-
Running Horse
Eadweard Muybridge entered a $25,00 bet with his friends saying that at some point during the duration of its running full speed, a horse will have all of its hooves off the ground. They set up a series of camera and realized when put together in a rotating disk and projected onto a screen, the shots created a moving picture. Muybridge won the bet and a significant discovery was made. -
Invention of the Motion Picture Camera
in 88' Edison started working on his concept for a motion picture camera. He got a team together in 89' and started to work on his project. The kinetoscope was created by 1893. -
First Theatre
The Kinetoscope Parlor was set up by the the Holland Brothers in New York. It consisted of a number of kinetoscopes in which one person could view a thirty to sixty second film through a peep hole at the top of a device. -
Cinematographe
After Edison's development of the kinetoscope and his own projector, the Lumière brothers, Louis and Auguste, created a projector and showed put on shows for the public. They called their creation the cinématographe. They showed thirty to sixty second short films. -
Motion Pictures Introduced to Vaudevilles
Vaudevilles have also been used for performing arts. Motion picture short skits were introduced to these theatres in 1896 as short films in between acts. Got the names Nickelodeon because the shows cost a nickel. -
First Narrative Story
Edwin Porter, employee of Edison, directed and filmed the first narrative motion picture "The Great Train Robbery". It was a 12 minute short film consisting of 14 scenes. There was no sound but this went down in history as the earliest narrative film. -
Popularity of Nickelodeons
By 1910 Nickelodens had 26 million people going to them to see the motion pictures. Seeing the profit that was being made, people got ideas. This later led to the creation of a monopoly by Edison. -
MPPC/ Moving to the West Coast
Edison saw the opportunity to make money off of the growing film industry so he formed the Motion Picture Patents Company. This group held all the equipment that was needed and kept quiet about their actors. If someone were to go against them, they would be sought after. This was one of the reasons film makers moved to the West Coast (the other reason being the need for clearer filming conditions that weren't achievable in New York). -
Introduction of Sound
Inventor Lee De Forest introduced the concept of sound used in film in the year 1923. The idea was initially rejected. In the years to come, multiple companies released feature films such as Don Juan and The Jazz Singer. -
AMPAS
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was a non-profit organization founded to recognize contributions to film. Awards were given for things like Best Production. The first ever awards were announced at the beginning of 1929 and given later in the year. -
The Motion Picture Production Code
Loose guideline for film released. Issued rules and regulations on things like violence, sex, crime, and religion. Prompted the later code which would have stricter enforcement. -
Transition to Color
Transitioning to color in films was a process. A two-color process was developed and used in the late 1910's. Eventually, this two-color system evolved into three-color technicolor which was first used in a cartoon. -
First Drive In
The first drive in theatre was opened in New Jersey. -
War and Film
During this time in film history, war was going on. Because of this, numerous films containing war propaganda and similar were released. Movies like 'Casablanca' and 'Since You Went Away' made it into the hearts of Americans. -
The Threat of Television
Television was becoming increasingly more popular. With this growing popularity, some that partook in the industry went bankrupt. To fight, film began to take the influence of rock and roll to try and appeal to a juvenile demographic. -
The New Hollywood
After the decline of the traditional Hollywood way of producing films, filmmakers began to create works like 'Bonnie and Clyde' that captured the social revolution that was taking place. These films were seen as groundbreaking and a turning point -
Blockbuster
With the success of the movie 'Jaws', studios decided to take a new approach to creating their films. They decided to transition to creating a small number of high-budget films with massive publicity and promotion. This transition was in the hopes of having very successful outcomes ($$$) -
VCR
The popularity of watching movies on VCR grew. Because of this, legal attempts were taken to try and ban their usage. Once that proved unsuccessful, the film industry found a way to capitalize off of them. -
Computer Animated Feature
Toy Story was the first full length animated feature that was released. It was produced by Pixar and started to grow the market for these sorts of films. This also created competition between different film companies whose output this was. -
Popularity to Documentaries
Films like March of the Penguins started growing the documentary genre. This was the first time the genre really gained this much speed and recognition. Events to come like 9/11 further grew the genre's popularity. -
3D
The occurrence of 3D films picked up in 2010. These films had much success in the boxoffice. Disney's 'Toy Story 3' had one of the best 3D successes.
