Film has made one of the greatest transformations of perception ever. In the beginning, it was derided by many as being nothing more than a novelty that would soon go away. But later, it graduated to a lesser art form only fit for the lower classes. Now, film is the unquestioned leader in entertainment, making over 36 billion dollars worldwide in 2014 alone with 68% of the population of the United States and Canada calling themselves moviegoers. Film still may be a lesser art, but it reaches a wider demographic than almost any other with a nearly identical proportion of frequent moviegoers and ticket sales by race to the racial breakdown of the United States. Film attendance also has no gender bias, though it may be a little ageist. How did it make this transformation though? It The secret lies in technological growth and the creativity of those working in the industry (along with some controversy for good measure).
In the rest of this page, I will display posters from important films along the path from novelty to art edited to include some of the important events, technologies, people, companies that all contributed. But as many of the early filmmakers had to work with a tools that could not fully capture their imagination, I had to work with myself. I am not a master at Illustrator, so much of what is below may not look the best even if it captures the ideas I wanted. Following the poster, I will have a description of the content related to the poster in more depth than the poster could convey and a description of how parts of the poster represent this content.
In the rest of this page, I will display posters from important films along the path from novelty to art edited to include some of the important events, technologies, people, companies that all contributed. But as many of the early filmmakers had to work with a tools that could not fully capture their imagination, I had to work with myself. I am not a master at Illustrator, so much of what is below may not look the best even if it captures the ideas I wanted. Following the poster, I will have a description of the content related to the poster in more depth than the poster could convey and a description of how parts of the poster represent this content.
Moving film images were first introduced to the public at the 1893 world's fair in Chicago. It was here that Thomas Edison revealed his kinetoscope. The kinetoscope was little more than a cabinet with a lens for a single viewer to see the picture. However, the novelty of them carried them across the United States and Europe where they became common at fairs, hotels, and penny arcades. The technology behind the kinetscope, however, had existed since George Eastman sold the first roll of photographic film in 1885, but even before then the chemistry had been discovered as part of the daguerreotype process, where silver iodine was coated onto a copper plate. Silver Halides like Silver Iodine are light sensitive; when they are exposed to light the Silver (I) ion is photoreduced to elemental silver with the halogen oxidized. This is not a energetically favorable process, because halogens are extremely electron negative, and so their oxidation is not spontaneous. Because of the crystal structure of the compound the location where the elemental silver forms is in a specific location called a sensitivity center, which acts as a shallow electron trap, so the reaction does not reverse. These sensitivity centers are formed through either the introduction of edges or sulfur sensitization. Sulfur sensitization works through the formation of This exposed crystal is then part of the latent image, as it needs to be developed before the image can be viewed. The developer's job is to finish the oxidation of the halogen in the crystal, but slow enough and with the silver metal acting as a catalyst, so that the crystals develop proportional to the amount of light they were exposed to. Once this was discovered all the advancements, including Edison's kinetoscope, could follow, but film did not become the entertaining art form we know it as until the Lumiere brothers introduced their cinematographe, which could take, print, and project a film all at once. Originally, the Lumiere brothers only used it to film "actuals" or everyday events such as their workers leaving the factory. However, their device would inspire others to do more. Two of the people that had the biggest impact on the development of film art were George Melies and Edwin Porter. Melies was the first to tell use film to tell fantastical stories. Coming from a stage background, Melies knew he could tell more spectacular stories than he could on stage. His productions were full of fanciful elements with elaborate sets and costumes. His 1902 production, A Trip to the Moon, is considered the first science fiction film. His films were also some of the first color films; however, to achieve this it required many workers hand painting each frame. Where Melies did not innovate though was in film editing. Melies shot most of his performances scene by scene in order. This is where Edwin Porter made his mark, through the pioneering of non sequential filming and editing techniques. His 1903 production, The Great Train Robbery, utilized these techniques, and was the first western produced. These films set the groundwork for artists could do with film.
The poster above tries to represent this information. First off, the poster plays off the famous still from A Trip to the Moon with additions that invoke other noteworthy events. The 1893 world's fair, along with being where film was introduced, was also where the ferris wheel made its debut, which is why behind the moon is a ferris wheel. The bullet that hits the moon is made up of a electron microscope image of silver halide crystals, representing the chemistry arriving to make an impact.
The poster above tries to represent this information. First off, the poster plays off the famous still from A Trip to the Moon with additions that invoke other noteworthy events. The 1893 world's fair, along with being where film was introduced, was also where the ferris wheel made its debut, which is why behind the moon is a ferris wheel. The bullet that hits the moon is made up of a electron microscope image of silver halide crystals, representing the chemistry arriving to make an impact.
D. W. Griffiths seminal film, the 1915 The Birth of a Nation, is also one of the most controversial ever made. Portraying the story of the United States from the civil war to an idealized post reconstruction world, it even today 85 years after the film was released is used as propaganda by the Klu Klux Klan. However, the film is one of the most important ever produced as it was the first real blockbuster. Made on a budget of 110,000 dollars, it went on to gross an estimated 20 million for its producers. The film established that audiences would be willing to pay more to see a higher budget spectacle. This lead to the studio model where large corporations with backers among big banks and support from tech companies took over film production. These studios settled in Hollywood due to the predictable nice weather, with the intense sunlight that was required for filming during the time. The birth of the studio also lead to a massive increase in the number of films produced. from 1910-1920 the total release negative length increased ten fold. They also developed the star model to increase the chance of a film's success. For example, one of the biggest stars during this time, John Gilbert, was credited in 22 films from 1917-1922, what would be an insane amount for today's stars, who rarely act in more than 2 productions a year. But, because this was reliant on the public's perception of the actor, movie studios exercised strict control over him or her to both build up a persona the public would love, and to make sure that the actor did nothing to topple it.
This movie poster uses the one from the release of The Birth of a Nation to convey these ideas. The strip of film carrying a star while on the horse from The Birth of a Nation poster represents the studios riding in on the bigotry and success of the film to establish one of America's largest industries and most profitable exports (thanks to WWI destroying European competition). The horse faces the hollywoodland sign as that is where all of this growth would take place.
This movie poster uses the one from the release of The Birth of a Nation to convey these ideas. The strip of film carrying a star while on the horse from The Birth of a Nation poster represents the studios riding in on the bigotry and success of the film to establish one of America's largest industries and most profitable exports (thanks to WWI destroying European competition). The horse faces the hollywoodland sign as that is where all of this growth would take place.
The increasing competition between large studios accelerated the development of film technology. Bell Labs' electronic microphone allowed studios to record high quality speech for their films, which led to Warner Bros release in 1927 of The Jazz Singer, the first extremely success sound-on-disc film with singing. The Jazz Singer set new records for box office receipts for the midsize Warner Bros studio, and like The Birth of a Nation demonstrated want audience's wanted while being controversial today. At the time of The Jazz Singer's release, movie actors were predominantly white. Any roles that Black American's played were extras, and if a feature had a black character in a leading role, it would be played by a white actor in black face. But, with the success of their sound-on-disc technology, Warner Bros made huge profits, driving other studios to adopt sound technology as well. However, sound-on-disc relies on the synchronization of a record with a projector, which is difficult to get exactly right, and prevents the post production editing of sound with the picture. This is why sound-on-film soon became the sound medium of choice for studios. Sound-on-film works by encoding the audio track onto the film using a variable width lamp that varies with the amplitude of the audio. It is then played back by shining a light through the film with a receptor on the other side that converts light intensity into a analog audio signal.
However, sound was not the biggest technological improvement for film during this time; the color film process was perfected. Color pictures had existed since George Melies, but the hand coloring process was too slow for the large number of feature films Hollywood studios put out each year. Other color film processes that did not involve humans with paint suffered from a multitude of problems. Some captured only two colors, while others required special projection equipment. The Technicolor Process 4 had none of these issues. As a subtractive 3 color process, Technicolor could create every imaginable color with a print that could be projected using standard equipment thanks to its composition of cyan, magenta, and yellow filters. This print was made up of an audio track containing black and white blank that had been coated with gelatin and a mordant to hold the dye. Process 4 was not actually a color photographic process but a mechanical one as matrix films containing the cyan, magenta, and yellow dyes were pressed onto the blank, transferring their contents to the blank. These matrix films were prepared from black and white negatives captured behind filters corresponding to the complementary colors of the dyes. In practice this meant that a beam splitter transferred one third of the light through a green filter onto a black and white film strip and the other two thirds through a magenta filter onto two strips of film. One sensitized to blue; the other sensitized to red. These produced the vivid colors that make The Wizard of Oz (1939) so memorable, as the change from dreary Kansas to colorful Oz would have failed to register with previous color techniques.
This poster uses The Wizard of Oz to help portray these advances along with the culture of the Hollywood during this time. Hollywood was enjoying its "Golden Age" during these years, and the studios Paramount, RKO Pictures, 20th Century Fox, MGM, and Warner Bros were known as "The Big Five," which is why their logos are used for the faces of the protagonists. Warner Bros was the greatest driver of technological advancement, so it got the role of Dorothy. The creepy face in the corner is John Gilbert, who was a star in the silent era, but was one of the many that did not survive the transition to sound.
However, sound was not the biggest technological improvement for film during this time; the color film process was perfected. Color pictures had existed since George Melies, but the hand coloring process was too slow for the large number of feature films Hollywood studios put out each year. Other color film processes that did not involve humans with paint suffered from a multitude of problems. Some captured only two colors, while others required special projection equipment. The Technicolor Process 4 had none of these issues. As a subtractive 3 color process, Technicolor could create every imaginable color with a print that could be projected using standard equipment thanks to its composition of cyan, magenta, and yellow filters. This print was made up of an audio track containing black and white blank that had been coated with gelatin and a mordant to hold the dye. Process 4 was not actually a color photographic process but a mechanical one as matrix films containing the cyan, magenta, and yellow dyes were pressed onto the blank, transferring their contents to the blank. These matrix films were prepared from black and white negatives captured behind filters corresponding to the complementary colors of the dyes. In practice this meant that a beam splitter transferred one third of the light through a green filter onto a black and white film strip and the other two thirds through a magenta filter onto two strips of film. One sensitized to blue; the other sensitized to red. These produced the vivid colors that make The Wizard of Oz (1939) so memorable, as the change from dreary Kansas to colorful Oz would have failed to register with previous color techniques.
This poster uses The Wizard of Oz to help portray these advances along with the culture of the Hollywood during this time. Hollywood was enjoying its "Golden Age" during these years, and the studios Paramount, RKO Pictures, 20th Century Fox, MGM, and Warner Bros were known as "The Big Five," which is why their logos are used for the faces of the protagonists. Warner Bros was the greatest driver of technological advancement, so it got the role of Dorothy. The creepy face in the corner is John Gilbert, who was a star in the silent era, but was one of the many that did not survive the transition to sound.