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History of film

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Dissolving views were a popular type of 19th century magic lantern show exhibiting the gradual transition from one projected image to another. The effect is similar to a dissolve in modern filmmaking. Typical examples had landscapes that dissolved from day to night or from summer to winter. The effect was achieved by aligning the projection of two matching images and slowly diminishing the first image while introducing the second image. The subject and the effect of magic lantern dissolving views is similar to the popular Diorama theatre paintings which originated in Paris in 1822. The terms "dissolving views", "dioramic views", or simply "diorama" were often used interchangeably in 19th century magic lantern playbills.

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141-446: The history of film chronicles the development of a visual art form created using film technologies that began in the late 19th century. The advent of film as an artistic medium is not clearly defined. There were earlier cinematographic screenings by others, however, the commercial, public screening of ten Lumière brothers ' short films in Paris on 28 December 1895, can be regarded as

282-677: A Flemish painter who studied in Italy, worked for local churches in Antwerp and also painted a series for Marie de' Medici . Annibale Carracci took influences from the Sistine Chapel and created the genre of illusionistic ceiling painting . Much of the development that happened in the Baroque was because of the Protestant Reformation and the resulting Counter Reformation . Much of what defines

423-535: A Geneva drive on the projectors to oscillatingly cause intermittent movement to advance the frames of the film and he set up the first film studio in Germany in 1900. From 1896, Messter was interested in the search of a method of reproduction and synchronization of the sound effects of the cinematographic performance at the time of the silent movies . So Messter invented the Tonbilder Biophon to show films, in which

564-533: A craft , and "architecture" is the name given to the most highly formalized and respected versions of that craft. Filmmaking is the process of making a motion-picture , from an initial conception and research, through scriptwriting, shooting and recording, animation or other special effects, editing, sound and music work and finally distribution to an audience; it refers broadly to the creation of all types of films, embracing documentary, strains of theatre and literature in film, and poetic or experimental practices, and

705-459: A China Mission . The film, which film historian John Barnes later described as having "the most fully developed narrative of any film made in England up to that time", opens as the first shot shows Chinese Boxer rebels at the gate; it then cuts to the missionary family in the garden, where a fight ensues. The wife signals to British sailors from the balcony, who come and rescue them. The film also used

846-554: A Dutchman, was the first to use cross-hatching. At the end of the century Albrecht Dürer brought the Western woodcut to a stage that has never been surpassed, increasing the status of the single-leaf woodcut. In China, the art of printmaking developed some 1,100 years ago as illustrations alongside text cut in woodblocks for printing on paper. Initially images were mainly religious but in the Song dynasty , artists began to cut landscapes. During

987-438: A Telescope . The main shot shows a street scene with a young man tying the shoelace and then caressing the foot of his girlfriend, while an old man observes this through a telescope. There is then a cut to close shot of the hands on the girl's foot shown inside a black circular mask, and then a cut back to the continuation of the original scene. James Williamson perfected narrative building techniques in his 1900 film, Attack on

1128-563: A big impression worldwide, and it was followed by even bigger productions like Quo Vadis? (1912), which ran for 90 minutes, and Pastrone's Cabiria of 1914, which ran for two and a half hours. Italian companies also had a strong line in slapstick comedy, with actors like André Deed , known locally as "Cretinetti", and elsewhere as "Foolshead" and "Gribouille", achieving worldwide fame with his almost surrealistic gags. The most important film-producing country in Northern Europe up until

1269-531: A carrier (or medium ) and a binding agent (a glue ) to a surface (support) such as paper , canvas or a wall. However, when used in an artistic sense it means the use of this activity in combination with drawing , composition , or other aesthetic considerations in order to manifest the expressive and conceptual intention of the practitioner. Painting is also used to express spiritual motifs and ideas; sites of this kind of painting range from artwork depicting mythological figures on pottery to The Sistine Chapel , to

1410-627: A change-over to renting prints began. Messter replied with a series of longer films starring Henny Porten, but although these did well in the German-speaking world, they were not particularly successful internationally, unlike the Asta Nielsen films. Another of the growing German film producers just before World War I was the German branch of the French Éclair company, Deutsche Éclair. This was expropriated by

1551-480: A commercial 1.5-hour program of 40 different scenes was screened for audiences of 300 people at the old Reichstag and received circa 4,000 visitors. Throughout the late 19th century, several inventors such as Wordsworth Donisthorpe , Louis Le Prince , William Friese-Greene , and the Skladanowsky brothers made pioneering contributions to the development of devices that could capture and display moving images, laying

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1692-509: A continuity of action across multiple scenes. The use of the intertitle to explain actions and dialogue on screen began in the early 1900s. Filmed intertitles were first used in Robert W. Paul's film, Scrooge, or Marley's Ghost. In most countries, intertitles gradually came to be used to provide dialogue and narration for the film, thus dispensing the need for narration provided by exhibitors. Development of continuous action across multiple shots

1833-631: A department in the University of Buenos Aires , the Superior Art School of the Nation. Currently, the leading educational organization for the arts in the country is the UNA Universidad Nacional de las Artes . Drawing is a means of making an image , illustration or graphic using any of a wide variety of tools and techniques available online and offline. It generally involves making marks on

1974-635: A device he called the Elektrischen Schnellseher (also known as the Electrotachyscope ), which displayed short loops on a small milk glass screen. By 1891, he had started mass production of a more economical, coin-operated peep-box viewing device of the same name that was exhibited at international exhibitions and fairs. Some machines were installed for longer periods, including some at The Crystal Palace in London, and in several U.S. stores. Shifting

2115-431: A film language, or " film grammar ". James Williamson's use of continuous action in his 1901 film, Stop Thief! stimulated a film genre known as the "chase film." In the film, a tramp steals a leg of mutton from a butcher's boy in the first shot, is chased by the butcher's boy and assorted dogs in the following shot, and is finally caught by the dogs in the third shot. The Execution of Mary Stuart , produced in 1895 by

2256-461: A gramophone played Unter den Linden accompanying the projection of animated images, but it was not a simple add on but to precisely match the series of musical pieces with moving images. In effect, to add sound to the silent cinema, it was necessary to solve problems of synchronization, since the image and the sound were recorded and reproduced by separated devices, which were difficult to initiate and to maintain rigged. On August 31, 1903, Messter held

2397-484: A lab assistant, William Kennedy Dickson , to help develop a device that could produce visuals to accompany the sounds produced from the phonograph . Building upon previous machines by Muybridge, Marey, Anschütz and others, Dickson and his team created the Kinetoscope peep-box viewer, with celluloid loops containing about half a minute of motion picture entertainment. After an early preview on 20 May 1891, Edison introduced

2538-608: A magic lantern before 1827. That year he presented "Scenic Views, showing the various effects of light and shade" with a series of subjects that would become classics in many dissolving view shows, while some had already been subjects in the London Diorama the years before. In 1826 Scottish magician and ventriloquist M. Henry's introduced what he referred to as "Beautiful Dissolvent Scenes", "imperceptibly changing views", "dissolvent views" and "Magic Views" which were created "by Machinery invented by M. Henry". The oldest known use of

2679-480: A man drinking beer and a woman using sniffing tobacco. The following year, Smith made The Kiss in the Tunnel , a sequence consisting of three shots: a train enters a tunnel; a man and a woman exchange a brief kiss in the darkness and then return to their seats; the train exits the tunnel. Smith created the scenario in response to the success of a genre known as a phantom ride . In a phantom ride film, cameras would capture

2820-442: A method for printing texts as well as for producing art, both within traditional modes such as ukiyo-e and in a variety of more radical or Western forms that might be construed as modern art . In the early 20th century, shin-hanga that fused the tradition of ukiyo-e with the techniques of Western paintings became popular, and the works of Hasui Kawase and Hiroshi Yoshida gained international popularity. Institutes such as

2961-418: A more complete illusion of reality, but for decades such experiments were mostly hindered by the need for long exposure times, with motion blur around objects that moved while the reflected light fell on the photo-sensitive chemicals. A few people managed to get decent results from stop motion techniques, but these were only very rarely marketed and no form of animated photography had much cultural impact before

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3102-501: A motion picture gathered at Madison Square Garden to see a staged actuality that purported itself to be a boxing fight filmed by Woodville Latham using a device called the Eidoloscope on May 20, 1895. Commissioned by Latham, the French inventor Eugene Augustin Lauste created the device with additional expertise from William Kennedy Dickson and crafted a mechanism that came to be known as

3243-544: A paying audience on 1 November 1895, in Berlin. But they did not have the quality or financial resources to acquire momentum. Most of these films never passed the experimental stage and their efforts garnered little public attention until after cinema had become successful. In the latter half of 1895, brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière filmed a number of short scenes with their invention, the Cinématographe . On 28 December 1895,

3384-441: A result, defining computer art by its end product can be difficult. Nevertheless, this type of art is beginning to appear in art museum exhibits, though it has yet to prove its legitimacy as a form unto itself and this technology is widely seen in contemporary art more as a tool, rather than a form as with painting. On the other hand, there are computer-based artworks which belong to a new conceptual and postdigital strand, assuming

3525-629: A running time of twelve minutes, with twenty separate shots and ten different indoor and outdoor locations. The film is seen as a first in the Western film genre and is significant for the use of shots suggesting simultaneous action occurring at different locations. Porter's use of both staged and real outdoor environments helped to create a sense of space while the placement of the camera in a wider shot established depth and allowed for an extended duration of motion on screen. The Great Train Robbery served as one of

3666-529: A series of scenes can be hard to determine. Despite these limitations, Michael Brooke of the British Film Institute attributes real film continuity, involving action moving from one sequence into another, to Robert W. Paul's 1898 film, Come Along, Do! . Only a still from the second shot remains extant today. Released in 1901, the British film Attack on a China Mission was one of the first films to show

3807-423: A show that included "various splendid views (...) transforming themselves imperceptibly (as if it were by Magic) from one form into another". Another possible inventor is Henry Langdon Childe , who purportedly once worked for De Philipsthal. He is said to have invented the dissolving views in 1807 and to have improved and completed the technique in 1818. However, there's no documentation of Childe performing with

3948-440: A significant number of films per year until 1910. When the worldwide film boom started, he, and the few other people in the German film business, continued to sell prints of their own films outright, which put them at a disadvantage. It was only when Paul Davidson , the owner of a chain of cinemas, brought Asta Nielsen and Urban Gad to Germany from Denmark in 1911, and set up a production company, Projektions-AG "Union" ( PAGU ), that

4089-883: A single copy that is signed by the author, or in a limited edition of 200 copies or fewer that are signed and consecutively numbered by the author. A work of visual art does not include — (A)(i) any poster, map, globe, chart, technical drawing , diagram, model, applied art, motion picture or other audiovisual work, book, magazine, newspaper, periodical, data base, electronic information service, electronic publication, or similar publication;   (ii) any merchandising item or advertising, promotional, descriptive, covering, or packaging material or container;   (iii) any portion or part of any item described in clause (i) or (ii); (B) any work made for hire ; or (C) any work not subject to copyright protection under this title. Dissolving views While most dissolving views showed landscapes or architecture in different light,

4230-500: A surface by applying pressure from a tool, or moving a tool across a surface using dry media such as graphite pencils , pen and ink , inked brushes , wax color pencils , crayons , charcoals , pastels , and markers . Digital tools, including pens, stylus , that simulate the effects of these are also used. The main techniques used in drawing are: line drawing, hatching , crosshatching, random hatching, shading , scribbling, stippling , and blending. An artist who excels at drawing

4371-446: A template. Computer clip art usage has also made the clear distinction between visual arts and page layout less obvious due to the easy access and editing of clip art in the process of paginating a document, especially to the unskilled observer. Plastic arts is a term for art forms that involve physical manipulation of a plastic medium by moulding or modeling such as sculpture or ceramics . The term has also been applied to all

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4512-412: Is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard or plastic material, sound, or text and or light, commonly stone (either rock or marble ), clay , metal , glass , or wood . Some sculptures are created directly by finding or carving ; others are assembled, built together and fired , welded , molded , or cast . Sculptures are often painted . A person who creates sculptures

4653-508: Is any in which computers played a role in production or display. Such art can be an image, sound, animation , video , CD-ROM , DVD , video game , website , algorithm , performance or gallery installation. Many traditional disciplines now integrate digital technologies, so the lines between traditional works of art and new media works created using computers, have been blurred. For instance, an artist may combine traditional painting with algorithmic art and other digital techniques. As

4794-632: Is called a sculptor. The earliest undisputed examples of sculpture belong to the Aurignacian culture , which was located in Europe and southwest Asia and active at the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic . As well as producing some of the earliest known cave art , the people of this culture developed finely-crafted stone tools, manufacturing pendants, bracelets, ivory beads, and bone-flutes, as well as three-dimensional figurines. Because sculpture involves

4935-528: Is limited to the U.S. market, which has reached a saturation level, so the U.S. seeks additional profits from foreign markets. Movies are defined as "pure" American phenomenon in the United States. New film techniques that were introduced in this period include the use of artificial lighting, fire effects and low-key lighting (i.e. lighting in which most of the frame is dark) for enhanced atmosphere during sinister scenes. Continuity of action from shot to shot

5076-513: Is most widely known today for his 1902 film, Le Voyage Dans La Lune (A Trip to the Moon) , where he used his expertise in effects and narrative construction to create the first science fiction film . In 1900, Charles Pathé began film production under the Pathé-Frères brand, with Ferdinand Zecca hired to lead the creative process. Prior to this focus on production, Pathé had become involved with

5217-437: Is often used to refer to video-based processes as well. Visual artists are no longer limited to traditional visual arts media . Computers have been used as an ever more common tool in the visual arts since the 1960s. Uses include the capturing or creating of images and forms, the editing of those images (including exploring multiple compositions ) and the final rendering or printing (including 3D printing ). Computer art

5358-800: Is referred to as a draftsman or draughtsman . Drawing and painting go back tens of thousands of years. Art of the Upper Paleolithic includes figurative art beginning between about 40,000 to 35,000 years ago. Non-figurative cave paintings consisting of hand stencils and simple geometric shapes are even older. Paleolithic cave representations of animals are found in areas such as Lascaux, France and Altamira, Spain in Europe, Maros, Sulawesi in Asia, and Gabarnmung , Australia. In ancient Egypt , ink drawings on papyrus , often depicting people, were used as models for painting or sculpture. Drawings on Greek vases , initially geometric, later developed into

5499-531: Is the French filmmaker, Georges Méliès . Méliès was an illusionist who had previously used magic lantern projections to enhance his magic act. In 1895, Méliès attended the demonstration of the Cinematographe and recognized the potential of the device to aid his act. He attempted to buy a device from the Lumière brothers, but they refused. Months later, he bought a camera from Robert W. Paul and began experiments with

5640-423: Is traditional in geometric optics .) Architecture is the process and the product of planning , designing , and constructing buildings or any other structures. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural symbols and as works of art. Historical civilizations are often identified with their surviving architectural achievements. The earliest surviving written work on

5781-476: Is — (1) a painting, drawing, print or sculpture, existing in a single copy, in a limited edition of 200 copies or fewer that are signed and consecutively numbered by the author, or, in the case of a sculpture, in multiple cast, carved, or fabricated sculptures of 200 or fewer that are consecutively numbered by the author and bear the signature or other identifying mark of the author; or (2) a still photographic image produced for exhibition purposes only, existing in

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5922-633: The chiaroscuro techniques were used to create the illusion of 3-D space. Painters in northern Europe too were influenced by the Italian school. Jan van Eyck from Belgium, Pieter Bruegel the Elder from the Netherlands and Hans Holbein the Younger from Germany are among the most successful painters of the times. They used the glazing technique with oils to achieve depth and luminosity. The 17th century witnessed

6063-445: The Age of Enlightenment . By the 16th century, entertainers often conjured images of ghostly apparitions, using techniques such as camera obscura and other forms of projection to enhance their performances. Magic lantern shows developed in the latter half of the 17th century seem to have continued this tradition with images of death, monsters and other scary figures. Around 1790, this practice

6204-524: The British Antarctic Expedition to the South Pole was filmed for the newsreels as were the suffragette demonstrations that were happening at the same time. F. Percy Smith was an early nature documentary pioneer working for Charles Urban when he pioneered the use of time lapse and micro cinematography in his 1910 documentary on the growth of flowers. Following the successful exhibition of

6345-535: The Edison Company in 1901. A former projectionist hired by Thomas Edison to develop his new projection model known as the Vitascope , Porter was inspired in part by the works of Méliès, Smith, and Williamson and drew upon their newly crafted techniques to further the development of continuous narrative through editing. When he began making longer films in 1902, he put a dissolve between every shot, just as Georges Méliès

6486-661: The Edison Manufacturing Company released The May Irwin Kiss in May to widespread financial success. The film, which featured the first kiss in cinematic history, led to the earliest known calls for film censorship . Another early film producer was Australia's Limelight Department . Commencing in 1898, it was operated by The Salvation Army in Melbourne , Australia. The Limelight Department produced evangelistic material for use by

6627-482: The Latham loop , which allowed for longer continuous runtimes and was less abrasive on the celluloid film. In subsequent years, screenings of actualities and newsreels proved to be profitable. In 1897, The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight was released. The film was a complete recording of a heavyweight world championship boxing match at Carson City, Nevada . It generated more income in box office than in live gate receipts and

6768-576: The Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1616–1911) dynasties, the technique was perfected for both religious and artistic engravings. Woodblock printing in Japan (Japanese: 木版画, moku hanga) is a technique best known for its use in the ukiyo-e artistic genre; however, it was also used very widely for printing illustrated books in the same period. Woodblock printing had been used in China for centuries to print books, long before

6909-502: The Musée Grévin in Paris. Reynaud's device, which projected a series of animated stories such as Pauvre Pierrot and Autour d'une cabine , was displayed to over 500,000 visitors over the course of 12,800 shows. On 25, 29 and 30 November 1894, Ottomar Anschütz projected moving images from Electrotachyscope discs on a large screen in the darkened Grand Auditorium of a Post Office Building in Berlin. From 22 February to 30 March 1895,

7050-437: The double exposure of the film in the camera. The effect was pioneered by Smith in the 1898 film, Photographing a Ghost . According to Smith's catalogue records, the (now lost ) film chronicles a photographer's struggle to capture a ghost on camera. Using the double exposure of the film, Smith overlaid a transparent ghostly figure onto the background in a comical manner to taunt the photographer. Smith's The Corsican Brothers

7191-702: The four arts of scholar-officials in imperial China. Leading country in the development of the arts in Latin America , in 1875 created the National Society of the Stimulus of the Arts, founded by painters Eduardo Schiaffino , Eduardo Sívori , and other artists. Their guild was rechartered as the National Academy of Fine Arts in 1905 and, in 1923, on the initiative of painter and academic Ernesto de la Cárcova , as

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7332-507: The magic lantern . Shadowgraphy and shadow puppetry represent early examples of the intent to use moving imagery for entertainment and storytelling. Thought to have originated in the Far East, the art form used shadows cast by hands or objects to assist in the creation of narratives. Shadow puppetry enjoyed popularity for centuries around Asia, notably in Java , and eventually spread to Europe during

7473-681: The narrative of films. Popular new media, including television (mainstream since the 1950s), home video (1980s), and the internet (1990s), influenced the distribution and consumption of films. Film production usually responded with content to fit the new media, and technical innovations (including widescreen (1950s), 3D, and 4D film ) and more spectacular films to keep theatrical screenings attractive. Systems that were cheaper and more easily handled (including 8mm film , video, and smartphone cameras ) allowed for an increasing number of people to create films of varying qualities, for any purpose including home movies and video art . The technical quality

7614-485: The negatives of the forward motion in reverse frame by frame, producing a print in which the original action was exactly reversed. To do this he built a special printer in which the negative running through a projector was projected into the gate of a camera through a special lens giving a same-size image. This arrangement came to be called a "projection printer", and eventually an " optical printer ". In 1898, George Albert Smith experimented with close-ups, filming shots of

7755-497: The serpentine dance films – also a staple of the Lumières and Thomas Edison film catalogs. In 1906, she made The Life of Christ , a big-budget production for the time, which included 300 extras. German inventor and film tycoon Oskar Messter was an important figure in the early years of cinema. His firm Messter Film was one of the dominant German producers before the rise of UFA, with which it merged eventually. Messter first added

7896-559: The "Adachi Institute of Woodblock Prints" and "Takezasado" continue to produce ukiyo-e prints with the same materials and methods as used in the past. Photography is the process of making pictures by means of the action of light. The light patterns reflected or emitted from objects are recorded onto a sensitive medium or storage chip through a timed exposure . The process is done through mechanical shutters or electronically timed exposure of photons into chemical processing or digitizing devices known as cameras . The word comes from

8037-446: The 1899 film Cendrillon ( Cinderella ) . In Méliès' films, he based the placement of the camera on the theatrical construct of proscenium framing, the metaphorical plane or fourth wall that divides the actors and the audience. Throughout his career, Méliès consistently placed the camera in a fixed position and eventually fell out of favor with audiences as other filmmakers experimented with more complex and creative techniques. Méliès

8178-619: The 1920s, the style had developed into surrealism with Dali and Magritte . Printmaking is creating, for artistic purposes, an image on a matrix that is then transferred to a two-dimensional (flat) surface by means of ink (or another form of pigmentation). Except in the case of a monotype , the same matrix can be used to produce many examples of the print. Historically, the major techniques (also called media) involved are woodcut , line engraving , etching , lithography , and screen printing (serigraphy, silk screening) but there are many others, including modern digital techniques. Normally,

8319-455: The 19th century, several young painters took impressionism a stage further, using geometric forms and unnatural color to depict emotions while striving for deeper symbolism. Of particular note are Paul Gauguin , who was strongly influenced by Asian, African and Japanese art, Vincent van Gogh , a Dutchman who moved to France where he drew on the strong sunlight of the south, and Toulouse-Lautrec , remembered for his vivid paintings of night life in

8460-503: The 4th century BC, which initiated a tradition in icon painting. Apart from the illuminated manuscripts produced by monks during the Middle Ages , the next significant contribution to European art was from Italy's renaissance painters . From Giotto in the 13th century to Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael at the beginning of the 16th century, this was the richest period in Italian art as

8601-475: The American film business, creating many "firsts" in the film industry, such as adding titles and subtitles to films for the first time, releasing scrolls for the first time, introducing film posters for the first time, producing color pictures for the first time, taking out commercial bills for the first time, contacting exhibitors and studying their needs for the first time. The world's largest film supplier, Pathé ,

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8742-502: The Baroque is dramatic lighting and overall visuals. Impressionism began in France in the 19th century with a loose association of artists including Claude Monet , Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne who brought a new freely brushed style to painting, often choosing to paint realistic scenes of modern life outside rather than in the studio. This was achieved through a new expression of aesthetic features demonstrated by brush strokes and

8883-469: The Cinématographe was an instant success, bringing in an average of 2,500 to 3,000 francs daily by the end of January 1896. Following the first screening, the order and selection of films were changed often. The Lumière brothers' primary business interests were in selling cameras and film equipment to exhibitors, not the actual production of films. Despite this, filmmakers across the world were inspired by

9024-542: The Cinématographe, development of a motion picture industry rapidly accelerated in France. Multiple filmmakers experimented with the technology as they worked to attain the same success that the Lumière brothers had with their screening. These filmmakers established new companies such as the Star Film Company , Pathé Frères , and the Gaumont Film Company . The most widely cited progenitor of narrative filmmaking

9165-556: The Danish film industry, but by 1913 they were producing their own strikingly original work, which sold very well. Russia began its film industry in 1908 with Pathé shooting some fiction subjects there, and then the creation of real Russian film companies by Aleksandr Drankov and Aleksandr Khanzhonkov . The Khanzhonkov company quickly became much the largest Russian film company, and remained so until 1918. In Germany, Oskar Messter had been involved in film-making from 1896, but did not make

9306-460: The Edison Company for viewing with the Kinetoscope , showed Mary Queen of Scots being executed in full view of the camera. The effect, known as the stop trick , was achieved by replacing the actor with a dummy for the final shot. The technique used in the film is seen as one of the earliest known uses of special effects in film. The American filmmaker Edwin S. Porter started making films for

9447-418: The Edison Company, such as the 1894 film Fred Ott's Sneeze . Advances towards motion picture projection technologies were based on the popularity of magic lanterns, chronophotographic demonstrations, and other closely related forms of projected entertainment such as illustrated songs . From October 1892 to March 1900, inventor Émile Reynaud exhibited his Théâtre Optique ("Optical Theatre") film system at

9588-508: The Edison and Lumière studios, loose narratives such as the 1895 Edison film, Washday Troubles, established short relationship dynamics and simple storylines. In 1896, La Fée aux Choux ( The Fairy of the Cabbages ) was first released. Directed and edited by Alice Guy , the story is arguably the earliest narrative film in history, as well as the first film to be directed by a woman. That same year,

9729-509: The First World War was Denmark. The Nordisk company was set up there in 1906 by Ole Olsen , a fairground showman, and after a brief period imitating the successes of French and British filmmakers, in 1907 he produced 67 films, most directed by Viggo Larsen, with sensational subjects like Den hvide Slavinde (The White Slave) , Isbjørnejagt (Polar Bear Hunt) and Løvejagten (The Lion Hunt) . By 1910, new smaller Danish companies began joining

9870-442: The German government, and turned into DECLA when the war started. But altogether, German producers only had a minor part of the German market in 1914. Overall, from about 1910, American films had the largest share of the market in all European countries except France, and even in France, the American films had just pushed the local production out of first place on the eve of World War I. Pathé Frères expanded and significantly shaped

10011-477: The Greek φως phos ("light"), and γραφις graphis ("stylus", "paintbrush") or γραφη graphê , together meaning "drawing with light" or "representation by means of lines" or "drawing." Traditionally, the product of photography has been called a photograph . The term photo is an abbreviation; many people also call them pictures. In digital photography, the term image has begun to replace photograph. (The term image

10152-703: The Italian film La mala planta (The Evil Plant) , directed by Mario Caserini had an insert shot of a snake slithering over the "Evil Plant". By 1914 it was widely held in the American film industry that cross-cutting was most generally useful because it made possible the elimination of uninteresting parts of the action that play no part in advancing the drama. Visual art The visual arts are art forms such as painting , drawing , printmaking , sculpture , ceramics , photography , video , filmmaking , comics , design , crafts , and architecture . Many artistic disciplines, such as performing arts , conceptual art , and textile arts , also involve aspects of

10293-527: The Kinetoscope era that preceded it. Despite this, early experimentation with fiction filmmaking (both in actuality film and other genres) did occur. Films were mostly screened inside temporary storefront spaces, in tents of traveling exhibitors at fairs, or as "dumb" acts in vaudeville programs. During this period, before the process of post-production was clearly defined, exhibitors were allowed to exercise their creative freedom in their presentations. To enhance

10434-450: The MPPC had lost most of its hold on the film industry as the companies moved towards the wider production of feature films. With the worldwide film boom, more countries now joined Britain, France, Germany and the United States in serious film production. In Italy, production was spread over several centers, Turin was the first major film production centre, and Milan and Naples gave birth to

10575-409: The Paris district of Montmartre . Edvard Munch , a Norwegian artist, developed his symbolistic approach at the end of the 19th century, inspired by the French impressionist Manet . The Scream (1893), his most famous work, is widely interpreted as representing the universal anxiety of modern man. Partly as a result of Munch's influence, the German expressionist movement originated in Germany at

10716-635: The Salvation Army, including lantern slides as early as 1891, as well as private and government contracts. In its nineteen years of operation, the Limelight Department produced about 300 films of various lengths, making it one of largest film producers of its time. The Limelight Department made a 1904 film by Joseph Perry called Bushranging in North Queensland , which is believed to be the first ever film about bushrangers. In its infancy, film

10857-410: The action a second time, while filming it with an inverted camera, and then joining the tail of the second negative to that of the first. The first films made using this device were Tipsy, Topsy, Turvy and The Awkward Sign Painter . The earliest surviving example of this technique is Smith's The House That Jack Built , made before September 1900. Cecil Hepworth took this technique further by printing

10998-572: The advent of chronophotography. Most early photographic sequences, known as chronophotography , were not initially intended to be viewed in motion and were typically presented as a serious, even scientific, method of studying locomotion. The sequences almost exclusively involved humans or animals performing a simple movement in front of the camera. Starting in 1878 with the publication of The Horse in Motion cabinet cards, photographer Eadweard Muybridge began making hundreds of chronophotographic studies of

11139-525: The advent of movable type, but was only widely adopted in Japan during the Edo period (1603–1867). Although similar to woodcut in western printmaking in some regards, moku hanga differs greatly in that water-based inks are used (as opposed to western woodcut, which uses oil-based inks), allowing for a wide range of vivid color, glazes and color transparency. After the decline of ukiyo-e and introduction of modern printing technologies, woodblock printing continued as

11280-450: The artist creates a design and pays a fabricator to produce it. This allows sculptors to create larger and more complex sculptures out of materials like cement, metal and plastic, that they would not be able to create by hand. Sculptures can also be made with 3-d printing technology. In the United States, the law protecting the copyright over a piece of visual art gives a more restrictive definition of "visual art". A "work of visual art"

11421-399: The arts such as (oral) storytelling , literature, theatre and visual arts. Cantastoria and similar ancient traditions combined storytelling with series of images that were shown or indicated one after the other. Predecessors to film that had already used light and shadows to create art before the advent of modern film technology include shadowgraphy , shadow puppetry , camera obscura , and

11562-445: The beginning of the 20th century as artists such as Ernst Kirschner and Erich Heckel began to distort reality for an emotional effect. In parallel, the style known as cubism developed in France as artists focused on the volume and space of sharp structures within a composition. Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque were the leading proponents of the movement. Objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form. By

11703-536: The breakthrough of projected cinematographic motion pictures. The earliest films were in black and white, under a minute long, without recorded sound, and consisted of a single shot from a steady camera. The first decade saw film move from a novelty, to an established mass entertainment industry, with film production companies and studios established throughout the world. Conventions toward a general cinematic language developed, with film editing, camera movements and other cinematic techniques contributing specific roles in

11844-548: The brothers gave their first commercial screening in Paris (though evidence exists of demonstrations of the device to small audiences as early as October 1895). The screening consisted of ten films and lasted roughly 20 minutes. The program consisted mainly of actuality films such as Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory as truthful documents of the world, but the show also included the staged comedy L'Arroseur Arrosé . The most advanced demonstration of film projection thus far,

11985-527: The business, and besides making more films about the white slave trade , they contributed other new subjects. The most important of these finds was Asta Nielsen in Afgrunden (The Abyss) , directed by Urban Gad for Kosmorama, This combined the circus, sex, jealousy and murder, all put over with great conviction, and pushed the other Danish filmmakers further in this direction. By 1912, the Danish film companies were multiplying rapidly. The Swedish film industry

12126-589: The country. With the arrival of the nickelodeon, audience demand for a larger quantity of story films with a variety of subjects and locations led to a need to hire more creative talent and caused studios to invest in more elaborate stage designs. In 1908, Thomas Edison spearheaded the creation of a corporate trust between the major film companies in America known as the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC) to limit infringement on his patents. Members of

12267-419: The device by creating actualities. During this period of experimentation, Méliès discovered and implemented various special effects including the stop trick , the multiple exposure , and the use of dissolves in his films. At the end of 1896, Méliès established the Star Film Company and started producing, directing, and distributing a body of work that would eventually contain over 500 short films. Recognizing

12408-427: The device's original goal of providing visual accompaniment for sound recordings. Limitations in syncing the sound to the visuals, however, prevented widespread application. During that same period, inventors began advancing technologies towards film projection that would eventually overtake Edison's peep-box format. The Skladanowsky brothers , used their self-made Bioscop to display the first moving picture show to

12549-409: The direction of Alice Guy , the industry's first female director. Her earlier films share many characteristics and themes with her contemporary competitors, such as the Lumières and Méliès . She explored dance and travel films, often combining the two, such as Le Boléro performed by Miss Saharet (1905) and Tango (1905). Many of Guy's early dance films were popular in music-hall attractions such as

12690-493: The effect was also used in other ways. For instance, Henry Langdon Childe showed groves changing into cathedrals. Another popular example has a soldier sleeping or daydreaming on the battlefield, with dissolving views displaying several of his dreams about home above his head. The dissolve effect was reportedly invented by phantasmagoria pioneer Paul de Philipsthal while in Ireland in 1804. He thought of using two lanterns to make

12831-463: The emergence of the great Dutch masters such as the versatile Rembrandt who was especially remembered for his portraits and Bible scenes, and Vermeer who specialized in interior scenes of Dutch life. The Baroque started after the Renaissance, from the late 16th century to the late 17th century. Main artists of the Baroque included Caravaggio , who made heavy use of tenebrism . Peter Paul Rubens ,

12972-551: The exhibition of automata , besides "experiments in optics, aeronautics, hydraulics and pyrotechnics". Some bills do not even mention any optical effects. However, an 1812 newspaper about a London performance indicates that De Philipsthal presented "a series of landscapes (in imitation of moonlight), which insensibly change to various scenes producing a very magical effect". After a few other lanternists had presented similar shows, De Philipsthal returned from retirement in December 1827 with

13113-510: The fine arts and the crafts, maintaining that a craftsperson could not be considered a practitioner of the arts . The increasing tendency to privilege painting, and to a lesser degree sculpture, above other arts has been a feature of Western art as well as East Asian art. In both regions, painting has been seen as relying to the highest degree on the imagination of the artist and being the furthest removed from manual labour – in Chinese painting ,

13254-406: The first "reverse angle" cut in film history. The following year, Williamson created The Big Swallow . In the film. a man becomes irritated by the presence of the filmmaker and "swallows" the camera and its operator through the use of interpolated close-up shots. He combined these effects, along with superimpositions, use of wipe transitions to denote a scene change, and other techniques to create

13395-480: The first film magazines. In Turin, Ambrosio was the first company in the field in 1905, and remained the largest in the country through this period. Its most substantial rival was Cines in Rome, which started producing in 1906. The great strength of the Italian industry was historical epics, with large casts and massive scenery. As early as 1911, Giovanni Pastrone 's two-reel La Caduta di Troia ( The Fall of Troy ) made

13536-419: The first sound projection that took place in Germany at the "Apollo" Theater in Berlin. Both Cecil Hepworth and Robert W. Paul experimented with the use of different camera techniques in their films. Paul's 'Cinematograph Camera No. 1' of 1895 was the first camera to feature reverse-cranking, which allowed the same film footage to be exposed several times, thereby creating multiple exposures . This technique

13677-587: The focus of the medium from technical and scientific interest in motion to entertainment for the masses, he recorded wrestlers, dancers, acrobats, and scenes of everyday life. Nearly 34,000 people paid to see his shows at the Berlin Exhibition Park in summer 1892. Others saw it in London or at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair . Though little evidence remains for most of these recordings, some scenes probably depicted staged comical sequences. Extant records suggest some of his output directly influenced later works by

13818-526: The great temple of Ramses II , Nefertari , his queen, is depicted being led by Isis . The Greeks contributed to painting but much of their work has been lost. One of the best remaining representations are the Hellenistic Fayum mummy portraits . Another example is mosaic of the Battle of Issus at Pompeii , which was probably based on a Greek painting. Greek and Roman art contributed to Byzantine art in

13959-529: The groundwork for the emergence of cinema as an artistic medium. The scenes in these experiments primarily served to demonstrate the technology itself and were usually filmed with family, friends or passing traffic as the moving subjects. The earliest surviving film, known today as the Roundhay Garden Scene (1888), was captured by Louis Le Prince and briefly depicted members of his family in motion. In June 1889, American inventor Thomas Edison assigned

14100-473: The human body itself. Like drawing, painting has its documented origins in caves and on rock faces. The finest examples, believed by some to be 32,000 years old, are in the Chauvet and Lascaux caves in southern France. In shades of red, brown, yellow and black, the paintings on the walls and ceilings are of bison, cattle, horses and deer. Paintings of human figures can be found in the tombs of ancient Egypt. In

14241-440: The human form with black-figure pottery during the 7th century BC. With paper becoming common in Europe by the 15th century, drawing was adopted by masters such as Sandro Botticelli , Raphael , Michelangelo , and Leonardo da Vinci , who sometimes treated drawing as an art in its own right rather than a preparatory stage for painting or sculpture. Painting taken literally is the practice of applying pigment suspended in

14382-401: The impression of reality. They achieved intense color vibration by using pure, unmixed colors and short brush strokes. The movement influenced art as a dynamic, moving through time and adjusting to newfound techniques and perception of art. Attention to detail became less of a priority in achieving, whilst exploring a biased view of landscapes and nature to the artist's eye. Towards the end of

14523-399: The industry by exhibiting and selling what were likely counterfeit versions of the Kinetoscope in his phonograph shop. With the creative leadership of Zecca and the capability to mass-produce copies of the films through a partnership with a French toolmaking company, Charles Pathé sought to make Pathé-Frères the leading film producer in the country. Within the next few years, Pathé-Frères became

14664-406: The intentional staging and recreation of events for newsreels "brought storytelling to the screen". With the advertisement of film technologies over content, actualities initially began as a "series of views" that often contained shots of beautiful and lively places or performance acts. Following the success of their 1895 screening, The Lumière brothers established a company and sent cameramen across

14805-484: The largest film studio in the world, with satellite offices in major cities and an expanding selection of films available for presentation. The company's films were varied in content, with directors specializing in various genres for fairground presentations throughout the early 1900s. The Gaumont Film Company was the main regional rival of Pathé-Frères. Founded in 1895 by Léon Gaumont , the firm initially sold photographic equipment and began film production in 1897, under

14946-619: The machine in 1893. Many of the movies presented on the Kinetoscope showcased well-known vaudeville acts performing in Edison's Black Maria studio. The Kinetoscope quickly became a global sensation with multiple viewing parlors across major cities by 1895. As the initial novelty of the images wore off, the Edison Company was slow to diversify their repertoire of films and waning public interest caused business to slow by Spring 1895. To remedy declining profits, experiments, such as The Dickson Experimental Sound Film , were conducted in an attempt to achieve

15087-486: The most highly valued styles were those of "scholar-painting", at least in theory practiced by gentleman amateurs. The Western hierarchy of genres reflected similar attitudes. Training in the visual arts has generally been through variations of the apprentice and workshop systems. In Europe, the Renaissance movement to increase the prestige of the artist led to the academy system for training artists, and today most of

15228-458: The motion and surroundings from the front of a moving train. The separate shots, when edited together, formed a distinct sequence of events and established causality from one shot to the next. Following The Kiss in the Tunnel , Smith more definitively experimented with continuity of action across successive shots and began using inserts in his films, such as Grandma's Reading Glass and Mary Jane's Mishap . In 1900, Smith made As Seen Through

15369-487: The motion of animals and humans in real-time. He was soon followed by other chronophotographers like Étienne-Jules Marey , Georges Demenÿ , Albert Londe and Ottomar Anschütz . In 1879, Muybridge started lecturing on animal locomotion and used his Zoopraxiscope to project animations of the contours of his recordings, traced onto glass discs. In 1887, the German inventor and photographer Ottomar Anschütz started presenting his chronophotographic recordings in motion, using

15510-470: The narrative potential afforded by combining his theater background with the newly discovered effects for the camera, Méliès designed an elaborate stage that contained trapdoors and a fly system . The stage construction and editing techniques allowed for the development of more complex stories, such as the 1896 film, Le Manoir du Diable ( The House of the Devil ) , regarded as a first in the horror film genre, and

15651-550: The opposite effect in The Indian Chief and the Seidlitz Powder (1901). The Chief's movements are sped up by cranking the camera much faster than 16 frames per second, producing what modern audiences would call a " slow motion " effect. The first films to move from single shots to successive scenes began around the turn of the 20th century. Due to the loss of many early films , a conclusive shift from static singular shots to

15792-520: The people who are pursuing a career in the arts train in art schools at tertiary levels. Visual arts have now become an elective subject in most education systems. In East Asia , arts education for nonprofessional artists typically focused on brushwork; calligraphy was numbered among the Six Arts of gentlemen in the Chinese Zhou dynasty , and calligraphy and Chinese painting were numbered among

15933-441: The potential of film as exhibitors brought their shows to new countries. This era of filmmaking, dubbed by film historian Tom Gunning as "the cinema of attractions", offered a relatively cheap and simple way of providing entertainment to the masses. Rather than focusing on stories, Gunning argues, filmmakers mainly relied on the ability to delight audiences through the "illusory power" of viewing sequences in motion, much as they did in

16074-490: The print is printed on paper , but other mediums range from cloth and vellum to more modern materials. Prints in the Western tradition produced before about 1830 are known as old master prints . In Europe, from around 1400 AD woodcut , was used for master prints on paper by using printing techniques developed in the Byzantine and Islamic worlds. Michael Wolgemut improved German woodcut from about 1475, and Erhard Reuwich ,

16215-461: The same technologies, and their social impact, as an object of inquiry. Computer usage has blurred the distinctions between illustrators , photographers , photo editors , 3-D modelers , and handicraft artists. Sophisticated rendering and editing software has led to multi-skilled image developers. Photographers may become digital artists . Illustrators may become animators . Handicraft may be computer-aided or use computer-generated imagery as

16356-431: The short length (often only one shot) of many actualities, catalogue records indicate that production companies marketed to exhibitors by promoting multiple actualities with related subject matters that could be purchased to complement each other. Exhibitors who bought the films often presented them in a program and would provide spoken accompaniment to explain the action on screen to audiences. The first paying audience for

16497-482: The spirit of Samuel appear out of a mist in his representation of the Witch of Endor . While working out the desired effect, he got the idea of using the technique with landscapes. Information about De Philipsthal's activities after 1804 is limited, so it remains unclear whether he did incorporate the effect in his shows before other lanternists developed their own versions. Surviving playbills of his shows seem to focus on

16638-673: The subject of architecture is De architectura , by the Roman architect Vitruvius in the early 1st century AD. According to Vitruvius, a good building should satisfy the three principles of firmitas, utilitas, venustas, commonly known by the original translation – firmness, commodity and delight . An equivalent in modern English would be: Building first evolved out of the dynamics between needs (shelter, security, worship, etc.) and means (available building materials and attendant skills). As human cultures developed and knowledge began to be formalized through oral traditions and practices, building became

16779-534: The term "dissolving views" occurs on playbills for Childe's shows at the Adelphi Theatre in London in 1837. Childe further popularized the dissolving views at the Royal Polytechnic Institution in the early 1840s. Biunial lanterns, with two projecting optical sets in one apparatus, were produced to more easily project dissolving views. Probably the first biunial lantern, dubbed the "Biscenascope"

16920-427: The trust controlled every aspect of the filmmaking process from the creation of film stock, the production of films, and the distribution to cinemas through licensing arrangements. The trust led to increased quality filmmaking spurred by internal competition and placed limits on the number of foreign films to encourage the growth of the American film industry, but it also discouraged the creation of feature films. By 1915,

17061-416: The turn of the 20th century, the term ' artist ' had for some centuries often been restricted to a person working in the fine arts (such as painting, sculpture, or printmaking) and not the decorative arts, crafts, or applied visual arts media. The distinction was emphasized by artists of the Arts and Crafts Movement, who valued vernacular art forms as much as high forms. Art schools made a distinction between

17202-452: The use of dissolving views and the chromatrope allowed for smoother transitions between two projected images and aided in providing stronger narratives. In 1833, scientific study of a stroboscopic illusion in spoked wheels by Joseph Plateau , Michael Faraday and Simon Stampfer led to the invention of the Fantascope, also known as the stroboscopic disk or the phenakistiscope , which

17343-479: The use of materials that can be moulded or modulated, it is considered one of the plastic arts . The majority of public art is sculpture. Many sculptures together in a garden setting may be referred to as a sculpture garden . Sculptors do not always make sculptures by hand. With increasing technology in the 20th century and the popularity of conceptual art over technical mastery, more sculptors turned to art fabricators to produce their artworks. With fabrication,

17484-647: The vehicles that would launch the film medium into mass popularity. That same year, the Miles Brothers opened the first film exchange in the country, which allowed permanent exhibitors to rent films from the company at a lower cost than the producers that sold their films outright. John P. Harris opened the first permanent theater devoted exclusively to the presentation of films, the nickelodeon , in 1905 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The idea rapidly took off and by 1908, there were around 8,000 nickelodeon theaters across

17625-429: The viewers' experience, some showings were accompanied by live musicians in an orchestra, a theatre organ, live sound effects and commentary spoken by the showman or projectionist. Experiments in film editing, special effects, narrative construction, and camera movement during this period by filmmakers in France, England, and the United States became influential in establishing an identity for film going forward. At both

17766-443: The visual (non-literary, non-musical) arts . Materials that can be carved or shaped, such as stone or wood, concrete or steel, have also been included in the narrower definition, since, with appropriate tools, such materials are also capable of modulation. This use of the term "plastic" in the arts should not be confused with Piet Mondrian 's use, nor with the movement he termed, in French and English, " Neoplasticism ." Sculpture

17907-533: The visual arts, as well as arts of other types. Also included within the visual arts are the applied arts , such as industrial design , graphic design , fashion design , interior design , and decorative art . Current usage of the term "visual arts" includes fine art as well as applied or decorative arts and crafts , but this was not always the case. Before the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain and elsewhere at

18048-493: The world to capture new subjects for presentation. After the cinematographer shot scenes, they often exhibited their recordings locally and then sent them back to the company factory in Lyon to make duplicate prints for sale to whoever wanted them. In the process of filming actualities, especially those of real events, filmmakers discovered and experimented with multiple camera techniques to accommodate for their unpredictable nature. Due to

18189-559: Was already doing, and he frequently had the same action repeated across the dissolves. In 1902, Porter shot Life of an American Fireman for the Edison Manufacturing Company and distributed the film the following year. In the film, Porter combined stock footage from previous Edison films with newly shot footage and spliced them together to convey a dramatic story of the rescue of a woman and her child by heroic firemen. Porter's film, The Great Train Robbery (1903), had

18330-548: Was also refined, such as in Pathé's le Cheval emballé (The Runaway Horse) (1907) where cross-cutting between parallel actions is used. D. W. Griffith also began using cross-cutting in the film The Fatal Hour , made in July 1908. Another development was the use of the point of view shot , first used in 1910 in Vitagraph's Back to Nature . Insert shots were also used for artistic purposes;

18471-472: Was described in the catalogue of the Warwick Trading Company in 1900: "By extremely careful photography the ghost appears *quite transparent*. After indicating that he has been killed by a sword-thrust, and appealing for vengeance, he disappears. A 'vision' then appears showing the fatal duel in the snow." Smith also initiated the special effects technique of reverse motion . He did this by repeating

18612-548: Was developed into a type of multimedia ghost show known as phantasmagoria . These popular shows entertained audiences using mechanical slides, rear projection, mobile projectors, superimposition , dissolves , live actors, smoke (on which projections may have been cast), odors, sounds and even electric shocks. While many first magic lantern shows were intended to frighten viewers, advances by projectionists allowed for creative and even educational storytelling that could appeal to wider family audiences. Newly pioneered techniques such as

18753-413: Was exploited primarily in the form of newsreels and actualities. During the creation of these films, cinematographers often drew upon aesthetic values established by past art forms such as framing and the intentional placement of the camera in the composition of their image. In a 1955 article for The Quarterly of Film Radio and television, film producer and historian Kenneth Macgowan asserted that

18894-402: Was first used in his 1901 film Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost . Both filmmakers experimented with the speeds of the camera to generate new effects. Paul shot scenes from On a Runaway Motor Car through Piccadilly Circus (1899) by cranking the camera apparatus very slowly. When the film was projected at the usual 16 frames per second, the scenery appeared to be passing at great speed. Hepworth used

19035-456: Was furthered in England by a loosely associated group of film pioneers collectively termed "the Brighton School ". These filmmakers included George Albert Smith and James Williamson , among others. Smith and Williamson experimented with action continuity and were likely the first to incorporate the use of inserts and close-ups between shots. A basic technique for trick cinematography was

19176-464: Was made by the optician Mr. Clarke and presented at the Royal Adelaide Gallery in London on December 5, 1840. Later on triple lanterns enabled the addition of more effects, for instance the effect of snow falling while a green landscape dissolves into a snowy winter version. A mechanical device could be fitted on the magic lantern, which locked up a diaphragm on the first slide slowly whilst

19317-444: Was popular in several European countries for a while. Plateau thought it could be further developed for use in phantasmagoria and Stampfer imagined a system for longer scenes with strips on rollers, as well as a transparent version (probably intended for projection). Plateau, Charles Wheatstone , Antoine Claudet and others tried to combine the technique with the stereoscope (introduced in 1838) and photography (introduced in 1839) for

19458-464: Was rarely recognized as an art form by presenters or audiences. Regarded by the upper class as a "vulgar" and "lowbrow" form of cheap entertainment, films largely appealed to the working class and were often too short to hold any strong narrative potential. Initial advertisements promoted the technologies used to screen films rather than the films themselves. As the devices became more familiar to audiences, their potential for capturing and recreating events

19599-475: Was smaller and slower to get started than the Danish industry. Here, Charles Magnusson , a newsreel cameraman for the Svenskabiografteatern cinema chain, started fiction film production for them in 1909, directing a number of the films himself. Production increased in 1912, when the company engaged Victor Sjöström and Mauritz Stiller as directors. They started out by imitating the subjects favoured by

19740-482: Was the longest film produced at the time. Audiences had probably been drawn to the Corbett-Fitzsimmons film en masse because James J. Corbett (a.k.a. Gentleman Jim) had become a matinee idol since he had played a fictionalized version of himself in a stage play. From 1910 on, regular newsreels were exhibited and soon became a popular way of discovering the news before the advent of television –

19881-505: Was usually lower than professional movies, but improved with digital video and affordable, high-quality digital cameras . Improving over time, digital production methods became more popular during the 1990s, resulting in increasingly realistic visual effects and popular feature-length computer animations . Various film genres have emerged during the history of film, and enjoyed variable degrees of success. The use of film as an art form traces its origins to several earlier traditions in

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