| So, today we are going to talk a little bit about the history of film. |
| Contrary to what most children think today, |
| there've not always been movies..... |
| Can you imagine a world where you can't pay money to see the most recent 3D movie, |
| or a color film at the local 1-dollar theatre? |
| Yeah, No thank you..... |
| The history of film began in the late 1800's, with the invention of the first motion-picture cameras |
| and the establishment of the first film production companies and cinemas. |
| These were not your average modern movie companies. |
| So where did it all begin? |
| Who was it that thought to create film so that things could be photographed in movement? |
| When we look way back at the first film experiment, |
| it takes us back to 1877..... |
| Edward Muybridge successfully photographed a horse named Sallie Gardner |
| in fast motion using a series of 24 stereoscopic cameras, |
| which was basically a camera with two lenses next to each other |
| to take pictures one right after the other. |
| The main purpose of the exercise was to determine whether a running horse ever had all four legs lifted off the ground at once. |
| The cameras were arranged along a track parallel to the horse's, |
| and each of the camera shutters was controlled by a tripwire that went off as the horse ran by. |
| So! They were 21 inches apart to cover the 20 feet taken by the horse stride, |
| taking pictures at one thousandth of a second. |
| Photographic series like these were a primitive motion picture. |
| Okay, awesome, so who tried it next? |
| The second experimental film, Roundhay Garden Scene, filmed by Louis Le Prince in 1888, |
| is now known as the earliest surviving motion picture. |
| By modern standards it's barely a home-video |
| as its runtime is just over two seconds and only shows a few people walking through a garden. |
| From there, movies were slow to take off and slow to develop into the epic entertainment we know today. |
| From then on, films were initially shown as a novelty in special venues, |
| where they were an exhibition in variety theatres, or, presented by traveling showmen in tent theatres, |
| which they took around to the fairs in country towns. |
| Films were mostly silent films at that time |
| because matching the image with sound was not technically possible. |
| No practical method for recording and playing sound was designed until 1923, |
| so, for the first thirty years of their history, movies were silent. |
| However, they were accompanied by live musicians, |
| and sometimes sound effects, and even commentary spoken by the showman or projectionist. |
| In the end, the mouths moved but no sound came out from the film itself. |
| That advancement in technology would take quite a while to perfect. |
| So now, we already know that technology was nowhere near the state it's at right now, |
| so how did they get all the shots for the movies? |
| The first movie cameras were fastened directly to the head of their tripod or other support, |
| often times leveled with some crude janky method. |
| The earliest movie cameras were thus effectively fixed during the course of the shot, |
| and hence the first camera movements were the result of mounting a camera on a moving vehicle. |
| Something like a primitive Gopro. |
| But around the early 1900s |
| movie producers began getting very creative with their films, |
| mounting cameras on rotating platforms, |
| introducing artificial lighting features, |
| and generating longer plot lines. |
| In this way, through technological advancement and creative ambition, |
| the movies were born. |
| Fairly quickly, producers were making movies that were as long as two and a half hours. |
| Imagine, two and half hours of silent voices, no CGI, no explosions. |
| They expanded to filming the news, |
| building large studios, and playing up personalities, |
| creating the first film stars. |
| Circumstances surrounding some of the more successful companies, who happened to be based in Los Angeles |
| led to an isolated market in that area, |
| the birth of Hollywood, and the rest is history. |
| Try to think about all the changes that have happened in the last century |
| That have led to what all goes into making a movie now. |
| Pretty crazy huh? |