distributed across Iraq, transforming ordinary people into collaborative filmmakers.
The success of “Gladiator” led to the revival of the interest in fable cinema. “The Lord of the Rings Trilogy” and “300″ were the most successful sage films during this era. Horror films, mostly inspired by Asian Cinema, also made its way to the trend. A number of Asian films from various genres also got heads up for Hollywood remakes like the Korean “My Sassy Girl,” the Japanese “The Ring,” the Thai “Shutter,” the Chinese (Hong Kong) “The Departed,” and the Philippines’ “The Echo.” Fantasy and superhero films became the most bankable. Film adaptations from comic books, novels, and even short stories also became a norm. There came the big franchises of “Spiderman,” “Superman,” “X-Men,” “Batman, “Ironman,” “Sin City,” “Chronicles of Narnia” and a lot more. War films went back to the scene with a number of films from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq like “Kite Runner” and “The Hurt Locker.” Small budget films also made their way towards critical acclaim like “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Once.”
From the classic Disney 2D and frail animation format to stop-motion to 3D, enchanting films took advantage of the technology offered by the times. “Kung Fu Panda,” “Shrek,” Corpse Bride,” “Wonderful Mr. Fox,” “Wall-E,” “Up” and lots of other offers became blockbuster hits.
Home theater systems became increasingly sophisticated with HD and digital surround sound technology – as well as the special edition DVDs designed to be shown on them. Competing with piracy, special features, theatrical versions back-to-back with special extended versions intended for home cinema audiences became a viable trend. Soon came the blu-ray technology providing HD quality movies for the family’s home theater system. Buying digital copies of movies, pay-per-views and movie rentals through internet sites and cable companies became prominent including the employ of the iTunes Store, Netflix and a number of satellite TV companies.
Alongside the Hollywood tradition, the “underground film” tradition of small-budget, often self-produced works were created outside the studio system. With new technological breakthroughs, digital filmmaking started to provide more venues to filmmakers from shooting on HD, using memory sticks, firestore, and hard drives attached to cameras instead of using tapes, and having post-production hardware and software becoming as easy as having a regular home gadget. And movie theaters all over the world started investing on digital cinemas offering HD projection.
3D films promoted a steady rise of film theaters offering IMAX 3D and RealD 3D movies. From animated films including “Polar Express,” “Beowulf” and “Monsters vs. Aliens” to documentaries and concerts like “Hubble 3D” and “U2 3D” to live action films like “Harry Potter” and the legendary “Avatar,” the 3D technology became a new trend. Companies also started developing 3D TVs as well.
The Film Industry Now
Profit and sustainability are the key forces in the film industry of today. And yet, many filmmakers strive to create works of with artistic fulfillment and/or lasting social significance.
Digital technology has been the driving force in filmmaking history throughout the 1990’s and into the 21st century. The said era also marked the beginning of film and video distribution online. The demand for audio-visual content is consistently rising with internet venues like the historical Youtube.
Indeed, from its birth until now, film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment, and a powerful method for educating and indoctrinating the people.
Tim Dirks, “Film History by Decade.” Filmsite.org.
Paul Burns, “The History of the Discovery of Cinematography.” Precinemahistory.net.
Related Posts
Filed under Stock Bankruptcy by on Dec 3rd, 2011. 
Leave a Comment