Early Film

Picture photography became a reality in the 1890's and from that point on, photography started to evolve. At first it was no fancy projects. There was no editing and the camera was always fixed. If characters were off camera, there was nothing the director can do about it. Audience wanted to see the movies go forward and backwards. The first ten years of motion pictures show the cinema moving from a novelty to an established large-scale entertainment industry. When movies started to become in production, it was mostly silent with only music playing in the background. The only person that would talk is the narrator. Even though they were called silent movies, they were far from silent. They had composers in the theater as well to make everything that was happening to be realistic. Sound was not developed until the late 1920's and this started a new trend as well. By the Early 1900's, movies became a huge industry and became a high earning entertainment.

Chapter nine ("the framing of the movie")

The 1900’s kicked off a rise in popular media. When the movie developed it was very different from the beginning of the press. In the beginning the government had a lot of control over the movies that was play in America. “Movie censorship laws upheld by the Supreme Court called for government approval before exhibitors showed any individual work in a state or locality, a form of control (“prior restraint”) that the courts had never generally approved in relation to periodicals or books.” The government definitely had their in the way in which the movie industry was run at that time. There was a lot of law that was put in place. The rise of the movie industry was good for American in the turn of the century. The civil war help make tickets prices go up in the prices, it rose up to $1, which make a lot of people unable to make it to go see a movie because people could not afford it at the time.

The Idea of Films Began Mid-Seventeenth Century? Who Knew?!

After reading the piece "Early Motion Pictures" by Czitrom, there was one thing that really stuck out in my mind. This was the fact that the idea of motion pictures began back in the seventeenth century. That's insane! I never would have guessed that people back then thought that films would be possible considering technology is nothing even close to what it is today. I thought this was an extremely interesting fact and I thought what was even more interesting was the amount of work that went into making motion pictures. Now obviously even in today's modern and technologically advanced world the production of a motion picture isn't easy, but back then it was at least a hundred times more work. I think that the fact that these people were so dedicated to producing films, shows that they were extremely determined to achieve a goal of moving forward both technologically and socially in society and set the basis for our modern day motion pictures.

We Have Film

Technology is and almost has always been something that remains on the rise. When one new invention is made there's always someone working on the new and much better version of it, and people are always using their imagination to come up with things that seem like a far reach and making it come to reality. Films were just that, an idea of how to make entertainment and media to a new level. Newspapers and magazines were becoming so popular among the elite and so therefore the next question was what else can be developed. "The motion pictures were also a product of the convergence of innovation in entertainment and electrical technology and entered the marketplace by the same path as the phonograph. Edison approached motion pictures with the phonograph as a paradigm, seeing the two as companions. " I am experimenting upon an instrument that does for the eye what the phonograph does for the Ear, which the recording and reproduction of things in motion," he wrote in 1888" (299).





The Creation of the Media, Paul Starr 299

"The Warden of the State Prison of Ohio, T.H.B. Jones arranged with a film company to take 3,000 feet of motion picturews showing how that prison in many ways a modle penal institution, is conducted. These reels, which are now released, show the various educational schemes in vogue in the prison, the trade school, night schools and chapel. Prisoners are shown in all routine, and the films offer a most effective means of showing a penal institution for public criticism."

I feel like this is the begining of reality T.V.. People enjoy seeing what goes on behind the seens. When there are fights and drama people feed off of it. The though of actually prisoners being on T.V. will get people thinking what really goes on in a prison. Reality T. V is such a hit, especially in the world today. You cant flip through the channels today without seeing at least one reality show on. Realtiy T.V. is what people want and by putting "real" things on t.v. make people want to watch more.

Chapter 7...Politics, markets, and magazines

Back in the days people did not have a lot of money so it's only logical that thye would purchase the cheaper things in life. In the earlu 1880's the major national magazine was selling for an expensive cost at 35 cents a copy. The newspaper was way more cheaper, so ofcourse the newspaper will have a bigger audience than the magazine. I didn't know to priny things back then were so expensive,well in those days that was considered expensive. So i really found that interesting.

Propaganda Through Film

The development of the motion picture industry in the early 1900's opened a new avenue for the government to interact with the general population and to get it's point across. As an example the Committee on Public Information was established in 1917 by President Woodrow Wilson. The Committe had the express purpose of swaying public opinion to that of the governments, namely President Wilson's push for war.  The Committee was headed by George Creel who used film as one of the main ways he made the case for war. Creel created videos vilifying the Germans, describing how they desired to conquer all of Europe, and after Europe the US.  Once the US was fully committed to the war the Committee made films describing the exploits of the American troops, for the most part showing only the positive things. Although the Committee was disbanded at the end of the war, the effects can be seen even to today, as every President since has went on public record on either film or tv making the case for every military action the US has been in since.

Nickelodeon Path

"The social origins of motion pictures were a critical early influence on their path to development. Whereas newspapers and magazines had begun among the elite and evolved in a more popular direction, movies acquired a lowbrow image at an early point in their history and faced a challenge in achieving respectability."

Nickelodeon path had a major impact that helped change our public. The growth of immigrants and youth influenced the entertainment business. Going to see shows way a positive escape from factories and a hard day’s work. The entertainment was more than just a show. It provided a sense of education and gave the ability for people’s imagination to grow. The movie industries are still a major influence on today’s society.

Motion Pictures

The motion pictures were different in the early 19th century, to what we are use to today, for instance they felt it was dangerous for women and children to be out late watching a motion picture as in we adore in today's society.During the nineteenth movies were called motion pictures, they were more urbanized than the rich paying attention. As always government had a huge play in motion pictures such as its "influenced its development through subsides in postal rates, government printing contracts and other means" and mainly what was seen as we say the big screen. Motion pictures was nothing but screen shots of people with the middle class still contributed to the screen shots. Soon as the right people knew that they could make a bigger profits motion pictures became movies with "Vaudeville being one of the most popular live entertainment medium of the of the late nineteenth century evolved out of variety informal performances in saloons and music halls when impresarios made the entertainment the primary attraction and cleaned up the acts to appeal to respectable audiences". "The economic advantages of movie projection were clear, far more people could watch a screened motion picture than could use a kinetoscope".

Motion Pictures to Make Good Citizens

"Motion pictures are being used by boards of health and civic bodies to teach citizens how to keep well. They are being used to promote civic reforms, to abolish child labor, contract prison labor, and to elect candidates to office." (Boyd Fisher)-1912 Fisher was simply showing the lucid development of the motion pictures, and how important it was in the development of society. Films that were made to educate the public on all aspects of life. Fisher also stated "They are being used to locate criminals and to report trials and furnish evidence of crime. They are being used for city planning records. They are depicting model prisons and model orphanages. They are teaching agriculture at United States experiment stations. They are campaigning for good roads. They are teaching industries and getting laborers for industries."(Fisher pg.234) As we can clearly see, the early motion pictures have given society a civic education. The type of education depicting the reality of the world as well as imparting the knowledge and skills for effective participation in the community, government, politics. The motion picture was the best way at the time, to reach and educate massive audiences. A lot of the early film companies adopted this idea of the civic films and began to work on civic themes for their own personal motion pictures.

Early Pornography

Early film was such a creative new idea of thinking, by usisng still photos and flipping them rapidly, you can create the appearance of movement. Other ideas such as light and mirrors, and even small pinholes can be used to create moving images. As we saw in the film, "film before film," Pornography was a very popular form of early film. People were obsessed with images of a nude female body. "Early Ponography," really peaked people's interests in film, and probably helped sell copies of film, or even recorders at there expensive early days. While today, drama, comedy, and even horror make up the most popular forms of film, it should be noted that pornography in ways may have paved the way. Isn't that an unusaul idea to think about.

Film

Looking back at history and comparing it with todays current inventions it is easy to see that innovations gradually incline. After viewing the movie on film our drive to better motion pictures had made a huge leap. The handout called Motion pictures to Make Good Citizens was an extremely interesting topic. Boyd Fisher's piece that was written in 1912 speaks about how Motion Picture aka shows and movies will better the people and "teach citizens how to keep well". Boyd Quotes " They are being used for city planing records. They are being used for accurate historical records. They are depicting model prisons and model orphanages. They are teaching agriculture at United States experiement stations. They are campaigning for good roads. They are teaching industires and getting laborers for industries." (Fisher p.234) Its strange to see how uncertain people were about motion pictures in 1912 when we basically live by television today. There are television serious today that explain how to build a house or cook food. Sports is also one of the largest watched events on television. Some people today live by movies and sometimes even learn from the movie. I agree with film because it is a positive for our society and the only reason being is that we usually tend to inherit some sort of new piece of information.