Visual communication
Motion Pictures
Motion pictures
• “Movies” - a term for motion pictures that
are produced primarily for entertainment.
i.e. Hollywood
• “Films” – motion pictures that are primarily
non-fiction or “art” films. i.e.
documentaries, biographies, foreign and
independent films
Technical background
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The illusion of movement
Persistence of vision
Still images projected in rapid succession
Frame rate = the number of still pictures
projected per each second to create the
illusion of constant fluid motion
• Flicker (critical fusion) rate = the number of
frames required each second to eliminate
visible flicker
Frame rates
• Original motion pictures were based on a
frame rate of sometimes 12-16 frames per
second
– Images appeared jerky with noticeable flicker
• 12 frames per second (fps) is the minimum
to create the illusion of seamless motion
• 18 (fps) is the minimum to avoid flicker
Frame rates
• “Home movie” formats (8 millimeter) used
18 fps
• Commercial films use 24 fps
• Television uses 30 fps
• In modern motion pictures, the shutter
projects each frame twice to reduce flicker
History
• Persistence of vision (animation) first
demonstrated by Eadweard Muybridge
• Muybrigde was settling a bet on whether
all 4 of a horse’s left the ground at any
point in its gallop
• Arranged a series of still cameras along
the track with trip wires
Zoetrope
“Mutoscope”
Kinetoscope
•Edison invented the
kinetoscope
•Used Eastman roll film
Kinetoscope
Mutoscope/kinetoscope
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The penny arcade
Machines that cost a penny to view
Some adult content
Edison also developed a projection device
based on the kinetoscope called the
“kinetograph”
• Operated on electricity – Edison’s pet
project
History
• Robert Paul bought the Edison
Kinetograph and gave it a crank
• This was the first movie camera
Lumiere
• Lumiere Brothers (French) used the
“cinematographe” to both record and show
films
• Lumiere films were documents of daily life
• They exhibited the films at night in the
towns and villages where they filmed
Thomas Edison
• Pioneer filmmaker
• Created documents of daily life and simple
acts
• Also pioneered in fantasy and drama
• Edison built a studio on a turntable to
make films – turned to make use of
sunlight
• The “Black Maria” was covered with black
tar paper
Black Maria
Black Maria
George Melies
• A surrealist - magician and filmmaker
• The inventor of special effects
– Accidentally discovered the “stop trick”
disappearance effect
– Pioneered other science fiction effects
George Melies
Milestones/pioneers
• D.W. Griffith
– “Birth of a Nation”
– The “blockbuster”
– Epic drama about the Civil War
• Nanook of the North
– The first documentary
– About an Eskimo
Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon
• Nickel = 5¢
• Odeon = roofed theater
• Neighborhood theaters in early 20th
century
Sound in the movies
• Early films were silent – sometimes with
live musical accompaniment
• RCA Vitaphone system used 78 rpm
records synchronized with the silent film
• Now film sound is recorded onto the film
optically
Optical sound - Photophone
The movies
• Sound helped the industry grow
• Studios grew and their control expanded
• The movie industry was controlled by a
few huge studios that were vertically
integrated
– Production, talent, distribution, exhibition
• United Artists – Mary Pickford, Douglas
Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin – formed as
reaction to the big studios
Scandals
• Sex scandals
– Culminating in the Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle
scandal in which he assaulted a minor
• House Un-American Activities
Commission
– The “Red Scandal”
– Joe McCarthy
– Blacklist
Threats to the movies and
how they responded
• Radio siphons off audience
– Movies introduce color
• Technicolor
• Television siphons audience
– Movies introduce wide screen
• Cinerama – 3 cameras
• Cinemascope – Panavision
– Movies create ornate palaces
– Other gimmicks
• 3-D, Smell-a-vision, Sensurround
Threats…
• Color television challenges the movies
– Movies respond double features
• Giving birth to the “B” movie
• Cheap movies to be shown with a big budget
movie
– Drive ins
• Other media still challenge the movies
– Surround sound
– Cineplex
Technical considerations
• Film width
– 8 mm – home movies
– 16 mm – independent and documentary
– 35 mm – commercial film production
– 70 mm – super wide screen
– Imax – 70 mm projected horizontally
Technical considerations
• Aspect ratio
– 5 X 3 = “flat” prints
– 16 X 9 = “anamorphic” wide screen –
“Cinemascope”
Technical considerations
• Color
• The principle of color photography was
introduced by James Clerk Maxwell in the
1800s with additive color
• Color in the movies
– Hand tinting
– Kinemacolor – 2 color process
– Technicolor – 3 color process
Technical considerations
• Early films used hand-cranked cameras
• Lighting was not available to allow indoor
filming with deep focus
• Lens optics did not permit “deep focus”
• Early sound films used “blimped” cameras
that were extremely large and heavy
• The camera did not move – only panned
and tilted – and not often
Technical considerations
• Films are shot “MOS” – silent
• Sound is added in post production
– Looping
– ADR – “automatic dialogue replacement”
– Foleying
• Sound tracks include dialogue, score and
sound effects (Foley)
Ratings
• The Hays Code
– Named for William Hayes former Postmaster
General of the United States
– The U.S. Motion Picture Production Code
• Replaced by the Motion Picture
Association of America
–G–M–R–X
– M replaced by GP
– Now G – PG – PG13 – R – NC17
The language of filmmaking
• The shot
– The basic component of filmmaking
– a shot is a continuous strip of motion picture
film, created of a series of frames, that runs
for an uninterrupted period of time. Shots are
generally filmed with a single camera and can
be of any duration
• Shots are assembled into scenes
– Scenes share a common location
Issues
• Stereotypes in the movies
– Racial
– Gender
– Cultural
– Other?
Contemporary issues
• Foreign Marketing
• Product placement
• Merging technologies marry film, vide, and
computers
• Future directions
– CGI
– Interactivity
– ???