Key Developments
-1895-
Our first key development in the history of film starts in 1895. This point is commonly recognised as the birth of film and it was the Lumière brothers, (Auguste and Louis) who are credited with the technological breakthrough. With the invention of their ‘Cinematographe’, came a wave of filmmakers and other various personalities experimenting with this new found art form of film.
Below a video outlining a brief summary of the brother as well as their invention.
-1920s-
After the birth of film, what was shown to the viewers or basically what people came to see was rather than narrative cinema like we know it today; film, in its infancy, was merely ‘A Cinema Of Attraction’ meaning that people came to watch these ‘movies’ only as a novelty, to see this spectacular moving images. However this did not stop people across the world experimenting with various techniques.
All of this experimentation with film eventually led to film being moved from a cinema of attraction into narrative cinema, and it was then that most of our key elements of film form were established along with various editing techniques, including parallel editing that was found to work subconsciously with viewers minds.
In different parts of the world film worked differently and two notable parallels is between European film making and US filmmaking. European film was taken as an another form of art and was mostly posh stuff for posh people (more an upper class thing). In contrast ,in the capitalist society of America it was commercialised turning itself into a business. This prompted the birth of film studios, these studios utilised ‘vertical integration’ to maximise profits and control, keeping everything in house. These studios eventually moulded into 8 major studios by 1930, Known as the big five and little three. These were: Paramount, Warner Bros, MGM, Twentieth Century Fox, RKO as the big five and Columbia, Universal and United Artists as the little three.
-1927-
Films before this point all had been in silent, this problem was fixed in 1927 when filmmaker Alan Crosland released his movie The Jazz Singer (1927). Simply, the problem was solved by having a loose fit on the film of the camera recording so that it was easier to sync the music.
-1935-
Another huge advancement came in 1935 when Rouben Mamoulien invented an early form of colour film. This film was called Becky Sharp and was made by recording the film 3 times (once in red, green and yellow) and then overlayed the films to make the film in colour this is known as the technicolor 'three-strip' colour technique.
-1948-
After the Second World War, lawmakers in the US asked that the film studios end some of their more unfair monopolistic policies due to the government's concerns about the dominance of the industry in other word the government felt the filmmaking industry was becoming a monopoly. As previously stated, the movie companies did not reply, thus Paramount and a number of other studios were brought before the Supreme Court. Despite being the largest of the eight studios, Paramount was the target of the legal action. The vertical integration model that the studios had prospered on was outlawed, making it unlawful for them to own theatres and solely screen their own films there. They were unable to "block book" their pictures at the newly opened independent theatres, and they were forced to make their films available to independent theatres.
-1950s-
-TV vs Cinema-
Another turning point came for the big Hollywood studios when TVs became affordable in America, this meant suddenly everyone had a TV and stopped going to the cinema. This prompted film studios to make various attempts and adopt various methods to bring people back to the cinema, these include; 3D films, better sound, colour and finally cinema went wide.
-Late 1950s-
-Portable Hand-held Camera-
Making independent films was made possible by the coming of these portable cameras, allowing anyone to create movies. The rise in popularity of documentaries was beneficial since, as they typically drew a smaller audience, they required less money for things like recording gear and other expenses. This also paved the way for the French New Wave.
-1970s-
The Steadicam allowed for the camera operator to achieve perfect footage without the normal ‘handheld’ shake that was impossible to avoid whilst trying to record fluid shots with a normal handheld cam. It allowed for long fluid takes and the development of handheld filmmaking these of which revolutionised film making.
-1990s-
A huge development in filmmaking came when George Lucas’s Industrial Light & Magic began to revolutionise SFX via their use of Computer Generated Imagery (CGI), this new technology eventually came to replace practical effects entirely and allowed for new ambitious movies, notably Jurassic Park (Dir. Steven Spielberg, 1993) and Terminator (Dir. James Cameron, 1991).
-1995-
In 1995, the first ever CGI feature length ‘cartoon’ was released; Pixar Animation Studios film Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995), this changed the animation world and put Disney even further ahead of its competitors.
-2000s-
Thanks to technological advancements, the average person could now purchase hand-held style cameras that were lighter, more affordable, and equivalent to regular film equipment.
An example of ‘citizen filmmaking’ that was shot on a recent iPhone model.
-2007-
The first ever legal streaming service is created, Netflix.
‘The speed, reliability, and affordability of home internet connections in the early 2000s allowed the possibility of a new kind of film distribution. Netflix were quick to seize the opportunity and assume a position of dominance.’ (F.S website)
-2010s-
Tangerine (Baker, 2015) and Unsane (Soderberg, 2018) are two notable feature-length films that were shot exclusively on iPhones and have gone on release.
-2017-
For the first time, DVD sales are surpassed by movie and TV streaming and download websites like Netflix, Sky, Amazon, and Apple, which have seen a 23% increase in just a single year.
-2018-
2018 saw the first Hollywood Feature Film to be shot entirely on IMAX Cameras. It is made up of a system of projectors, theatres, film formats, and high-resolution cameras. IMAX, which was created in Canada in the 1970s, aims to provide its enormous screens with an immersive movie-watching experience. The tall aspect ratio of an IMAX theatre screen is either 1.43:1 or 1.9:1. The screens range in size from 18 by 24 metres, with the largest one being 38.8 by 21 metres in Leonberg, Germany. At 814.8 square metres, the IMAX in Leonberg is the biggest IMAX theatre globally.