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The Bet that Started it All
Muybridge was confronted by Leland Stanford and bet about whether or not, while in a gallop, a horses hooves are all off the ground at the same time or if they always had at least one on the ground.This theory wasn't tested until 1878, when Muybridge went and took a seres of photos of horses running at Stanford's Palo Alto Stock Farm and eventually proved that horses do in fact have all four hooves off the ground at once when one picture showed the horse with its legs tucked under its body. -
The First Form of Film
Thomas Edison created the Kinetoscope that was a podium that had a place for you to look into that had a set of pictures that would be flipped through that gave the illusion that the image was moving. Then in early 1889, Edison claimed the newly made technology and gave it its name. While it was Edison's idea, it was his assistant, William Dickson, that actually make the Kinetoscope under Edison's supervision and involvement. -
The Projection of Film
The Lumiére Brothers, in France, were the first that did what Edison didn't, film projection. They created a projector that could cast the "moving pictures" on to a screen, allowing for multiple people to watch it at the same time. they called this projector the Cinematograph. -
The Shorts of the Lumiére Brothers
The brothers started to make short films that were no longer then 60 seconds and were simple in story. Some of the films were a man falling off a horse and a boy trying to catch a fish i a fish bowl. -
The Comedy Theaters
During the same time the brothers made the cinematograph, theaters that had a variety of acts that were called vaudevilles got very popular. In order to fill the time between acts, the vaudevilles would play short films in order to get a step up on the other surrounding theaters. By the 1900's, these vaudevilles turned into nickelodeons, named because the cost a nickel to get in. -
The Mute Star
The First major star of the 20th century was the silent film comedian, Charlie Chaplin. Being the major star, by 1917, he was making more than a million dollars a year. His comedy consisted of satire that communicated messages of good and evil. -
Story Telling Through Film
Edwin Porter, one of Edison's employee, created the first american film that had a narrative, The Great Train Robbery. The film had 14 scenes and lasted 12 minutes. it used different angles and different narrative sequences. -
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Edison Monopolies the Film Industry and the MPPC
The founding of the MPPC by Edison and many others only allowed for the use of his machines films, but they had to pay to use them making them be on top of the whole industry with no true competitor except for the British films people were shipping over. -
The Move from East to West
The film industry was originally on the east coast but, the weather had to be right to film and they had cloudy weather not allowing for easy filming. And after the creation of the MPPC, independent film companies moved to the west to escape them. And this location that the film industry moved to was the current film capital, La / Hollywood, California. -
Adding a Splash of Color
"Wizard of Oz" is thought to be the first movie with color, coming out in 1939 with "Gone with the Wind" following in the same year. But, almost 20 years before, a film called "With our King and Queen Through India" came out, and following it, in 1918 a silent film called "Cupid Angling" came out, both of which were in full color. This makes "Wizard of Oz" the third color film. -
The Origin of a Familiar Face
The Disney Company was founded in LA, by two brothers, Walt and Roy Disney. They started with films called the Alice Comedies that had a real girl in a drawn/sketched world. Then, across the next 14 years the faces that are still recognized to day were created in Mickey Mouse and his friends. -
Do you Hear what I Hear
The Jazz Singer was the first film to include sound in the film. Originally sound was played live while the silent film was played. The Jazz Singer though had recorded music and effects.
