- Carl Jung is quoted as saying,
"The cinema,
like the detective story,
makes it possible
to experience without danger,
or the excitement,
passion, and desirousness
which must be repressed
in a humanitarian
ordering of life."
Since its inception
in the late 19th century,
cinema has become one
of the most popular
and inspiring forms
of entertainment,
art, education,
and propaganda.
The birth of cinema is one
of many interconnecting events
and inventions around the world,
born out of an array technology
revolving around machinery,
photography, optical illusion,
and a human love to be
entertained and inspired.
[ music ]
- One of the marvels of cinema
is that no one country
can claim its paternity,
and it is
a worldwide endeavor,
encompassing many different
people from around the globe.
It was in 1824, in England,
that Peter Mark Roget first
came up with an explanation
for how moving images create
the illusion of motion.
Although later proven
to be incorrect,
this principle is known
as a persistence of vision.
This, simply defined,
is when a series of pictures,
or frames, are played or
presented at a rate fast enough
to trick the human mind
into thinking it is viewing
a moving image.
The effect of the persistence
of vision,
the writer David
Parkinson notes,
was defined in 1824
by Peter Mark Roget
as the ability of the retina
to retain an image
of an object from
1/20th to 1/5th of a second
after its removal
from the field of vision.
However, it has since been shown
that film seems to move
because the brain, and not
the eye, is accepting stimuli
that it is incapable
of perceiving as separate.
The brain has a perception
threshold
below which images exposed
to it will appear as continuous.
And film's speed of 24
frames per second
is below that threshold,
thus making cinema, itself,
a strange art form
for it is primarily an illusion.
It is a mystery
as to when it was first noticed
that putting images next
to each other
and viewing them
in quick succession
created the illusion
of a moving image.
Around A.D. 180, the Chinese
inventor Ding Huan,
of which no known
picture exists,
is credited
with inventing a device
to utilize its effect
for entertainment.
This invention is called
the zoetrope.
A zoetrope is basically
a cylinder
with various slits in it.
A sequence of pictures
that link to each other
are drawn or placed inside
the cylinder,
and through the slits you can
view inside the illusion
of motion when
the cylinder is spun.
This principle laid the ground
work for later developments
in using photographic images
to create motion images,
or to give it its technical
term: cinematography.
Motion images are one part
of the founding principles
of cinema,
but key to its development
was the projection
of images and shapes.
The origins
of light-projected images
date back to the puppets
of China, India, and Java.
It was not until around
the 17th century
that light-projected imagery
would start to become popular
in Europe in North America.
And it was a magic lantern that
captivated people's attention.
The magic lantern was used
as a form of entertainment,
starting as early
as the 15th century,
and its first
incarnation may even
date back as far as
the time of King Solomon.
Its precise origins
are a mystery
and no original inventor
is known of.
The magic lantern itself
is simply a lantern,
which its light source,
usually created by a wick,
a candle, is used to project
a single slide or shape
on to a wall or flat surface.
The magic lantern relates
directly to the modern
day slide projector
and only contributed in part
to the development of cinema,
albeit an important one.
Various enhancements of
this technology included using
a magic lantern
to project motion images
from a zoetrope that's
building the ground work
for cinematic film projection.
It was developments
in light-projected
entertainment technology
that were to be used
in the newly developing
science of photography
to establish what we know
as cinematography.
The history of photography is
also one of complex inventions
and discoveries around
the world.
The very first developments
in photography
and optics originated thousands
of years ago.
Aristotle wrote and developed
ideas of how human vision works
and studied rays of light.
He used a pinhole camera,
or camera obscura,
so he could study light rays.
Aristotle was one
of the first people known
to study light using
a camera obscura,
although its invention has not
been accredited
to one single person,
and its original development
remains a mystery.
The camera obscura is basically
a box with a small pinhole
that allows a thin ray
of light into the box.
This ray of light can
be viewed as an image
if the camera obscura
is adapted to pick up
the reflection using a mirror
or shiny surface.
Ibn Al-Haytham, who lived
965 A.D. to 1040 A.D.,
an Arab scholar
who was born in Iraq,
further developed
the camera obscura,
and noted that a single
ray of light
that passed through the hole
also carried the image reflected
from wherever the light
was coming from,
and in this sense
that light carries information.
This seemingly simple discovery
was a revolutionary one
in the development in the
history of how vision works.
And it is a principle that paved
the way for the capturing
of photographic images
for use in the pinhole camera.
Initially, the camera
obscura was used
as a sketching aid by artists.
And it wasn't until
around the 1820s
and the development
of chemical photography,
that fixing the image
became a reality,
and photography took
its first steps
into the recognizable form
that it is today.
As far back as the 13th century,
it was known that some
chemicals darkened
or changed color
when exposed to light.
Albertus Magnus,
in the 13th century,
was one of the first people
to note that silver nitrate
darkened when exposed to light.
In the 17th century,
Robert Boyle reported silver
chloride turned black
after exposure to air,
although this was,
in fact, sunlight.
In 1727 Johann Heinrich Schulze
discovered that certain liquids
could be prepared
that would change color
when exposed to light.
At the end of the 18th century
and the beginning
of the 19th century,
Thomas Wedgwood
conducted experiments
where he captured silhouettes
of objects using paper covered
with silver nitrate.
That's making him one
of the first ever
pioneers of photography.
It was not until the work of two
French inventors and scientists
that fixing a still image using
chemical means became a reality.
They were Nicephore Niepce
and Louis Daguerre.
Working in conjunction
they developed a process
to produce fixed images.
Unfortunately,
Nicephore Niepce died
before the work was completed.
But by 1839, Daguerre had
perfected the process
and it was announced at
the French Academy of Sciences.
This process was
called daguerreotype
and produced some of the very
first photographic images.
This image taken in 1838,
or early 1839,
was one of the first
photos taken using
the daguerreotype process.
Its exposure time was
about 10 minutes,
meaning a man standing still
having his shoes cleaned
was the only person
captured in the photo.
Daguerreotype type images
were produced directly
onto a mirror polished silver
plate bearing a coating
of silver halide particles
deposited by iodine vapor.
But the images that were
produced were very delicate
and could be destroyed by even
the slightest handling.
In the year of 1839,
an English inventor
called William Fox Talbot
had been working
on his own type
of chemical photographic
process.
This process called the calotype
process was to greatly advance
a practical application
of photography.
The calotype process created
the method
of negative positive
photographic images,
and this is a precursor
to most photography processes
of the 19th, 20th,
and 21st centuries,
making William Talbot
a very important figure
in the history of photography
and cinema.
The calotype process
also allowed for photos
to be developed on paper;
that's allowing photography
to be open to the masses.
And the same photo could be
produced again and again
using the negative image.
In 1849, in France,
Joseph Plateau was one
of the first
to suggest using a device called
the phenakistoscope
to project photos.
This device, developed in 1839,
was similar to the zoetrope
but more advanced.
Later, in 1877, a device called
the praxinoscope
was created
by Charles-Emile Reynaud.
This was another technological
advancement from the zoetrope,
and in 1889, he created
the Theatre Optique
using the praxinoscope
not only to rotate images
but also, using
an adapted magic lantern,
he projected these images
on to a screen.
But the static photos
used at the time
in such devices proved
to be little better
than pictures in a way of
recording action simultaneously
as it occurred was needed.
Two great innovators were
to work in this field
and develop a process
of series photography allowing
the capturing of multiple images
in chronological order.
They were Etienne-Jules Marey
and Eadweard Muybridge.
Eadweard Muybridge
is most famous
for his sequence of photos
of a horse race,
proving that a horse does
lift all hooves
off the ground when it gallops.
This work was commissioned
for a bet
by the governor of California,
Leland Stanford.
Muybridge proved
the governor correct in 1879
by using film that
had fast exposure time
in a lineup of 12 cameras,
all taking single shots
in quick succession
following the motion
of the horse.
Muybridge then went
on to develop the zoopraxiscope,
which cast onto a screen
the drawings made
of his photographs.
Although this was projection,
it was a big
step towards it.
In 1882, Etienne-Jules
Marey adapted a device
called the photographic revolver
to take a series of photos.
At first, a revolving
plate was used to record
a dozen instantaneous images
in the course of one second.
After various experimentations
and adaptations,
Marey eventually turned
to celluloid film developed
by the Eastman Kodak Company
to produce continuous
strips of images.
Marey went on to produce
numerous photo sequences,
and, although he did try,
he was not able to develop
a projection device
for moving photographic images.
It was a French inventor
by the name of Louis Le Prince
who is recognized to have
recorded the first ever
motion captured
sequences in 1888.
The first short sequences
of moving images ever filmed
were the "Roundhay Garden Scene"
and the Leeds Bridge scene,
These filmed scenes
are recognized
as the first ever motion capture
cinematography sequences.
However, it will forever
remain a mystery
as to the success Le Prince
may have gone to achieve
and what happened to him
in 1890.
For in 1890,
after seeing his brother,
he boarded a train in Dijon
that was heading for Paris
where he would meet with friends
and then go on to America,
where he was planning to patent
his single lens camera.
But he never made it to Paris,
and his luggage, including
his camera, was never found.
After extensive searches
by the French police,
Scotland Yard,
and Le Prince's family,
not a solid clue
to his disappearance
was ever discovered.
There remains till this day
a large amount of speculation
about Le Prince's disappearance.
It is unlikely we will ever know
what happened to Le Prince,
but above all else, he should be
remembered for a contribution
he made towards cinema.
At about the same time,
Thomas Alva Edison
was also developing motion
capture cinematography.
Edison was to fund
his head engineer
William Kennedy-Laurie Dickson
in the development of a photo
sequence capture camera.
Dickson, developing
and adapting elements
from all other motion capturing
devices and knowledge,
developed a film camera called
the Kinetograph in 1890.
A year later, developed
he developed the Kinetoscope,
a large device to view
the motion captured images.
Edison also set up the first
ever movie studio
in the early 1890s,
where various but limited
footage was shot
including the Rice-Irwin kiss,
and the "Fred Ott's Sneeze."
These short movies were limited
to the technology at the time,
with most being unedited
lengths of celluloid
no longer than the strips
of celluloid themselves.
The Kinetoscope was not
a projection device though.
And Edison unwisely disregarded
the possibilities of projection,
and concentrated on peep shows,
thinking they would be just
another whim in
a novelty-hungry age.
During the same period,
two French brothers
were working on their own film
capturing and projection device.
This device, the cinematograph,
was to bring about the dawn
of modern cinema,
and it was the Lumiere brothers
who were the inventors.
It was in 1895,
on the 28th of December,
that one of the most famous
film screenings
in film history took place.
It was held at
the Grand Cafe in Paris,
and customers paid one franc
for the screening
of 10 short Lumiere films.
The screening lasted
for about 25 minutes.
The films included,
amongst others,
"Workers Leaving
the Lumiere Factory"
in Cordeliers' Square in Lyon.
What the Lumiere brothers had
achieved using the combination
and development
of previous technology
was a workable way of
combining the Kinetoscope,
or viewing device,
with a magic lantern,
thus projecting a sequence
of photos to create the illusion
of a moving image,
or as it is also known:
cinematography.
It must be mentioned
that the Lumiere brothers
had done screenings before using
their projection device,
but this is the date
that has gone down in history
and is one
of the first screenings
to charge an entrance fee,
one of the foundations
of modern cinema.
The Lumieres also should be
celebrated for they stand high
in the rank of film innovators
in history,
along with the assistance
of the inventor Jules Carpentier
at their photographic firm,
they invented the cinematograph,
a three-in-one device
that could film, print,
and project images.
It was hand-crankable,
portable,
and soon after its invention,
it was being used
around the world.
Interestingly,
the Lumiere brothers believed
that the cinema of
film projection
will be a short-lived
form of entertainment,
and audiences would soon
become bored of the novelty
and not to wish to pay
for motion images
that they could see
with their own eyes free.
Louis Lumiere is famously
quoted as saying,
"The cinema is an invention
without a future."
The audiences had other ideas
and loved the new form
of entertainment,
constantly creating
a demand for cinema.
As technology of cinema
took film advanced,
so could the creative output
using the new medium.
One of the forebearers
to take advantage
and develop the creative aspects
of cinematography
was Georges Melies.
He is considered by some to be
the father of the
narrative film,
and whom D.W. Griffith
is quoted as saying,
"I owe him everything."
Melies made over 500 films
from 1896 to 1906.
He was one of the first people
to introduce cutting
and chronological editing,
as we see in the movies today.
It was also at this time
the public demand
for the movies was increasingly
and unexpectedly growing.
Around the same time
that Melies was making
his first short films,
Edwin S. Porter, in 1903,
working for Edison,
made the "Life of
an American Fireman,"
which displayed new visual
story telling techniques
and incorporated stock footage
with Porter's own photography.
It acted as a major precursor
to Porter's most famous film,
"The Great Train Robbery,"
also made in 1903.
This had a running time
of 12 minutes
and is considered a milestone
in narrative filmmaking,
and one of the first films
to tell a story,
albeit a simple one.
The first ever device developed
to record sound
before the phonograph was called
the phonautograph.
This was invented in 1857
by Edouard-Leon Scott in France.
This device transcribed
soundwaves onto a visual medium.
The first medium of which was
a lampblackened glass plate,
but this device had no means
of playing the recordings back.
A fascinating insight into this
period of sound recording
was that it was not
realized at the time
that the waveform transcribed
by the phonautograph was
a recording of the soundwave
that only needed
a playback mechanism
to replicate the sound.
In 1895, Thomas Edison
introduced the Kinetephone,
which marks the first time sound
was added to cinematography.
The Kinetephone was not
a projection device,
and sound was added
using a device called
a cylinder phonograph that was
added to the Kinetescope
to produce the Kinetephone.
It was in 1899 that
a sound system called
Cinemacrophonographe,
or Phonorama,
was exhibited in Paris.
This device required headphones
to hear the sound
which was similar
to the Kinetephone.
It was not until Clement Maurice
and Henri Lioret,
in France, developed
the Phono-Cinema-Theatre
that allowed the projection
of sound in theatres.
This system was first exhibited
at the Paris Exposition in 1900,
and is considered
the first public projection
of both recorded sound
and motion image.
Meanwhile, silent
film production was starting
to gain pace around the world,
and what is considered the first
feature length film
was made in 1906 by Charles Tait
in Australia.
It was called
"The Ned Kelly Gang."
At 70 minutes long it had
an unprecedented running time
and only made in a budget
of around $2,250,
although the complete film
has since been lost,
with only around 12 minutes
running time left in existence.
As film technology advanced,
so did the creative and
storytelling possibilities.
It was in the first part
of the 20th century
that one of the first
famous film directors
came to prominence.
His name was D.W. Griffith,
and he's considered one of
the fathers of modern cinema.
It was in 1908 that
a young D.W. Griffith
made his first movie,
"The Adventures
of Dollie."
Still in the period of
silent film production,
its narrative structure and
editing were to set the way
with Griffith's coming skill
with filmmaking.
He was to develop filmic
techniques and codes
that brought in-depth narrative
storytelling to cinema.
He directed around 450 films
and was one of the most
successful directors
of his time.
One of his most notable films,
"Birth of a Nation,"
made in 1915 and based on Thomas
Dixon's American
Civil War movies,
was racist and showed
a lack of integrity
in portray African-Americans.
He would respond to criticism
about this film
by making "Intolerance,"
showed in 1916.
This movie used some of the
biggest film sets and crew sizes
ever at that time.
The story portrayed 2,500 years
of history and showed how truth
and justice are threatened
by hypocrisy and injustice.
Although audience reaction
was muted at best,
Griffith's career faulted
after 1916,
and in 1931, when a
film he made called
"The Struggle" was a failure,
he would endure a 17-year
exile from Hollywood,
never to return to his
once high status.
Griffith certainly was not
the only person developing
filmic codes and narratives,
and his work was in part
continuing on from others
such as Georges Melies
and Edwin S. Porter.
Whatever you may think
about Griffith,
his work showed cinema
technology had entered a truly
advanced form of storytelling
and narrative construction.
In Russia, at the beginning
of the 20th century,
not long after D.W. Griffith
was setting forth
his place in cinematic history,
the Russian director,
Sergei Eisenstein,
was developing his own
distinct form of cinema.
In the 1920s, Russian montage,
as it is known,
came to be a prominent
filmmaking style in Russia.
The basic concept of montage
relies heavily upon editing
and creating meaning through
the collaboration of shots
in a sequence and not
from a storyline.
For example, the three shots
that are shown here
are taken from Eisenstein's
"Battleship Potemkin."
They are played in sequence
to signify the meaning
of Soviet Russia
rising up against
the oppression of the czar.
The term "montage" literally
means putting together,
and for an over-simplified
example:
if you place a shot of an ear,
then the shot of a door next
to each other,
the meaning would be eavesdrop.
This is montage in a nutshell.
In 1925, Eisenstein made one
of his most famous films,
"Battleship Potemkin,"
a revolutionary portrait
of mutiny aboard a Russian
battleship
not long before
the Russian Revolution.
Although praised by critics,
Russian audiences were
indifferent to it
and much preferred entertaining
and emotionally engaging
Hollywood-style
continuity films.
Importantly, montage offered
another approach
to filmmaking other
than a continuity-based style,
and it also showed how far
the technology of cinema
had come in a little
more than 25 years.
The progress of sound recording
and playback for cinema
had been steadily
advancing,
although applying synchronized,
prerecorded sound to film had
encountered many problems
such as recording fidelity,
synchronizing sound to film,
and projecting sound
at a satisfactory level.
These problems were to be
overcome by the advance
of technology
and innovation.
In 1919, an American inventor
called Lee de Forest
developed one of the first
sound-on-film technologies
for commercial application.
In Forest's system,
which he called Phonofilm,
sound was photographically
recorded onto one side
of a strip of film to create
what was called a composite,
where simply two elements have
been composited together.
If the sound was synchronized
exactly to the film,
the playback would be perfect.
Another system developed
and used in the first part
of the 20th century was called
the Vitaphone.
The Vitaphone was
a disc-based system produced
by General Electric and
purchased by Warner Brothers.
The Vitaphone did not
print sound to film,
but on to 16 inch
phonograph records.
These records were then
played using Vitaphone systems
at theatres where the film they
were produced for was playing.
There were many problems
with the Vitaphone system
including synchronization
with the film,
being projected, and
the phonograph records
which could not be edited and
limited the corrective output
for films using
the Vitaphone system.
Taking into account numerous
technological improvements,
it would be sound on film
that would eventually become
the universal standard
for synchronized sound
in cinema.
It was in 1927
that one of the first movies
ever produced contained
synchronized dialogue
sequences was released
to the movie going public.
This film was "The Jazz Singer"
and it used a Vitaphone system.
There had been other films
that had used synchronized
sound and music,
such as "Don Juan"
released in 1926,
that had a musical score played
by the New York Philharmonic.
"The Jazz Singer"
was the first to have dialogue
which accounted
for about 25 percent
of the soundtrack in the movie.
The movie heralded the coming
of the so-called talkies
and signaled the start
of the end for silent films
where talkies were ultimately
more popular
and technologically advanced.
The movie itself is based
on a stage play
by Samson Raphaelson.
It has a culturally
complex storyline,
with a young Jewish man trying
to make it as a jazz singer
against the wishes
of his father.
It was a signifier
of the times
that so-called blackface
makeup was used by Al Jolson,
who plays the lead role.
This was naively racist at best,
and was used to take on
the appearance of an archetype
of African-Americans,
although there is
the assimilation
of African-Americans and Jews
experiencing similar
identities as outsiders,
and this is something that is
put across in the film.
At this point,
cinema had come a long way
bringing together
motion image and sound
with many brilliant innovations,
inventions, passion,
and commitment,
creating one of the most unique
and inspiring art forms
and entertainment
that has ever been produced
in the history of the world,
establishing itself
as a powerful element
in modern societies.
[ music ]