-
EARLY CINEMA
No one person invented cinema. However, in 1891 the Edison Company in the USA successfully demonstrated a prototype of the Kinetoscope, which enabled one person at a time to view moving pictures. The first to present projected moving pictures to a paying audience (i.e. cinema) were the Lumière brothers in December 1895 in Paris. -
ADDING COLOUR
Colour was first added to black-and-white movies through tinting, toning and stencilling. By 1906, the principles of colour separation were used to produce so-called ‘natural colour’ moving images with the British Kinemacolor process, first presented to the public in 1909. -
THE RISE OF THE FILM INDUSTRY
By 1914, several national film industries were established. Europe, Russia and Scandinavia were as important as America. Films became longer, and storytelling, or narrative, became the dominant form. -
ADDING SOUND
The first feature-length movie incorporating synchronised dialogue, The Jazz Singer (USA, 1927), used the Warner Brothers’ Vitaphone system, which employed a separate record disc with each reel of film for the sound. -
CINEMA’S GOLDEN AGE
By the early 1930s, nearly all feature-length movies were presented with synchronised sound and, by the mid-1930s, some were in full colour too. The advent of sound secured the dominant role of the American industry and gave rise to the ‘Golden Age of Hollywood’. -
THE ASPECT RATIO
Thomas Edison had used perforated 35mm film in the Kinetoscope, and in 1909 this was adopted as the industry standard. The picture had a height-to-width relationship—known as the aspect ratio—of 3:4 or 1:1.33. With the advent of optical sound, the aspect ratio was adjusted to 1.37:1. Although there were many experiments with other formats, there were no major changes in screen ratios until the 1950s -
COMPETING WITH TELEVISION
In 1952, the Cinerama process, using three projectors and a wide, deeply curved screen together with multi-track surround sound, was premiered. It gave audiences a sense of greater involvement and proved extremely popular. However, it was technically cumbersome, and widescreen cinema did not begin to be extensively used until the introduction of CinemaScope in 1953 and Todd-AO in 1955, both of which used single projectors. -
Eastern Europe and Russia
With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union two years later, the film cultures of Russia and the former Soviet-bloc countries of eastern Europe experienced dramatic transformations. Formerly controlled and supported by the state, film production shifted into private hands. With the boundaries that previously had divided eastern from western Europe now torn down, filmmakers were freed to work where they pleased or where opportunities existed. -
WHAT’S NEXT?
In the past 20 years, film production has been profoundly altered by the impact of rapidly improving digital technology. Though productions may still be shot on film, most subsequent processes, such as editing and special effects, are undertaken on computers. The need for this final transfer is diminishing as more cinemas invest in digital projection which is capable of producing screen images that rival the sharpness, detail and brightness of traditional film projection. -
The expansion of media culture
The history of motion pictures in the last period of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st was shaped in part by new technologies and the expansion of media culture that such technologies fostered, in the 1980s. In the same manner, new cable and satellite television systems that delivered media directly to homes created additional markets for film distribution and income sources for film producers. -
Untied States
In the last years of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st, the idea of “synergy” dominated the motion-picture industry in the United States, and an unprecedented wave of mergers and acquisitions pursued this ultimately elusive concept. Motion pictures, broadcast television, cable, radio networks, theme parks, newspapers and magazines, these were among the different elements that came together in corporate combinations under the notion that each would boost the others. -
The Academy Awards
The Academy Awards were first televised in the United States in 1953, and since 1969 they have been broadcast internationally. By the late 20th century, the ceremony had been viewed by millions. Red-carpet interviews also became an integral part of the event, with much attention focused on the attendees. Steeply declining viewership in the late 2010s, however, led the academy to announce several changes to the ceremony’s broadcast beginning in 2019.