Every year movies are being released more and more; however, no one ever stops to think how films first began. The first experiments of film appeared in the late 19th century about 1874, with a focus on just capturing and reproducing motion through chronophotography, A photographic technique that was used to capture multiple phases of movement in a single frame.
With these experiments occurring it created milestones for film, such as Eadweard Muybridge’s 1878 horse-in-motion studies and Thomas Edison and William 1891 Kinetoscope. The Kinetoscope allowed one person at a time to watch a short 35mm film on loop. With this invention Edison created his company to start producing film in 1891. This also later lead to the era of Silent films with first public screenings occurring in 1893-1895.
The Lumière Brothers, Augeste and Louis were French inventors who were known as the fathers of cinema due to their invention of the cinématographe. This was a 3-in-1 device that was a camera, projector, and developer.
Georges Mèliés, a cinematic innovator, created the fundamentals of editing techniques that remain relevant today, such as jump cuts, double exposures, and stop tricks. He also directed his most famous film the 1902 “A Trip to the Moon.”
With the era of silent films, it established the foundation of cinematic language, while also transforming motion pictures from novelty snippets into sophisticated and visually appealing storytelling. Filmmakers used expressive acting and editing techniques such as close-ups and tracking shots to show emotion and narrative in their films.
Silent films also birthed genres such as westerns, horror, and comedy which was driven by the directors Georges Méliès, D.W. Griffith, and Charlie Chaplin. These directors utilized the visual technique “show don’t tell” to capture their audience.
Since the films were silent, along with being black and white. Directors had theaters play live music in the theater, while also adding title cards for characters dialogue. However, by 1927 the silent film era had come to an end. With the first successful “talkie” such as “The Jazz Singer.”
Without the creation of silent films, today’s generation would not be able to enjoy the films that are being produced; along with also not appreciating the art of film making.