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The Bet that started it all
People in the 1870's wanted to see if a horse really did have all four feet off the ground at once, so they lined up cameras to create a "Moving picture", and sure enough, the horse had all four feet off the ground! This started the whole craze for the illusion of motion pictures. And yes, someone won $25,000 for getting this right. -
Thomas Edison Jumps on the train
Edison thought it the motion pictures idea was a good way to make money, so he created the Kinetoscope "peephole" so that one person can view these "films". It didn't work out the way he thought it would, but it did create the first movie theater. This movie theater had people looking into a peephole to see the moving pictures when a man would crank the device to work. -
Cinematographe Comes out
In 1895, the Lumiere Brothers in France make a projector and makes Cinematography a thing. These movies were black and white, and could be viewed for one Franc. They usually lasted 30 to 60 seconds and focused on real life events. Some people even hurt themselves when they saw a moving train. -
Nickel for a show!
When Paris had the first film for a multi audience, Vaudevilles adapted from skits done on stage to films shown. A man/woman would pay a nickel to watch a minute or shorter vaudeville acts. These were still black and white, and the sound came from on stage, where there was a piano and people creating sound effects. -
First 12 Minute film
An employee of Thomas Edison, Edward Porter, created a movie called "The Great Train Robbery". The movie first had a story narrative and different camera shots to show parts of the narrative. It lasted 12 minutes and had about 14 scenes. -
The idea of an monopoly
By 1910, nickelodeon theaters were attracting 26 Million viewers Every week. Five years later the amount more than double, and Edison and a few other companies created a monopoly to get most of the profits coming from films. -
MPPC created
Edison and his fellow companies created a studio called Motion Pictures patents Company. They controlled the majority of the industry, and if another studio came out, they raided the studio. They would break actor's legs and equipment. -
New York problems
Most movies were made in New York City, but the studios ran into problems. The studios needed tons of light to counter the darkness that came out of the shots. Along with the MPPC hunting down every independant studio in New York city. The studios move to West Coast and created Hollywood -
Sound added
In the 1920's sound was finally added into the films. They used to have it either muted or have some sort of piano with sound effects next to the screen. -
The Idea of animations
Around the 1930 time, people began to start drawing animations. Such studios such as Disney would later appear and mainly focus on animations. These animations also brought along color, first bringing the color idea to screen -
The jump to television, and the wide screen
When America created the Black and white Television, many folks were focusing on the TV rather than theaters. To make sure theaters didn't lose to the TV's, they installed a wider screen, allowing for more and more film to be displayed on a larger screen, allowing for more chairs. Color was also beginning to come down, and in the 1960's they were common to see in movies. -
Film schools open up.
Around 1960, when color was common, studios became not as common anymore. What followed was a series of revelations in the Film industry. One revolution occurred in 1960, and was film schools opening up. Film schools taught wanna be directors and actors how to act and operate in a set. -
Digital Art appears
About 30 years later, around 1990, the idea of digital art was conceived. After the success of moves such as Star wars and Disney animations, the use of 2D and 3D films exploded when the Internet and digital at came out. This allowed the use of CGI and the internet to "edit" a scene, no longer needed to manipulate weather things such as wind or light.