Sunday, January 4, 2009
The Early Entrepreneurs
When people watch the rapidly projected, sequential slides, they swathe pictures as they were in motion. This perception is the result of a physiological phenomenon known as persistence of vision, in which the images our eyes gather are retained in the brain for about 1/24 of a second. Therefore the photographic frames are moved at 24 frames a second, people perceive them as actually in motion.
Dickson combined Hannibal Goodwin’s newly invented celluloid roll film with George Eastman’s easy-to-use Kodak camera to make a motion picture camera that took 40 photograph a second. He used his kinetograph to film all types of theatrical performances, some by unknowns and others by famous entertainers.
Changes Comes to Hollywood
The Talkies
There is no confusion, however, about the impact of sound on the movies and their audiences. First, sound made possible new genres – musicals, for example. Second, as actors and actresses now had to really act, performance aesthetic improved. Third, sound made film production a much more complicated and expensive proposition. As a result, many smaller film makers closed shop, solidifying the hold of the big studios over the industry.
Scandal
The popularity of the talkies and of movies in general, inevitably raised questions about their impact on the culture. Newspapers and politicians were bombarded with complaints from the offended. Kissing in the theatre was one thing; in movies, it was quite another! The then-newborn industry responded to this and other calls for censorship with carious forms of self-regulation and internal codes.
Television
When World war II began, government took control of all patents for the newly developing technology of television as well as of the material necessary for its production. The diffusion of the medium to the public was therefore halted, but its technological improvement was not. In addition, the radio networks and advertising agencies that war would eventually end and that their futures were in television, were preparing for that day. When the World War did end, the movie industry found itself competing not with a fledging medium but with a technologically and economically sophisticated one.
When people watch the rapidly projected, sequential slides, they swathe pictures as they were in motion. This perception is the result of a physiological phenomenon known as persistence of vision, in which the images our eyes gather are retained in the brain for about 1/24 of a second. Therefore the photographic frames are moved at 24 frames a second, people perceive them as actually in motion.
Dickson combined Hannibal Goodwin’s newly invented celluloid roll film with George Eastman’s easy-to-use Kodak camera to make a motion picture camera that took 40 photograph a second. He used his kinetograph to film all types of theatrical performances, some by unknowns and others by famous entertainers.
Changes Comes to Hollywood
The Talkies
There is no confusion, however, about the impact of sound on the movies and their audiences. First, sound made possible new genres – musicals, for example. Second, as actors and actresses now had to really act, performance aesthetic improved. Third, sound made film production a much more complicated and expensive proposition. As a result, many smaller film makers closed shop, solidifying the hold of the big studios over the industry.
Scandal
The popularity of the talkies and of movies in general, inevitably raised questions about their impact on the culture. Newspapers and politicians were bombarded with complaints from the offended. Kissing in the theatre was one thing; in movies, it was quite another! The then-newborn industry responded to this and other calls for censorship with carious forms of self-regulation and internal codes.
Television
When World war II began, government took control of all patents for the newly developing technology of television as well as of the material necessary for its production. The diffusion of the medium to the public was therefore halted, but its technological improvement was not. In addition, the radio networks and advertising agencies that war would eventually end and that their futures were in television, were preparing for that day. When the World War did end, the movie industry found itself competing not with a fledging medium but with a technologically and economically sophisticated one.
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