Origins of the cinema or movie-going
Vaudeville shows: a type of popular entertainment of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that consisted of a series of short performances by singers, dancers, and comedians (people telling jokes)
The little red school house.
VERSE 1
Sometimes I think I was a little fool
Back in those days, when I used to go t’ school
When I was a kid, gee, how I hated
That little place where I was educated
Tho’ we didn’t know that we were lucky then
I wish that I was back again
CHORUS:
In th little red school house
With my book an’ slate
In th little red school house
I was always late
Lont t’ be back there where I was a scholar
Back in th days of yours
How I stand right up there an’ holler
Two an’ two is three
When we should a been learnin’
‘Bout th golden rule
Little hearts were yearning
For th swimmin’ pool
I was so bad, I acted like a clown
I got a good lickin’ an’ I couldn’t set down
O gee, want’a be in th little red schoool house
VERSE 2
Gee boys, when Mother said that there’s a —
She says, hurry or you will be late
We’d start down th road, shirt tail flaging
Guess you remember we were always bragging
Said, when I get there’ll be no school for me
Now, that’s where I long to be
The Little Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin High School, also referred to as LREI, was founded by Elisabeth Irwin in 1921 in Manhattan, New York City as the Little Red School House, and is regarded as the city’s first progressive school. Created as a joint public-private educational experiment, the school tested principles of progressive education that had been advocated since the turn of the 20th century by John Dewey. The founders postulated that the lessons of progressive education could be applied successfully in the crowded, ethnically diverse public schools of the nation’s largest city.
Animal acts: short routines in which different trained animals participated as actors together with their trainers.
The introduction of wild animals to the circus dates from about 1831, when the French trainer Henri Martin, performing in Germany, presumably entered a cage with a tiger. He was soon followed by the American trainer Isaac A. Van Amburgh, reputedly the first man to stick his head into a lion’s mouth, who in 1838 took his act to England and so fascinated the young Queen Victoria that she commissioned the artist Sir Edwin Landseer to paint a portrait of the brawny American with his “big cats.” In addition to exhibiting at circuses, both Martin and Van Amburgh frequently trod the boards of regular theatres, where they and their animals were featured in melodramas with such titles as Hyder Ali (also known as The Lions of Mysore) and The Brute Tamer of Pompeii. Other dramas performed in theatres and circuses about this time featured elephants, bears, monkeys, and horses in starring roles.
(From https://www.britannica.com/art/circus-theatrical-entertainment#ref254886)
Slapstick: humor that is based on physical actions such as people hitting each other or falling down, rather than on the clever use of language.
a slapstick comedy routine
Illustrated songs: An illustrated song is a type of performance art and was a popular form of entertainment in the early 20th century in the United States.
Live performers (usually both a pianist and a vocalist) and music recordings were both used by different venues (vaudeville houses first and later in nickelodeons) to accompany still images projected from glass slides. This allowed the images to be painted in color by hand. A single song was usually accompanied by 12 to 16 different images that sequentially “illustrated” the lyrics.
Nickelodeons an early motion-picture theater where a film or a variety show could be seen, usually for the admission price of a nickel. 2. an early jukebox that was operated by inserting nickels.
Performing arts: forms of creative activity that are performed in front of an audience, such as drama, music, and dance.
Eddie Cantor (born Edward Israel Itzkowitz January 31, 1892 – October 10, 1964) was an American “illustrated song” performer, comedian, dancer, singer, actor, and songwriter.Familiar to Broadway, radio, movie, and early television audiences, this “Apostle of Pep” was regarded almost as a family member by millions because his top-rated radio shows revealed intimate stories and amusing anecdotes about his wife Ida and five daughters.
film: the plastic material used mainly in the past for taking photographs or recording moving pictures.
A roll of film (=film that is held in a round metal container).
On film: The bomb blast was captured on film.
cinematic: relating to movies
motion picture: a movie made to be shown in theaters
cinema / movie theater: buildings or areas to show (feature) motion pictures or movies.
By definition, a motion picture is a series of pictures, projected onto a screen, creating the illusion of movement. By the 1800’s humans had discovered photography, projection and motion. We just hadn’t put them together. Then, in 1878 a guy called Edward Muybridge changed everything. He set up 24 cameras linked to tripwires to take photographs of a horse galloping. He developed and later projected the images onto a screen using his invention, the zoopraxiscope. The result was 2 seconds of movie history. Here it is, the first motion picture ever made. Get your popcorn.
Zoöpraxiscope: (Initially named zoographiscope and zoogyroscope) is an early device for displaying moving images and is considered an important predecessor of the movie projector. It was conceived by photographic pioneer Eadweard Muybridge in 1879 (and built for him by January 1880 to project his famous chronophotographic pictures in motion and thus prove that these were authentic).
Definitely, the contributions of the Lumiere Brothers are a hallmark in the cinematographic history and define the birth of a new art: the art of making movies!
Travelogues / travelogs: a movie, broadcast, or piece of writing that describes someone’s experiences while traveling
Victorian period: relating to the period from 1837 to 1901, when Queen Victoria ruled the U.K.
old-fashioned and with very strict moral attitudes, especially relating to sex, thought to be typical of the Victorian period
Screen (in the movies): the flat surface in a movie theater where the picture is shown.
To screen: to project on a screen, said of movie or motion pictures.
Projectionist: someone whose job is to operate a projector at a movie theater
Admittance fee: the price to enter a moving picture at a cinema.
Stereopticon: A stereopticon is a slide projector or “magic lantern”, which has two lenses, usually one above the other. These devices date back to the mid 19th century, and were a popular form of entertainment and education before the advent of moving pictures.
Americans William and Frederick Langenheim introduced stereopticon slide technology—slide shows of projected images on glass—in 1850. For a usual fee of ten cents, people could view realistic images of nature, history, and science themes. The two lenses are used to dissolve between images when projected. At first, the shows used random images, but over time, lanternists began to place the slides in logical order, creating a narrative. This “visual storytelling” with technology directly preceded the development of the first moving pictures.
Sheet music: music printed on pages that do not form part of a book.
Film reel: t is traditional to discuss the length of theatrical motion pictures in terms of “reels”. The standard length of a 35 mm film reel is 1,000 feet (305 m), which runs approximately 11 minutes for sound film (24 frames per second)[2] and about 15 minutes at silent film at the more-or-less standard speed of 16 frames per second.[3] Most films have visible cues which mark the end of the reel. This allows projectionists running reel-to-reel to change over to the next reel on the other projector.
A so-called “two-reeler” would have run about 15–24 minutes since the actual short film shipped to a movie theater for exhibition may have had slightly less (but rarely more) than 1,000 ft (305 m) on it. Most modern projectionists use the term “reel” when referring to a 2,000-foot (610 m) “two-reeler”, as modern films are rarely shipped by single 1,000-foot (305 m) reels. A standard Hollywood movie averages about five 2000-foot reels in length.
The “reel” was established as a standard measurement because of considerations in printing motion picture film at a film laboratory, for shipping (especially the film case sizes) and for the size of the physical film magazine attached to the motion picture projector. Had it not been standardized (at 1,000 ft or 305 m of 35 mm film) there would have been many difficulties in the manufacture of the related equipment. A 16 mm “reel” is 400 feet (122 m). It runs, at sound speed, approximately the same amount of time (11–12 minutes) as a 1,000-foot (305 m) 35 mm reel.
A “split reel” is a motion picture film reel in two halves that, when assembled, hold a specific length of motion picture film that has been wound on a plastic core. Using a split reel allows film to be shipped or handled in a lighter and smaller form than film would on a “fixed” reel. In silent film terminology, two films on one reel.
As digital cinema catches on, the physical reel is being replaced by a virtual format called Digital Cinema Package, which can be distributed using any storage medium (such as hard drives) or data transfer medium (such as the Internet or satellite links) and projected using a digital projector instead of a conventional movie projector.
In the 1890s, films were seen mostly via temporary storefront spaces and traveling exhibitors or as acts in vaudeville programs. A film could be under a minute long and would usually present a single scene, authentic or staged, of everyday life, a public event, a sporting event or slapstick. There was little to no cinematic technique, the film was usually black and white and it was without sound.
The novelty of realistic moving photographs was enough for a motion picture industry to blossom before the end of the century, in countries around the world. “The Cinema” was to offer a cheaper, simpler way of providing entertainment to the masses. Filmmakers could record actors’ performances, which then could be shown to audiences around the world. Travelogues would bring the sights of far-flung places, with movement, directly to spectators’ hometowns. Movies would become the most popular visual art form of the late Victorian age.
The Berlin Wintergarten theater hosted an early movie presentation in front of an audience, shown by the Skladanowsky brothers in 1895. The Melbourne Athenaeum started to screen movies in 1896. Movie theaters became popular entertainment venues and social hubs in the early 20th century, much like cabarets and other theaters.
Until 1927, motion pictures were produced without sound. This era is referred to as the silent era of film. To enhance the viewers’ experience, silent films were commonly accompanied by live musicians in an orchestra, a theatre organ, and sometimes sound effects and even commentary spoken by the showman or projectionist. In most countries, intertitles came to be used to provide dialogue and narration for the film, thus dispensing with narrators, but in Japanese cinema human narration remained popular throughout the silent era. The technical problems were resolved by 1923.
Illustrated songs were a notable exception to this trend that began in 1894 in vaudeville houses and persisted as late as the late 1930s in film theaters. Live performance or sound recordings were paired with hand-colored glass slides projected through stereopticon and similar devices. In this way, song narrative was illustrated through a series of slides whose changes were simultaneous with the narrative development. The main purpose of illustrated songs was to encourage sheet music sales, and they were highly successful with sales reaching into the millions for a single song. Later, with the birth of film, illustrated songs were used as filler material preceding films and during reel changes.
American Film Industry
The cinema of the United States, often referred to as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on the film industry in general since the early 20th century. The dominant style of American cinema is classical Hollywood cinema, which developed from 1917 to 1960 and characterizes most films made there to this day. While Frenchmen Auguste and Louis Lumière are generally credited with the birth of modern cinema, American cinema quickly came to be the most dominant force in the industry as it emerged. Since the 1920s, the film industry of the United States has had higher annual grosses than any other country’s.[citation needed] It produces the largest number of films of any single-language national cinema, with more than 800 English-language films released on average every year. While the national cinemas of the United Kingdom (299), Canada(206), and Australia and New Zealand also produce films in the same language, they are not considered part of the Hollywood system.
Hollywood is the oldest film industry in the world, and is considered the birthplace of various genres of cinema—among them comedy, drama, action, the musical, romance, horror, science fiction and the war epic—having set an example for other national film industries. It produced the world’s first sound as well as musical film The Jazz Singer.
The history of cinema in the United States can trace its roots to the East Coast where, at one time, Fort Lee, New Jersey was the motion-picture capital of America. The industry got its start at the end of the 19th century with the construction of Thomas Edison’s “Black Maria”, the first motion-picture studio in West Orange, New Jersey. The cities and towns on the Hudson River and Hudson Palisades offered land at costs considerably less than New York City across the river and benefited greatly as a result of the phenomenal growth of the film industry at the turn of the 20th century.
The industry began attracting both capital and an innovative workforce, and when the Kalem Company began using Fort Lee in 1907 as a location for filming in the area, other filmmakers quickly followed. In 1909, a forerunner of Universal Studios, the Champion Film Company, built the first studio. They were quickly followed by others who either built new studios or who leased facilities in Fort Lee. In the 1910s and 1920s, film companies such as the Goldwyn Picture Corporation, Fox Film Corporation, Metro Pictures Corporation,and Victor Film Company, were all making pictures in Fort Lee.
In early 1910, director D. W. Griffith was sent by the Biograph Company to the west coast. They started filming on a vacant lot near Georgia Street in downtown Los Angeles. While there, the company decided to explore new territories, traveling several miles north to Hollywood, a little village that was friendly and enjoyed the movie company filming there. Griffith then filmed the first movie ever shot in Hollywood, In Old California, a Biograph melodrama about California in the 19th century, when it belonged to Mexico. Griffith stayed there for months and made several films before returning to New York.
In Los Angeles, the studios and Hollywood grew. Before World War I, movies were made in several US cities, but filmmakers tended to gravitate towards southern California as the industry developed. They were attracted by the warm climate and reliable sunlight, which made it possible to film movies outdoors year-round and by the varied scenery that was available. There are several starting points for cinema (particularly American cinema), but it was Griffith’s controversial 1915 epic Birth of a Nation that pioneered the worldwide filming vocabulary that still dominates celluloid to this day.
Sound also became widely used in Hollywood in the late 1920s. After The Jazz Singer, the first film with synchronized voices was successfully released as a Vitaphone talkie in 1927, Hollywood film companies would respond to Warner Bros. and begin to use Vitaphone sound — which Warner Bros. owned until 1928 – in future films. By May 1928, Electrical Research Product Incorporated (ERPI), a subsidiary of the Western Electric company, gained a monopoly over film sound distribution.
A side effect of the “talkies” was that many actors who had made their careers in silent films suddenly found themselves out of work, as they often had bad voices or could not remember their lines.
Classical Hollywood cinema is defined as a technical and narrative style characteristic of film from 1917 to 1960. During the Golden Age of Hollywood, which lasted from the end of the silent era in American cinema in the late 1920s to the early 1960s, thousands of movies were issued from the Hollywood studios. The start of the Golden Age was arguably when The Jazz Singer was released in 1927, ending the silent era and increasing box-office profits for films as sound was introduced to feature films.
Throughout the 1930s, as well as most of the golden age, MGM dominated the film screen and had the top stars in Hollywood, But MGM did not stand alone. Another great achievement of US cinema during this era came through Walt Disney’s animation company. In 1937, Disney created the most successful film of its time, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This distinction was promptly topped in 1939 when Selznick International created what is still when adjusted for inflation, the most successful film of all time, Gone with the Wind.
© All photos by edudelcorral
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