Research: The Beginnings of Film

The first films were short, expensive and didn't have batteries to power cameras.

The Lumière Brothers - 1890s

• The Lumière Brothers were the groundbreakers of film. 
• Each film was 17m long, which translated to 50 seconds of hand cranked film. 
• They mainly produced "actualities", a reflection of everyday life, mini documentaries
• They toured their work through a Cinematograph which functioned as a camera, projector and printer.
• Credited with over 1245 different short films and even filmed aerial shots before the first airplane.
• Not only did they pioneer technical attributes of the camera, but also artistic attributes, creating a dialogue of realism that has always been a crux of cinema.
• Entirely modern, nothing post-modern, it was created by them.
• Silent films are useful to look at, showing an evolution of visual language and grammar of film that formed the codes and conventions of today.

Georges Méliès - 1902

• Georges, assisted by his brother Gaston created the Film "Le Voyage dans la Lune" (A Trip to the Moon), a black and white silent science fiction film. A film loosely based on "From the Earth to the Moon" by Jules Verne and "The First Men on the Moon" by H.G. Wells.
• The film runs at 14 minutes at a frame rate of 16 frames per second (the standard frame rate at the time of production)
• It was extremely popular at the time of release and is the best known of the many films by Georges Méliès. It is the first science fiction film and utilizes animation and special effects.
• It is named one of the 100 greatest films of the 21st century.

The Great Train Robbery - 1903

• Filmmakers began to attempt creating "narratives". The Great Train Robbery in particular shows how important editing and using different shots is.
• The film used various innovative techniques such as cross cutting, double exposure, composite editing, camera movement and on location shots. Cross cutting in particular was considered a new and sophisticated editing technique.
• In some scenes, prints were hand coloured.
• The film uses simplistic editing techniques (each scene contains one shot) and the story is mostly linear, It represents a significant step in movie making, the first narrative movie of a significant length.