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