The Beginning of Cinema

I particuarly liked this lecture as I found the emergence of film and the cinema highly interesting. We covered the history of the film industry and how Hollywood rose to fame as well as looking at the impact this had on alternative and independent cinemas.

1878 - Eadweard Muybridge, an English photographer was known for his pioneering work of using still cameras triggered by trip wires to capture and create motion pictures. Muybridge would position still cameras along a racetrack that would be triggered by the horses hooves.

Late 19th Century - Electro-chemical technologies were being used producing urban "mass" markets for entertainment. The projection of still images was still being used along side magic lantern projections, zoetropes, peepshows and the Kinetoscope. In 1981 Edison and Dickson created the Kinetoscope camera as well as the peepshow viewer using celuloid film.

Early Cinema;

The camera alongside projection equalled the beginning of cinema. However there are various claims as to when the first screening actually was. There are three main groups plausible of this claim;

-The Lumiere Brothers, screened films in Paris, London and Worthing in 1985.
-Armat (on behalf of Edison) screened films in NewYork in 1986 via "The Vitascope".
-Birt Acres claims to have used the first 35mm camera producing an "Incident at Clovelly cottage", one of the first narrative films in 1896.

At first cinema technologies were not used in the best of ways;

-Commercial mass distribution system was NOT necessarily the obvious route.
-Non- narrative spectacles were a novelty; films of bridges, trains, public events and football were common.
- Expression and experimentation were big factors of the film world.
-Community film: Mitchell and Kenyon were where local communities were filmed with local screenings.

Commercial Cinema and HollyWood

All the cinema action took place in Europe,not HollyWood before the first world war. However developements within the film world started to advance offering a different perspective...

-Narratives offered mass appeal.
-In 1910, french films equalled 70% of global film exports. "A trip to the moon" (George Mellis,1902)

By the 1920's HollyWood dominated. Why?

-World War one
-Space, climate and cheap migrant labour were available in Southern California.
-Easy access to Capital. (Wall Street)
- The US had a huge domestic market.
- HollyWood had its own studio system.Fordist production applied to film making.
- The star system appeared. The creation of stars through a public system.
- "The big five" studios were positioned around HollyWood which controlled the cinema chains.

Commercial Cinema and HollyWood;

- Further technological advances increased costs and further advantaged the big studios over the independent and alternative cinemas.

1927 - Sound was introduced to films.
1950's - Cinemascope and widescreen appeared.
1990's - CGI, C21, 3D filiming techniques were used.
21st century - Blockbusters and Franchise films became available with huge investments at the expense of serious adult drama.

So far....

-Technology alone dosent explain how cinema developed.
-Political, economic and cultural forces were at work.
-Local, independent and alternative cinemas were marginalised.
- Classical HollyWood era: "the big five" dominate but there were the "little three" which included United Artists.

Meanwhile in the Uk...

- 1920's HollyWood imports dominate.
- 1927 - Cinematograph Act; the aim to curb americanisation and rescue the British film industry.
-A "mini" HollyWood studio system developed around the West of London.

The great British low budget tradition;

1930s/40's - Audiences often preferred HollyWood imports. Many talented directors and actors left for HollyWood.
But a British national cinema emerged; London films (Korda), Ealing films (Balcon).
However regulation produced the Quota Quickies which were funded by US studios to meet import regulations.
1930's - Quota quickies had very low production costs. Actors were paid per foot of film produced however they fostered a tradition which continued in post war periods, a low budget alternative to HollyWood.