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Sunday, April 29, 2012

Report on: PART 1 of the HISTORY of MOVING-IMAGES + the HOW & “WHY” of FILM FESTIVALS = Report # 02 on 28th CHICAGO LATINO FILM FESTIVAL



2012, 04-28:

Report on:  PART 1 of the HISTORY of MOVING-IMAGES +  the HOW & “WHY” of FILM FESTIVALSReport # 02 on 28th CHICAGO LATINO FILM FESTIVAL




Previously, I gave you an “OVERVIEW” on this year’s “CLFF Festival (as seen at: http://voice-of-film.blogspot.com/2012/04/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none.html )...

...  At this time, using that Festival as a sort of “centerpiece”, I want to give you some information on HOW & “WHY” such Festivals are put-on & “handled”--  preceded (herein) by the “background” information offering =


A SHORT HISTORY OFMOVINGIMAGES


...  The world of entertainment goes back to dancing and theater performances, such as the performance of plays by the ancient Greeks in amphitheaters...

...  Eventually, technology started developing to “capture” such story-telling elements: 

...  Way back in 180 AD, a Chinese man named TING HUAN invented a device we now call a “zoetrope”:  vertical slits were cut in the side of a cylinder.  The cylinder’s inner surface had a band of sequenced pictures.  When the outer section turned (which was accomplished by hot air convection), looking thru the moving slits gave the impression of “MOVING pictures... 

...  After the invention of the “pinhole” camera, there eventually came what was called “camera OBSCURA” (mentioned as a concept way back in 1021 AD) which allowed for the PROJECTION of images in “real time”...

...  People were able to see more “modern” types of MOVING images via revolving drums and disks thanks to various simultaneous independent inventions:  the Phenakistoscope spindle viewer by JOSEPH PLATEAU in Belgium in 1832 (wherein there was a disc featuring radial slits which was turned while images were viewed on a separate rotating wheel; see the images below)...


...  And, the so-called “Styroboscope” by Austrian SIMON VON STAMPFER; & the “modern” version of what we now call a “zoetrope” by British mathematician WILLIAM HORNER in 1833...

...  In the 1860’s, an “updated” but crude magic lantern zoetrope (eventually, described as a “wheel of life”) was demonstrated.  (Below, you can see a version of a zoetrope)..


. There was a famous “study” done on June 19, 1872 to see whether a horse had ALL its legs off the ground simultaneously when running.  That test (sponsored by Leland Stanford) was done in front of the press in Palo Alto, California, by English photographer EDWEARD MUYBRIDGE (shown below) who used his invention of 24 stereoscopic cameras tripped in sequence via wires by the running horse...


...  By the 1880’s, an improved version of the zoetrope called a “praxinoscope” was shown to the public...  In 1882, to study locomotion, Frenchman ÉTIENNE-JULES MAREY invented thechronophotographic gun which could shoot 12 consecutive frames a second, as shown below in his photo of flying pelicans...


...  Have you ever heard of LOUIS AIMÉ AUGUSTIN LE PRINCE?  This Frenchman (shown in a photo below) is considered by many to be the real FATHER of motion pictures.  Born in 1841, he went to the U.S. in 1881 & patented a 16-lens camera that could “capture” MOTION (although the images tended to “jump” around)...


...  In 1888, he went to work in Leeds, England, & developed a single-lens camera which used paper film from George Eastman.  That invention helped produce what we know today as “celluloid” film, which he used to film MOVING picture images in an 1888 creation called Roundhay Garden Scenes”, a scene (-- the first still-existing motion picture image --) of which is shown below... 


(...  Sadly, this pioneer suddenly disappeared under mysterious circumstances from a train in September, 1890, as he was preparing for a trip to PATENT his new camera and projector inventions... )

...  On June 21, 1889, a patent for a “chronophotographic” camera was issued to Englishman WILLIAM FRIESE-GREENE, which was supposedly able to film 10 photos per second using a celluloid film.  (There’s a photo of him below)...


...  Around a year later, he sent a newspaper writeup about his invention to American THOMAS ALVA EDISON, whose company was developing a motion picture system called the  “Kinetoscope”...

...  Edison’s business (in the form of assistant WILLIAM. K. L. DICKSON – pictured below -- who worked under Edison’s direction) produced the first completely successful filming device, which was patented in 1891 under the name Kinetograph”...


...  The camera used a transparent 35mm-wide celluloid strip.  Instead of its original horizontal-feed system, a change was made so the filmstrip was fed vertically.  As seen in the image below, a person would view the moving image by looking down a peep-hole located at the top of the cabinet.


...  The first public demonstration of the Kinetoscope was held at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences on May 9, 1893...

...  The world’s first commercial film THEATER occurred in CHICAGO, when the afore-mentioned EDWEARD MUYBRIDGE used his “zoopraxiscope invention at the 1893 World Columbian Exposition to show a paying public his moving pictures...

...  The coin-operated Edison Kinetoscope” viewing device by DICKSON (which was shown by Edison at the same Chicago WORLD’S FAIR) was not a commercial success, & CHARLES FRANCIS JENKINS demonstrated his own projector invention, the Phantascope”, in June of 1894...

...  The first real “screening” of what we now think of as “FILM” occurred on February 5, 1894 in New York City, when French photographer JEAN AIMÉ "ACME" LE ROY used the occasion of his 40th birthday to show 20 or so men in show business his "Marvellous Cinematograph" invention...

...  That brings us to December, 1895, & France’s LUMIÈRE brothers, LOUIS & AUGUSTE (shown in a photo below)...   








...  They showed their invention of a device they called the Cinématographewhich took, printed & projected film (as shown in images below)...



 ...  Their famous story-telling film of an audience frightened by images of an “oncoming” train around Lyon (-- shown in the image below --) is captured in Martin Scorsese’s wonderful HUGOfilm, a Review of which can be seen at:  http://voice-of-film.blogspot.com/2011/12/review-of-film-hugo-by-martin-scorsese.html ... )...


...  The Lumières found a ready audience for their work (including at viewing PARLORS set up around Europe), & they kept producing short films, such as one (shown below) of a group of photographers arriving at a convention in Neuville, and another of people riding in horse-drawn wagons near Lyon’s La Place de Cordeliers (also shown below)...  


         

...  Edison’s company (which had initially been “indifferent” towards projectors) in time created its OWN form of projector (as shown in a 1913 version below), including one called a Vitascope”...


...  And, other people also experimented with their individual inventions (some of which are shown below)... 







...  As time went on, it became “standard” to use the Lumière projection speed of 16-frames-per-second, linked with the 35mm width of Edison’s film...  




...  In November of 1895, the world’s first real public PRESENTATION of a “full” motion-picture film occurred in BERLIN, Germany, when MAX & EMIL SKLADANOWSKY used their flicker-free duplex-construction “Bioscop” projector to conduct the production...

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The “parlors” showing films eventually expanded into so-called “NICKELODEONS”, which were permanent venues (usually store-front theaters) for showing movies (usually, at a cost of a nickel = 5 cents each, hence the name)...

...  They, and Vaudeville live-entertainment theaters which also showed movies, were the main outlets exhibiting films to the public from around 1900-1914...

...  In time, movies became more and more wide-ranging in their scope, utilizing multiple cameras, longer run times, and more sophisticated techniques (which eventually led to a wider public interest in films): 

...  One of the pioneers in techniques was French illusionist GEORGES MÉLIÈS (the main subject of Scorsese’s “HUGO” film;  a photo of him is shown below)...


...  Georges happened to be present at the first (Dec. 28, 1895) public screening in Paris of the Lumière’s films.  He offered to buy a CAMERA from them.  They refused, so he bought an “Animatograph film projector from its British inventor ROBERT W. PAUL, & Georges used it to get ideas for designing & building his OWN equipment...

...  He was a pacesetter in SPECIAL EFFECTS.  For example, in 1896, he discovered the  effect called the “STOP-TRICK” by accident (wherein you film an object, turn off the camera, REMOVE the object, & restart the camera, making the object appear to have “DISAPPEARED” in front of your eyes)...


...  Méliès was one of the first directors to use time-lapse photography, multiple exposures, dissolves, and hand-colored frames...

...  As shown by his 1896 film “Le Manoir du Diable”, he was a leader in making “HORROR” films...  And, he also pioneered in SCIENCE-FICTION / FANTASY movies, as shown by his classic 1902 film “A Trip To the Moon” & his 1904 “The Impossible Voyage”...

...  In 1903, British director FRANK MOTTERSHAW released a film called “A Daring Daylight Burglary”.  It was innovative in the way it tracked a single action thru various changing LOCATIONS for its action...

...  That film influenced the far better-known 1903 American film called “The Great Train Robbery” starring BRONCHO BILLY ANDERSON (& there’s a poster & an image from the movie shown below)...


...  Along with later filming documentaries, EDWIN S. PORTER directed that film-- which is considered a “milestone” because of the way it utilized techniques such as double exposures, cross-cutting, camera movement, composite editing, some hand-colored scenes in certain prints,  & shooting “on LOCATION” (in Milltown, New Jersey)... 


...  By 1908, American director D. W. GRIFFITH (shown in a photo below) was making movies for the “Biograph” company, including the first “gangster” movie, “The Musketeers of Pig Alley” (1912)...


...  In time, he made long-length epic films such as the first “blockbuster” movie, The Birth of a Nation(1915), Intolerance:  Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages(1916), & Broken Blossoms(1919)...

...  Griffith’s films showed his ability to use film as an “expressive language” (utilizing such methods as special lighting & camera placement)...  His work helped move the public towards seeing movies as an ART form rather than just mere “entertainment”...

...  The growth of appreciation for films helped lead to the growth of groups who gathered to value films, & that eventually led to Film FESTIVALS--  but, that part of the “story” will be found in the upcoming separate PART 2 of this Report...

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