The Pioneers Research

Youtube Links

Film: History, Production, and Criticism (Youtube Playlist)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avAALYc7jw8&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtN-
Bd-H_TGq72CN50Fpv_JX
Paul mertons Weird and wonderful World of Early Cinema
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87km5sFrIQQ
Paul Mertons Birth Of Hollywood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLEsZcgtifo

Auguste and Louis Lumiere (Lumiere Brothers)

 The Lumiere brother were some of the first filmmakers
 They didn’t engage in any real film editing instead they used static
shots.
 The Cinematographe (writing with movement) was compact and
portable, light enough for 1 person to carry, operated by hand
crank, didn’t need electric, record film, develop film, project film in
one.
 First projected films
 They invented new and improved photo plates
 Experience in Business, Engineering, Manufacturing and
Photography.
 Stop and Go mechanism used in sewing machines incorporated
into their camera.
 Held private parties to distinguished guests before public
 In paris, December 28th 1895 at the Salon Indien Du Grand Café
basement screened 10 short films changed the world
 Woodville Latham had the first screening of a boxing match in May
1895 new york but the Lumiere brothers hyped up the interest and
curiosity of their invention with image quality and a greater
amount of films to show.
 The train arrives at LA ciatat station was one of the 10 films it was
rumoured that they ran screaming but was in recent years
debunked
  They used actualites which are movies focused on every day life
 Within a month they were making aprox 7000 francs a week
 Lumiere Brothers left the film business in 1905 because they saw
no future in it.

George Méliès
 Melies wanted to be an artist but his farther said no because he
wanted him to take over his luxury shoe making business
 Georges Méliès was one of the first cinemagicians.
 He experimented in special effects and focused on building
narratives.
 First achieved fame as a stage magician
 Owned his own theatre (Theatre Robert-Houdin)
 Writer, Producer, Director and designed sets and costumes
himself.]
 He used a lantern projector to produce light effects on the
audience to make it look like it was raining or snowing in the
theatre.
 He was invited to see a private screening by the Lumiere Brothers
and was impressed so he tried to buy the cinematographe on the
spot but they weren’t ready to sell.
 He bought a Animatographe and reverse engineered it so that it
worked as it’s own camera
 April 1896 he was making and screening his own films in his own
theatre.
 At first his films were similar to the Lumiere brothers
 In his Auto-Biography Melies describes a day when he was filming
on a crowded street when his camera jammed he fiddled with the
hand crank fixed the problem and when he developed the film
later and played it back the 2 shots joined and in the blink of an eye
the people and objects in the shot changed..
 He started using this technique to perform on screen magic making
the audience think that he could levitate heads and make people
disappear changing a objects size or shape.
 In 1902 he released his 14 minute masterpiece called A Trip To The
Moon about scientists that travel to the moon, sleep under the
stars, combat aliens, escape back to earth triumphant. This short
 film consisted of 250 meters of film 3x the average length of
Lumiere films of the time.
 Thomas Edison who hired W.K.L. Dickson to invent the kinetograph
the world’s first motion picture film camera.
 A Trip To The Moon was a massive success that Thomas Edison
Amongst others made illegal copies and began screening the film
claiming it was his own.
 The film also had a profound effect on other filmmakers of the
time and expanded on what people thought was possible
narratively and aesthetically.
 The Trip To The Moon has been referenced in Hugo and a music
video by smashing pumpkins called Tonight, Tonight in 1996.
 In his prime he made 25 – 75 films per year.
 He founded a production company called star film and built a large
studio in Montreal France. The studio looks like a giant greenhouse
to let in as much natural light as possible.
 He employed 21 women to hand tint his films.
 The high cost of his productions legal challenges from rivals and
world war 1 forced him out of the film business by 1917
 in the 1920’s he was living in obscurity and selling sweets at the
Montparnasse Station
 Destroyed all his negatives and set designs from the Montreal
studio.
 In the the late 1920’s he was tracked down by journalists and
filmmakers who had been influenced by his films tracked him down
to celebrate his contribution to the art of cinema.
 In October 1931 Melies was made a knight of the legion of honour
the highest achievement in French military or civil affairs. The
medal was presented to him by Louis Lumiere himself.

In-Camera Effects
 In 1898 he invented and started to use double exposure in his films
when this is done correctly both images appear on screen at the
same time thought the second image normally appears faded or
ghostly .
 Double exposure led him to the invention of the technique of split
screen which was filming half of the film then rewind and film the
other half once developed it would show the 2 split shots side by
side in real time so that the one person could be literally talking to
himself.
  He expanded upon his split screen technique with a new technique
called matting where he could paint black shapes on a glass plate
which was attached to the camera lense he could then paint other
parts of the glass plate while leaving the original shapes clear shoot
the scene and both exposures would combine.

Edwin S Porter
 He was responsible for introducing the concept to the American
cinema allowing others to build on it.
 He worked as a sign painter, telegraph operator, minor inventor
and a touring projectionist using a projectorscope exhibiting films
in rival to Thomas Edison
 He would assemble various actualates and short films and
combined them into longer feature films.
 Picked orders and created transitions between each film and
arrange for any musical or spoken accompiment
 In 1899 Edwin worked as head of production for one of Thomas
Edison’s film studios editing the stories, operating the cameras,
directing the actors and assembling the final films
 When working as a touring projectionist with rough editing, he
discovered techniques and effects and later put them to use in his
own multi shot films.
 The most influential of his techniques was parallel-action or cross
cutting the first successful example of this can be found in his film,
Life of an American Fireman made in 1902 and inspired by Fire!
Directed by James Williamson
 Life Of An American Firefighter was created using original footage
and Stock footage from Edison.
 Parallel–action is showing 2 different scenes or more in the same
time frame
 In 1902 he released his most successful film The Great Train
Robbery
 Edwin was among the first to use panning and tilting in his film The
Great Train Robbery.
  The last shot of The Great Train Robbery was a Medium Close Up
of a bandit shooting directly towards the camera which was
startling at the time since it was much closer than anything seen
before.(this scene was used in GoodFellas 1990)
 Porter opened up new narrative techniques to the film industry
with his parallel-action, panning, tilting and close ups.
Note:
Silent Films was accompanied by live orchestras, pianos, voice over narration or
actors on stage.

D W Griffith
 His father Jacob was a casualty in the civil war.
 He was fascinated with stories that his father Jacob would tell him.
 Griffith in 1907 was originally a stage actor and play writer but was
unsuccessful in the business and in that same year he moved to
fort lee looking for acting work and became a movie actor working
for the Edison Company in fort lee.
 When working at the Edison company he starred in his first movie
Rescued from the Eagles Nest
 In 1908 he left the Edison Company and found acting work in new
York for the Biograph film company he left the company in 1913.
 When working for the Biograph film company a director didn’t turn
up for work and Griffith was offered the chance to direct his first
film The Adventures Of Dolly
 He was such a good organizer and believed in himself that he
became successful director and directed 60 films in 1908 and in
1909 he directed over 100 most of the films being 15minutes long.
 Most of the films he directed the actors improvised with very little
script offered in advanced.
 He built a reputation of being good with actors and they trusted
him.
 Founded United artists in 1919 along with Charlie Chaplin, Mary
Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks
 In 1920’s his movie Isn’t Life Wonderful failed at the box office
which is when he was forced out of the United Artists.
 In 1930 and 1932 he made 2 sound films but they both failed and
he left the industry.

Note: The director’s job at the Biograph film company was to make sure
everyone was in frame of the camera since it was static.
Sergei Eisenstein
 Sergei Eisenstein was a soviet filmmaker and was impressed with the
work by the work that Griffith and Kuleshov had done.
 Eisenstein was a pioneer in the theory and practice of montage
 Eisenstein’s most acclaimed film is Battleship Potemkin
 In 1920 he moved to Moscow and began theatre work
 In 1923 He began his career as a theorist writing The Montage of
Attractions.
 Eisenstein’s focus in films was his camera angles crowd movements
and montage edited them together to create propaganda.
 Breaking confines of space and time to make a unique language.

Lev Kuleshov
 His father Vladimir Sergeevich Kuleshov was of noble heritage
 Studied art in the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and
Architecture, despite his own father's disapproval.
 Didn’t complete his studies.
 The family became financially broke, lost their estate and moved
to Tambov, living a modest life.
 In 1916 he applied to work at the film company
 With time Kuleshov became more interested in film theory

Nouvelle Vague / French New Wave

 The camera was given more freedom

 More freedom
 Close ups, driving cars, walking around.
 Famous people ( a group of directors) Jean-Luc Godard
François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Éric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol,
and Jacques Rivette.