A Brief Survey of 134 Years of Film

The creation of popular movies including The Hunger Games and Hall Pass would not be possible without the history of the equipment behind the magic.

Film dates back to 1878, when Eadweard Muybridge found a way to take pictures in motion. His camera would take pictures fast enough to recreate a motion through pictures. He proved this by photographing a horse while trotting; all four hooves are off the ground at some points.

William Kennedy Laurie Dickson built the first motion-picture camera, which made it possible for a single person to watch a film.

In 1893, the movie magic began. Edison constructed the first motion picture studio in New Jersey. Two years later, Louis and August Lumiere combined a movie camera and projector to make the first image that many people could see simultaneously.

About a decade later, Henry Miles set up a way for customers to rent movies instead of buying them. Filmmaking grew even more when Cooper Hewitt figured out a way to shoot films indoors. By using mercury lamps, Hewitt made it bright enough to film without sunlight.

During this time, films were only about ten to twelve minutes long. Ninteen-hundred-and-ten was the big year for sound in movies. Thomas Edison found a way to make it possible to have sound during a movie: the kinetophone.

Two years later, color first came onto the screen in movies. The first movie with color showed at Electric Theater in Hollywood.

When making movies in the past, in order to zoom in, the cameramen actually had to move closer to the actors. The Bell & Howell 2709 movie camera gave them a way to zoom in without actually moving.

New technology was being made for film, and that meant new terminology as well. The word “documentary” was introduced in 1926. Now, documentaries are some of the most important films created.

A huge milestone in film history happened in 1927. The first words during a movie were spoken in The Jazz Singer. The words were, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet.”

After those words were spoken, filmmakers mainly worked on improving the sound and picture. Before 1968, there was no rating system for movies.