Film Timeline

Stoboscope

Early to Mid-1830’s Moving images were first made on drums and disks by Simon von Stampfer (Stroboscope) in Austria, Joseph Plateau (Phenakistoscope) in Belgium and William Horner (zoetrope) in Britain.

1839 William H. Fox Talbot made paper sensitive to light by putting it in a solution of salt and silver nitrate.

1867 The first machine that showed animated pictures was a device called the “wheel of life” or “zoopraxiscope” created by William Lincoln from America.

Zoopraxiscope

1878 Eadweard Muybridge takes the first successful photographs of motion, showing how people and animals move.

1885 George Eastman creates film made with paper base instead of glass, rendering glass plates useless.

1889 Thomas Edison and W.K. Dickson develop the Kinetoscope, a device in which film is moved past a light.

1891 The Edison company successfully demonstrated the Kinetoscope, enabling one person at a time to view moving pictures.

Kinetoscope

1894 The first commercial exhibition of film took place on April 14, 1894 at the first Kinetoscope parlor ever built.

1895 Louis and August Lumiere patent a movie camera and projector, able to project an image that can be seen by many people. They presented the first commercial exhibition of motion pictures. The Lumiere brothers were the first to present projected, moving, pictures to a paying audience of more than one person.

Mercury Lamp

1905 Cooper Hewitt’s mercury lamps make it possible to shoot indoors without sunlight.

1906 The first animated cartoon is produced.

1910 actors in films receive screen credit, the creation of film stars begun.

1912 Carl Laemmle forms Universal Pictures, which will become the first major film studio.

1915 The Bell & Howell 2709 movie camera allows directors to make close-ups without physically moving the camera.

1923 Warner Bros. is established.

1925 Western Electric and Warner Bros. agree to develop a system for movies with sound.

1928 Paramount becomes the first studio to announce that it will only produce “talkies”.

1930 The motion picture industries adopts the Production Code, a set of guidelines that describes what is acceptable in movies.

1934 The first drive-in movie theater opens in New Jersey, USA.

1937 Walt Disney’s first full-length animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, is released.

1940’s Disney create more animated films like Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940), Dumbo (1941) and Bambi (1942) following the success of snow white and the 7 dwarfs.

1960’s The studio system in Hollywood began to be used less and less do to many films  being made on location in other countries, or using studio facilities abroad, such as Pinewood in the UK and Cinecittà in Rome.

VHS Tape

1980’s Viewers began increasingly watching films on VCRs. In the early part of that decade, the film studios tried legal action to get VCRs banned claiming that they were a violation of copyright, which was unsuccessful. Eventually, the sale and rental of films VCR became a huge “second venue” for the exhibition of films, and an additional source of income for the film industries as they decided to create their own VCRs and sell them to the public.

1990’s Independent cinema became a huge success in the United States.  Whilst increasingly being dominated by special-effects films such as Terminator 2 (1991), Jurassic Park (1993) and Titanic (1997), independent films like Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989) and Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992) had huge success at the cinema and with home sales.

Major American film companies began to create their own independent production companies to produce smaller films. In 1994 Disney purchased Miramax after seeing the success of reservoir dogs. The year after the purchase Pulp fiction was released. The year 1994 was also the beginning of online film and video distribution.

1995 Pixar animations produce the first computer generated animation, Toy Story. Computer animation began to rapidly grow and allowed other companies such as DreamWorks to compete with Disney and produce their own animated films.

Late 1990’s DVD’s become the new standard way to distribute films to consumers for home use. They replace VHS tapes.

2002 Films started to be released for IMAX cinema

2009 The 3D film Avatar became the highest grossing movie of all time.

2010 3D films become more and more popular with the most successful films being released in 3D.

Evaluation of short film

Overall I think that the production process went very well and I am pleased with how my short film has turned out, over all of the shoot days that I attended I took on the roles of director and D.O.P which I believe I completed pretty successfully with some small mistakes. One thing that I would do next time is be more careful when checking the framing of shots to make sure that there is nothing that could possibly compromise the shot and make it look unprofessional. On many occasions during the editing process I noticed things that I had not noticed during the set up of the shots. For example on a couple of occasions a camera bag can be seen in the back of some shots, during the interrogation scene and restaurant scene are examples of when this had happened. Another thing that went wrong during the production was small issues with the continuity. During one of the shoot days one of our actors forgot to bring the correct shoes that they had worn on a previous shoot day. This meant that during one of the shots it was very clear that the character was wearing different shoes. I had told all of the actors to ensure that they wore the same costume but things like this happen sometimes and we had to continue with the shoot as scheduled. Although that this was out of my control it is still a little bit annoying. During one of our shoot days we had to film in a darkened room with limited light only coming from 1 set light. In this room there was a window and due to the dark conditions when looking through the view finder/screen of the camera you were unable to see any kind of reflections. Me and my D.O.P both checked this to ensure that we would not be seen, however during the editing process whilst reviewing the clips you could see clearly both myself the D.O.P and the camera within the refection of the window. Next time when filming scenes that require low lighting I will set up the camera whilst the room is lit fully and check all of the reflections then, just incase the brightness is slightly different when we come to review our footage on a computer during editing. Another thing to check during filming is framing in regards to the actors and making sure that they are fully in shot  without their heads being cut off at all. During my time as D.O.P there was a couple of shots were this happened due to the actors moving around and me not re-adjusting so next time I will ensure that the actors do not leave the frame at all.

Tutorial youtube video

On set pictures

Unit 1: Task 1- part 2, Future learn

We have been participating in an online course that teaches us all about the film and TV production process and each individual aspect. The course last 3 weeks and each week had different topics that we had to learn about in order to pass the course.
The first week was very much about introducing us to the course and the world of film TV. It taught us all about the different roles and what each person did to benefit the production it also gave us a quick run down of the production process teaching us each stage of production.
The second week went into more detail about crew members and the roles/tasks that they had to complete. It focused mainly on the different departments which roles are contained within them and also the key roles that the production must have in order to be successful. It also gave some information on the paperwork that needed to be completed for each day.
The third and final week the course taught us in more detail about the job of a runner and the different types of runner that you can find working in a production. It also taught us how to be the best runner possible and stand out from everyone else.  

Filming progress blog

This week I have attended 4 filming sessions for 3 separate films. The first session that I attended was for the film "A Stolen Mind" which is being directed by Chloe Handley. The shoot took place on Monday the 7th of march and my role was director of photography. During the shoot I was responsible for the framing lighting and all general camera work. I also kept an eye on continuity and made sure that none of the crew or equipment were caught in any reflections in shot. The shoot went very smoothly and we managed to film all of the required scenes very quickly.
The second film session that took place on the 8th of march, was for the same film and once again I had the same role fulfilling all of the same tasks. This shoot was also very successful.
The third shoot took place on the 9th of march and was for the Film "Exposure" which I was responsible for directing. As director I was responsible for keeping everything organised and giving the actors instructions so that they knew exactly what they were doing and could create the scene that I wanted. I think I did a good job as director as I knew exactly what I wanted to happen although I did find it much more difficult than I was expecting probably due to the fact that there was 8 actors on set that we were using as well as the crew. I wanted to film a total of 3 scenes but we only managed to film the first to and most of the third as we still have a few shots that we had to miss out due to time restraints and the fact that we also had a limited time to film scenes for "No good deed done".
The fourth shoot also took place on the 9th and was for the film "No good deed done" that was directed by Matthew Dickens. I retook the role of director of photography and for fulfilled all of the necessary. This shoot also went well however we did not get everything that we need filmed due to time and makeup taking longer than expected.

For the second week of filming I attended 3 filming sessions once again for 3 separate films. The first session that I attended was for the film "A Stolen Mind" where I reclaimed the role of D.O.P. The shoot took place on Tuesday the 15th of march. The first half of the shoot took place at college and went very smoothly. There were no real problems and everything went down without a hitch. For the second part of the shoot we had to go on location to one of our crew members houses in Billingham. During the shoot I was responsible for all of the usual things. The main issue that we had with filming was how to get the lighting to the level that we wanted it. The scene was supposed to be taking place on a night time but of course we were only able to film during the day, so tried to make the room darker by closing the curtains to the room. However this caused the quality of our footage to become significantly less. You could see that the footage was a lot grainier and so we used my phones flash light to give the room some more light. We managed to film all of the scenes that we needed to during the filming session which meant that "A Stolen Mind" was wrapped and filming had completely finished.
The second shoot of the week, which took place on Wednesday the 16th of march, was for the film "No Good Deed Done" Where I also took on the role of D.O.P. We filmed in a restaurant in Yarm called Lucias from 3 onwards however we had to stop a little earlier than we expected due to the change in lights and audio. This means that we will have to return to the restaurant during the pick up week to film the scenes that we couldn't get done. Other than that small issue the shoot went very well and everything that we did manage to get was of good quality.
The Last shoot of the week was for my film "Exposure" It took place on Thursday the 17th of march at Pizza Express in Teesside park. I conducted the role of Director for this shoot. The shoot went very well and we managed to film everything I needed. However one of the actors was unable to attend the shoot and so his scenes will have to be moved into the pick up week. I was very pleases with the footage that was captured and thought that the whole shoot was very successful. I feel that the second shoot went a lot smoother than the first one and that I was able to complete my role as director much easier. I believe that this was because of the fact that I had a little bit more experience and so was more prepared and also due to the fact that I was working with fewer people which meant that there would be a lot less interference. With that shoot day completed I only needed one day within the pick up week to complete the filming process and collect everything that I need.

During the pick up week I attended  2 filming session. One for my film "Exposure" and one for Matty's film "No Good Deed Done".
The first film session that took place was for my film, it took place on Tuesday the 22nd of march and was filmed within college. The shoot took place so that we could capture the footage that we missed from the first film and session and the footage that we were unable to film due to a member of the cast being unavailable. The shoot went very smoothly and everything was shot as fast as possible. We finished filming faster than I had estimated and that meant that all filming for exposure was completed.
The second shoot that took place was for "No Good Deed Done". This took place on Wednesday the 23rd of march when we returned to the restaurant Lucias to capture the few scenes that we missed due to the changes in lighting and sound that halted the original shoot. This once again was completed very quickly and also meant that "No Good Deed Done" could be wrapped up with all that is left to do is editing.

Finished advert - unit 30: Advertisement production for television