| Motion pictures date all the way back to the 1890s when the first moving picture cameras were invented.
In 1891, the inventor Thomas Edison, together with William Dickson, a young laboratory assistant, came out with what they called the kinetoscope, a device that would become the predecessor to the motion picture projector.
Before 1907, most movies were shown in traditional theaters or at carnivals. With the advent of movie theaters, the films became the main attraction themselves.
In these early years, theaters were running single-reel films, which came at a standard length of 1,000 feet, allowing for about 16 minutes of playing time. Multiple-reel films started appearing around 1912.
In 1925 the world became aware of air conditioned theaters when Carrier brought a centrifugal chiller to the Rivoli Theater in New York's Times Square. The Rivoli was located on Broadway. Carrier founder Willis Carrier knew that success in New York City could lead to almost instant recognition and reward.
In 1925, Warner Bros. was just a small Hollywood studio looking for opportunities to expand. When representatives from Western Electric offered to sell the studio the rights to a new technology they called Vitaphone, a sound-on-disc system that had failed to capture the interest of any of the industry giants, Warner Bros. executives took a chance, predicting that the novelty of talking films might be a way to make a quick, short-term profit. Little did they anticipate that their gamble would not only establish them as a major Hollywood presence but also change the industry forever.
1987 is the year panning cameras were first used in film production, meaning the pan shot, also known as the panorama shot, was invented then. Before, cameras were stationary, so you had to move the entire camera and tripod to get any kind of movement. This was a huge advancement in film making and cinematography as an art form.
Today, movies are created on a wide variety of subjects in studios around the world. It makes for lots of movie choices. |
