UNIT 12

The History Of Film

The film as we know it today started back in 1878 with the horse in
motion which was a 15 second clip of a horse running which was filmed
with multiple cameras taking pictures when the horse ran over the
triggers that set off the cameras the horse looks like it is in slow
motion because of the frame rate that was achievable at the time it is in
15 frames per second which is pretty low since most films in 2019 are
shot in 24 frames per second which is only 9 frames per second more that
the horse.

The first action film the great train robbery which came about in 1903 it
was only 13 minutes long and had a budget of 150 USD this is a reasonable
low budget production its budget in 2019 equates to 4,130.23 USD which is
still pretty low budget but the film is only 13 minutes long so the
budget is adequate to the length of the production.
The great train robbery is an extremely important film if this film was
never made we may not have action films like we do today.

The most influential film is the wonderful wizard of oz that was released
in 1939 the way that this information was found is though a study from
the researchers at the University of Turin in Italy calculated an
“influence score” for films listed in the internet movie database (IMDb).
Each movie was placed in order according to how often it was referenced
by a later film. The results showed that the top 20 most influential
films were all produced before 1980, mostly in the US.
The most influential director is Alfred Hitchcock who is the director of
psycho and vertigo as well as many others.
Psycho is listed as the third most influential film under the wizard of
oz and star-wars the reason that psycho was so influential was because it
is was one of the first films to have extremely intense tension with the
use of music and the unknowing of what will happen next it was made
really well and was really intense and had a lot of visible violence that
was unusual for the time in 1960 violence was much less used in films
back then especially the extreme violence that is in the 45 second shower
murder scene where the woman is being stabbed to death it is still one of
the most violent scenes in any film even to this day with the music and
the extreme amount of tension.

History Of The Video Camera

The first movie camera was created in 1881 by a man called Louis Le
prince it was a single lens camera that used kodaks paper film to record
on to the first real clip that was ever shot showing live action was the
round-hay garden scene that lasts for on 2.11 seconds.
After this William Kennedy Laurie Dickson created the strip kinetograph
which was a motion picture camera that used desmans flexible film rolls
with a rapid spinning Sutter disc to capture consecutive still images
after this they invented the kinetoscope a machine that was created to
let you watch the films that had been recorded.
All of the cameras at this point where made out of leather which meant
that durability was an issue when I came to taking the cameras to film so
while film makers where filming in Africa the cameras where destroyed by
termites making them un able to film so that set about creating the first
metal movie camera called the bell and Howell 2709 it used 35mm width
format.
after this the first consumer movie camera was created by parlayed Bolex
and was called the Bolex h16 which was released in 1935 it quickly became
a huge success it used 16mm film which which made it a smaller cheaper
movie camera he then went on to release the Bolex h8 and the Bolex l8
which made them more accessible because they used 8mm film which made hem
even smaller and cheaper that the previous Bolex h16.
with the invention of television coming along we got cameras such as the
super panavision 70 which used 70mm film which was a huge step up from
the 35mm film used in cameras before all long way after this Sony
released the first betamax camcorder which called the Sony beta cam in
1982 a year after in 1983 song made a consumer camera called the beta
movie which sold extremely well.
in 2002 star-wars episode two attack of the clones was created it was the
first film that was recorded digitally with the Sony hdw f900 a little
while after this in 2007 the red one was released being the first 4k
movie camera and now in 2019 we have the Arri Alexa which records in
native 4.5k.

Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane was a film that was released on 24 January 1942 and was
directed and created by orson Welles who was only 26 years old when he
was making and acting in the film.

Citizen Kane has influenced many films such as the godfather (1972) and
there will be blood (2007) and many more films.

Citizen Kane used some extremely innovative camera for its time like the
use of deep focus so that the viewer can see everything in the scene like
in the scene where Citizen Kanes parents signing over there son to mr
thatcher who could give her son a proper education you can see everything
in the scene you can see around the hole room and you can see a young
Citizen Kane playing in the snow outside of the window not knowing what
was happening inside of the house.
this camera technique has been used time and time agin in films after
this film because it lets you know everything that is going on is the
scene.

Orson wells use of tracking shots in Citizen Kane are really innovative
like in the scene where the viewers are first introduced to Kanes second
wife it is a continuous shot from the front of the night club where she
worked up to though the sign and though the glass roof and in to the club
where she is sitting upset after losing her first husband this shot gives
loads of information straight away we already know what she does for a
job and what she has been though in life with losing her first husband.
this type of shot is brilliant for giving lots of information all at once
and is really good for introducing new characters to a film like orson
wells has done in Citizen Kane.

Orson Wells used lighting in his shots to show the feelings of serene
characters in scenes the low lighting is apparent though out the hole of
the film lots of scenes have a lack of lighting which makes the hole of
the film seem more serious and can help scenes to have more tension he
uses less light in a lot of his scenes to make them have more impact to
the character by making characters have dark shadows on there faces to
make them more of a mysterious character.

Citizen Kane used special effects in some of it scenes to lower the cost
of shooting scenes because Citizen Kane was made to a budget to other
films the budget was 686,033 USD which is 11,718,882.60 USD in 2019 which
is below the average budget for films in 2019 which is 90 million USD.
Citizen Kane had to work with a lower budget than normal so they used
special effects where it shows Kanes mansion in the back ground it is a
matte painting of the house instead of them hiring or building a set for
the house that would have taken a huge chunk of budget so they used
realistic painted backdrops to save money while making the film and it
also means they can pretty much film most of the film in the film studio
which means less traveling and again saving money for the rest of the
film.

Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese is a director that has directed one of the best catalog
of film of all time he has won at least 35 different awards including 12
oscars this is a huge achievement and this is only his personal awards
films like wolf of Wall Street that has won 39 awards and was nominated
for 173 different awards which is a absolutely huge amount of awards for
one film.

Martin Scorsese usually sets his films in real world settings to make the
films much more realistic and relatable to some people who live in those
places like in set of one of his earlier films taxi driver which is set
in New York and if filmed in real New York unlike most films that are
filmed in sets in the studio but you can never fully get the sense of it
being the real thing with out it really being the real thing so the fact
that Martin Scorsese films in the real location it makes it more
authentic Even in Martin Scorsese later films like the Irishman that was
released this year in 2019 he still choose to film in the actual
locations even though our technology is so good now for replicating
environments which is cheaper and easier to film all in one place but
Martin Scorsese films it all in the real location which makes its much
more authentic and you can tell the diff rents between it being filmed in
a studio and filmed in the proper location just way the actor interacts
with the place and the light and the non perfect surroundings.Martin
Scorsese also uses colour to his advantage to attract and to not attract
attention depending on the character like in the 1990s film good fellas
they have just pulled off the biggest heist in there life and they are
trying to lay low to avoid being caught and one of the crew members buys
a pink Cadillac Martin Scorsese could have made the car any colour but he
choose to make the car pink because it attracts the most attention so it
makes more impact on the story because it makes the characters more
likely to be caught and so creates lots more tension in the story which
is really clever and is one technic that goes unnoticed but impacts the
story loads little things like this is why Martin Scorsese's films are so
good and are noticed for that.

Martin Scorsese uses lots of practical lighting in his scenes to

again keep it authentic again like how he films in the real
location he also uses the lighting in the scenes for the light he
rarely uses artificial lighting in scenes an if he does it is un
noticeable.

One of Martin Scorsese's more known technics is the use of montage

with a voice over explaining what is going on is the scene he uses
this in most of his films to tell the viewers about serene
characters in one moment so then the viewer has an idea of who the
characters are from that point in the film which is really good it
takes a small amount of time which means that the story can just
progress from that point on with out having to tell the viewers
who they are as we meet them in the film.

Martin Scorsese also uses sound to his fully advantage he uses a

lot of silence in his films because it means when the music hits
the scene it is way more impactful were as if the music is
constantly playing it doesn't make much diff rents to the scene it
just carries on with out any change which is not what you want in
intense scenes.