The first moment that man realised that the could create pictures without paint was with the camera obscura, which is essentially a blacked-out room with a tiny hole on one side. An image of the outside world is then projected upside down onto the opposite wall.
Since then we have strived to capture living moments and project them to people all over the world. The earliest way of doing this was by producing images on revolving drums and disks in the 1830s with independent invention by Simon von Stampfer (Stroboscope) in Austria, Joseph Plateau (Phenakistoscope) in Belgium and William Horner (zoetrope) in Britain.
The next big thing in moving images was with the invention of the kinetoscope, which allowed one viewer to watch a repeated piece of film which was 10 frames per second. Due to the way in which these were viewed, the films were often called "peep shows" and showed scantily-clad (or at least for the time) women showing their ankles and dancing around. The adult movie industry, thus, was born.
Projectors were then invented by the Edison Group and other inventors, which in-turn gave birth to the cinema era. Silent movies were played on screens to the public, accompanied by live music or commentary. Soon though, music could be recorded and added to these silent movies, which was slated by theatre musicians whose jobs would surely be lost in years to come.
In 1910, on-screen credits were introduced, which meant that actors were more likely to be recognised from the films that they had done, and in-turn giving birth to the creation of film stars. This made film much more of a social thing, giving way to the idea of gaining celebrity status simply by appearing on a screen.
After this, common film techniques began to take shape. Techniques as simple as continuity shots (which we just assume to be a natural part of filming now) were introduced. Reverse angle shots for conversations between people and cross-cutting between two or more action scenes happening at the same time saw movie producers being more ambitious with their filming, since rivalry in the film industry was starting to heat up.
It was only in 1927, though, that synchronised dialogue was introduced into film. The very first film to do this was The Jazz Singer and only two years later many of the films that Hollywood produced were mainly talk-based.
As it did with all industries, the Second World War created a boom in film productions. Both propaganda and morale-boosting films were made in the dozens. This also saw the rapid advancement of film technology, as well as setting about the popularisation of Film Noir, and in 1941, Citizen Kane was released, which is argued to be the best film ever made. I mean, I would argue that because I grew up when HD was being developed, but it did revolutionise storytelling within films, and certainly set the stage for modern motion pictures.
During the post-war era the cinema industry was threatened by the widespread release of the television, which also sought the release of short dramas that would eventually be known as "soaps". Many cinemas close down during this time, but 20th Century Fox introduced the cinemascope, bringing on the marketing strategy that "bigger is better" and introducing widescreen to cinemas.
The introduction of colour to moving images was a massive breakthrough, making the film industry even more popular since it would be a few years before colour was introduced to broadcasting.
In the 60's, Mary Poppins was released, which was the first film to include cartoon animation and live action on screen at once, proving that moving image technology was still advancing.
CGI then became a reality in the 70s, and Star Wars became the first film to include 3D wire framing, which was used in the epic trench-run scene. In the 80s, Tron became the first film to use more than 15 minutes of CGI on-screen.
The use of 3D in motion picture has been around for a very long while, but was seen as a gimmick due to the poor colour quality you receive from the red/blue glasses. However, with the release of Avatar, 3D suddenly became the new hit thing for films, surpassing HD. It is now also being introduced into television, and some popular channels are introducing 3D channels (such as Sky Sports 3D), as well as the gaming industry sticking their fair share in now.
All of the technologies that we see in today's television, film and games were developed originally for film and then adapted. And now with the popularisation of the internet and YouTube, the average person is now able to create and share movies of their own.
If that's not cracking, I don't know what is.
Pete out.
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