Silent Films : The Evolution Of A Silent Film

It was Thomas Edison who was also responsible for the invention of Motion pictures . Thomas created equipment that would record and playback images so that they could be watched later on.

Ever since Thomas Edison invented the Kinetiscope in 1894, films have been reaching its way to the heart of American culture. Since the roaring twenties, where the United States began to see the first movie theaters to the 1960’s, where films are officially a source of leisure and escape from reality. Films influenced American culture between the 1920’s through 1960’s by becoming an increasingly popular form of leisure for years to come while causing scandals, riots, and movements about films or about the idea of films in general by displaying issues in society such as racism, forming a need for censorship laws. Films have also provided a fantasy world for their audiences by showing a film about someone in their perfect life using ethical

Societal Change through the Celluloid Wonder Introduction The invention of the motion picture has affected our society in many ways. The invention of the motion picture has led to new inventions and discovery of better technologies. It’s led to the invention of better film cameras and special effects. It has changed the way we view entertainment.

1. I was surprised that it took thirty years after the emergence of silent film for non-fiction films to be made with deliberately imposed thematic meanings. Intentional themes are so engrained in modern documentaries that it is hard for me to even imagine how one would go about filming a documentary without establishing a unifying theme.

The music emanating from the classroom as I walk to class perks my interest from the beginning. I enjoy listening and predicting what movie it is from. The best part of the class is the movie clips we watch as we listen to the movie score and the discussions we have about them. My favorite movies so far have been “Modern Times,” “Casablanca,” and “The Artist.” “Casablanca” has always been one of my favorite movies so it was entertaining to watch it in class and go into further detail about the movie. Usually I am not a fan of silent movies, but “Modern Times” was so amusing that it did not need words; I loved the addition of sound in the silent movie “The Artist.” I also enjoy the heated discussions we have in class, whether it be about movies,

The first film that showed early signs of a rise in the quality of technology was the Western “The Great Train Robbery.” When this film first came out the audience were so amazed at the fact that they could watch something on a TV or at the cinema. Although this film was very good for the 1900s it still lacked some key features that make films much easier to understand such as dialogue, sound and camera shots. The one feature of a film that developed the quickest over the period of time was sound. Sound was introduced in October 1927 in the film “The Jazz singer”, which had three song numbers and a few lines of spoken dialogue. Apart from these few songs and words, the rest of the movie was silent, but the audience still thought that it was amazing that words had been spoken in the film, they used to call it “the movie that talked”.

Many people initially view archives as unmediated documentations of history. Critical, precious time capsules, which record the past in order to advance the future. The East Anglian Film Archive website, has a variety of different videos which show films that have been marked as meaningful enough to archive. One video involves an interview with Alfred Hitchcock by an old Anglian television company. Whereas, a different video which is filmed in 1935 shows a typical day of young children in their primary school in Cambridgeshire. This video depicts the difference in traditions and urges audiences to make comparisons between modern day schools and 1930’s institutions. Within the second video the children drink milk with cod liver oil. This seemingly small occurrence in itself is historically important, as during the 1930’s it was discovered that cod liver oil was effective in preventing a common disease, rickets. By archiving this day at a children’s primary school, the audience observing the media are able to understand more about 1930’s medicine, the school system and historical differences. It is extremely important to observe what pieces of media are archived as despite the differences between archiving a day at a

The silent film era was the birth of film in that it was the first time the public was able to see motion picture images moving within a frame that are not physically there. Although as the title of the era confirms there was no voice with the picture partly because it dated before recording techniques became advanced enough using mixing and modern recording techniques. Because music was not recorded at this point instead a live band, orchestra, or solo organist would perform at the theater. Unlike today where a theater could easily show over twenty films at one time because they were all filmed at the same time. During the early silent film era the film production process took much longer and as a result would be released much further apart from each other. Instead of a copious amount of movies to choose from for viewing most audiences would have three or four at most to choose from at different times of the day. Live performers provided many issues including one of the most vital methods of film music, which is synchrony. As with most professions inventers took it upon themselves to solve the issue of synchrony and provide the audiences with an even better experience other than watching people move on a screen. In this case the two inventors to work on this issue were Mr. Theodore Presser and Mr. Thomas Edison who combined the phonograph for the audio part and the vitagraph as the visual part. Later in 1926 an exhibition in New York City unveiled the Vitaphone. Perfectly synchronizing the music to the image on the screen. Now not only the music would be synchronized, but voice would also be synchronized and we would move into the era of the “Talkies”. A review from a critic at the exhibition had this to

Throughout the contemporary feature film, The Artist, the choice of music was emphasized for the viewer to better understand the scene. In the silent film clips I selected to watch, I was able to obtain the directors happened to do the same thing. Due to the lack of voice throughout these silent films, the choice of music plays a huge factor in making an astonishing film. One would not be able to tell the actors in The Artist are contemporary compared to the actors in the other silent films. Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo removed themselves from contemporary life and correctly portrayed their actions into the time of the silent era. In Buster Keatons 1924 film, The Navigator, the actors used strong hand signals and facial expressions to convey

The introduction of sound films in the late 1920’s was a divisive issue among those involved and interested in the emerging motion picture industry. Even though it wasn’t the sudden breakthrough it is often perceived to be, the addition of sound and voice to mainstream cinema revolutionized movie making and led to conflicting viewpoints as to whether or not this innovation was a positive progression for film as an art and as an industry.

Sound is obviously an essential part of cinema, and most couldn’t imagine watching any sort of entertainment without sound. Although how did sounds start and what were some major advancements in the world of sound cinema? The introduction of sound to cinema began by a process known as Phonofilm, created by a man named Lee de Forest and Theodore Case in 1923. The Phonofilm, which recorded synchronized sound directly onto film, was used to record a variety of entertainment including vaudeville acts, musical numbers, political speeches and opera singers. Unfortunately, this sound film didn’t last long because it was overshadowed by the sound on disc, later named the Vitaphone.

During the mid to late years of the 19th century, a new form of entertainment emerged. Film entered the stage of innovation. New marketing and technological innovations developed for film to become the art it is today. In the 1830s, Joseph Plateau designed the Phenakistoscope. This device had a picture in the middle of a wheel made with mirrors and small openings. When spun, the Phenakistoscope made the picture appear to move. The name changed to Zoetrope in the 1860s and producers advertised the product as an accessory every home needed (Dixon & Foster, 2008). Later inventions that preceded the first motion picture camera include: Henry Du Mont’s Omiscope, Henry R. Heyl’s Phasmatrope, Eadweard Muybridge’s Zoöpraxiscope, Etienne-Jules Marey’s fusil photographique and Eastman Kodak’s chronophotographs (Parkinson, 1997). With a design by Thomas Edison, William Kennedy Laurie Dickson built the first modern movie camera, the Kinetograph, in 1890 (Dixon & Foster, 2008). In 1895, Auguste and Louis Lumiére patented the Cinématographe, a machine that combined the engineering of a camera and a projector (Bergan, 2006). Businessmen capitalized on the growing need for a place to witness these brand new films, thus they charged people to see them in their living rooms (Potter, 2014). These creations made movie-making a reality.

No matter who a person thinks invented the motion picture camera, whether it was Louis Lumiere or Thomas Edison, I'm sure they had no idea what it would become at the turn of the century. Motion pictures, has become an entertainment medium like no other. From Fred Ott's Sneeze to Psycho to Being John Malkovich, the evolution from moving pictures to a pure art form has been quite amazing. Different steps in filming techniques define eras in one of the most amazing ideas that was ever composed. Silent to Sound. Short to long. Black and white to color. Analog to Digital. All were important marks in the History of Motion Pictures. "It's different than other arts. It had to be invented"

Bollywood and Silent movies are distinct by their names and styles within each movie. They are known to be the most popular back in the old days. Bollywood was, and is famous in India, whereas Silent movies were once a huge boom in Hollywood. Each movie’s music play a significant role, or portray an important theme for the viewers. These two genres of movie have similarities, as well as differences that make them somehow dissimilar but somehow close to each other.

Film Industry has been expansively affected by the changes in technology. The mechanical and digital innovations give cause to the influence of equipment, distribution and the way in which films are made and consumed. New trends shape directors and filmmakers to expand creatively towards telling stories in motions. The film industry has developed to one of the most important tools of communication, it's cause so powerful affecting the way individuals and societies think, act and behave. Among the new Era approaching film, and seeing celluloid film fade is that of the Digital Era and a camera that saw celluloid films passing hastened.