History of Film

Horse Race

1878

A rich Englishmen named Edweard Muybridge bet with his friends a horse lifted all 4 legs when running. Several cameras were set up along the track and showed horse did indeed lift all legs
Muybridge won the $25,000 bet

First Movie Theatre

1895

Projector is invented by Thomas Edison to show people one at a time film. Two brothers in France, Lumiere brothers invent a projector for mass audience. Their invention is called cinematographe, this is where the word comes from.

First Narrative

1903

The first film that had a story made by an employee of Thomas Edison. The films was called The Great Train Robbery, At the time it was an unheard of length of 12 minutes. Compared to the 30 second and minute long films of the time it was considered an epic.

Chaplin

1917

The first film star was Charlie Chaplin a world famed comedian. Working for $150 a week in the early 1900s . He would eventually be earning over a million dollars a year, unheard of at the time.

The Jazz Singer

1927

The first feature length film of its day with sound. Then called talkies it was an instant sensation. It featured star actor Al Jolson in blackface.

Color in Film

1935

Technicolor is popularized, so color in film is now more common. The first film to feature it was Becky Sharp. The technology had rarely ever been used since 1922

McCarthyism

1948

Senator Joe McCarthy halts the film industry with the threat of communism. He calls anyone out for being a communist and they are blackballed or imprisoned. The Hollywood Ten would not disclose any information about would be communists and were imprisoned.

Wide Screen and 3d

1953

Films could now be bigger and wider with the advent of this technology. The first 3-d film was also released this year. It had been tried before but it was now a reality with the 3-d glasses technology

Film Ratings

1968

In 1968 motion picture ratings were made. The ratings at the time were G, R, Pg and X. X would be later replaced with Nc-17 and
PG-13 would be introduced later as well.

Steady Cam

1976

In 1976 The Steadycam is introduced. First being used in Rocky filmmakers now had the option to lock shots and use this technology.

Titanic

1997

In 1997 James Cameron makes Titanic, It is a box office smash hit grossing over 1 billion dollars. Cameron would later go on to release Avatar another billion dollar grossing film.

3D films

2003

With improvement in technology animated 3D films were now more popular than ever. No longer limited by technology films like Ice Age, and Shrek showed there was a demand for this ever growing market. Big budget films could also use IMAX now.