The Cinema of Motion Picture

By
Busola Olugbemileke
 The Birth of the Cinema
After the invention of the first two versions of the film camera
(the kinetograph, Edison and its European counterpart,
the cinematograph, Lumiere), these cameras were used to record
daily events. Documentary filmmaking was then born and
tremendously explored

More men were instructed and taught how to use the recently-
created camera and hired to undertake journeys around the globe
and capture exotic images like the pyramids in Egypt and the
waterfalls in Niagara.
The Evolution of the Cinema
v Narrative Cinema: Soon artistes discovered that the cameras could record
actions and tell scripted stories. The cameras was used to record play-like
events and this leads to the birth of the Narrative film form, stories with form
and structures.

v Monetizing the Cinema: Entrepreneurs soon began to see the need to

commercialize this art form. Studios were built, people were mandated to pay
admission tickets to enjoy a show of light and images. With the high demand of
the desire to see, see and see again, it increased profits. More studios were
built, job creation for both crew and cast increased, producers became demi-
gods and more films were made.
 Notable Advancements of Film

u Introduction of the Feature-Length films. (1906

u Introduction of Sound Film
u Introduction of Coloured Film
u Introduction of Special Effects
u The Digital Film
 Notable Filmmakers
u Charley Chaplin
u Alfred Hitchcock
u Orson Welles
u John Ford
u Howard Hawks
u Martin Scorsese
u Akira Kurosawa
u Buster Keaton, Ingmar Bergman, etc
who were instrumental in creation of styles, genre, rules and more. An
industry was born and more than a century the industry is still flourishing
and evolving.
Major Conflicts of the Film
Industry
As the film industry grew, so did the ART of filmmaking and
likewise the business.

Film

Art for Art Art for Business

sake sake
•

Since the advent of photography, images were recorded on

a film stock which is termed the FILM. The same is for
movie making, everything was shot on celluloid. Celluloid is
a material whose light sensitive surface could record
everlasting images. Meanwhile as technology advances,
digital filmmaking is posing a huge threat to the film
process. Some films have won Oscars while being shot on
Red one, a digital camera.
A. Celluloid Camera Film Stock

B. Digital Camera.
Ø Why Film?

1. Depth of Field

2. Exposure of Latitude

Ø Why Video?

1. Workflow

2. Price

3. Reproducibility
The question of whether film is worth going to school for has
remained an age old question as film gains it professionalism.

Why should we go to film school or not?

Examples of filmmakers.
The patent war.
The Big Five Studio System
The American Development of
Film
u Edison’s Kinetoscope evolved into Vitascope (life scope) October 1895
Rough Sea at Dover
u Inventor, Thomas Armat created Vitascope and Edison manufactured
it.
u 1894: American Mutoscope Company
70 mm film that yielded larger, sharper images

u 1897: 2 means of film exhibition

Peep show devices for individual viewing
Projection systems for audiences

u Types of cinema:
Scenics, topicals and fiction films
Ø Scenics: are short travelogues that offers the view of
distant Lands.
Ø Topicals: are News events, recreations of key occurrences
in studio
Sinking of battleship Maine during Spanish-American War
(1898)
Ø Topicals: Brief staged scenes telling a story. Some shots are
outdoors, but most shots in front of painted backdrops
•1904-became the industry’s main product
•Camera set up in one position and action unfolded in one
continuous take.
•No credits, music, Provided live by the “exhibitor”
 American Developments
• 1905- Admission to Nickelodeon (movie theater)
= $.05-$.10 for a 15-60 minute production
• Audiences sat on benches, wooden seats
• Front display=hand painted signs
• Actors stood behind screen and spoke dialogue in
synchronization with the action on the screen
• Sound effects were made with noisemakers
behind the screen
• Warner Bros., Universal, Paramount, MGM got
there start as Nickelodeon exhibitors
Nickelodeon
 American Cinema: Pre WWI
• Industry professionals focused on swiftly
expanding the demand for film in America
• Nickelodeon theaters were clustered in business
districts and working-class neighborhoods
• 1908 Nickelodeons were the main form of
exhibition
• Most films came from abroad
• Studio System born from the Nickelodeon boom
 American Cinema: Pre-WWI
• Edison company vs. American Mutoscope and
Biograph
• Conflicts over camera patents and equipment
licensing distracted the two companies from the
distribution aspect.
• Two companies decided to cooperate-created
Motion Pictures Patent Company that owned and
charged licensing fees on key existing patents.
• Production companies had to pay MPPC licensing
fees in order to exist.
 Patent
• An invention or process protected by this right
– The Vitascope
 American Cinema: Pre-WWI
• MPPC limited number of foreign companies
• MPPC’s goal was to control all three aspects of
the industry: production, distribution and
exhibition.
• Only licensed companies could produce,
distribute and exhibit films=oligopoly
• Eastman Kodak only sold films to MPPC licensed
companies, etc.
 Production
• The whole creative process involved in the
making of a film (shooting footage, set design,
costume, directing, editing, etc)
 Distribution
• The process of selling and marketing the film
 Exhibition
• The process of showing the film in theaters
– Exhibitors were those who owned and operated
theaters and were involved in the buying/renting
process of films.
 Oligopoly
• When a small number of firms cooperate to
control the market.
• In the film industry, when any other unlicensed
firmed attempted to shoot, distribute, or exhibit
a film, MPPC would threatened to sue for patent
infringement.

• Monopoly: when one firm controls the market

 American Cinema: Pre-WWI
• The independents fought back!!
• 6000 theaters agreed to pay the fees to MPPC
• 2000 refused
• A market for unlicensed producers and
distributors was created by these 2000
• This portion of the industry was identified as
the independents.
 Independents
• A group of professionals in the film industry
who were not licensed through the MPPC to
create, distribute, and exhibit films.
 American Cinema: Pre WWI
• The Independent Movement
• Independent Motion Picture Company, New
York Motion Picture Company
– These companies could rent films from European
companies that MPPC had shut out.
– To avoid patent infringement suits they claimed to
be using cameras that employed different
mechanisms than Edison’s.
 American Cinema: Pre-WWI
• The MPPC retaliated and created the General Film
Company in 1910 in an attempt to monopolize the
distribution aspect of filmmaking.
• GFC released ALL films made by MPPC producers.
• MPPC also hired detectives to investigate the Independents
claims in regards to mechanisms.
• MPPC lost a key suit where IMP claimed to be using a
different mechanism and after investigations, the court
ruled that this particular mechanism had been anticipated
in earlier patents, so therefore was not a violation
• This freed all independents from the fear of infringement
law suits!!!
 American Cinema: Pre-WWI
• After key loss, MPCC suffered, and many
independents began banding together.
• It was during this time that the feature film
length was established AND it was the birth of
the Hollywood Studio System.
Ø Conflicts in Nigerian Film Industry
• NARRATED STORIES VERSUS GIVEN STORIES

• CULTURAL STORIES VERSUS WESTERNIZED STORIES

• HISTORICAL STORIES VERSUS SOCIAL STORIES

FILM FORM
Film form is a set of conventions of patterned relationships used
to perceive, evaluate, and define an artwork, either concrete or
abstract, the subject matter of an artwork must be expressed
with a form.
Filmmakers have two basic senses to explore in their movies:
sight and hearing. The elements that stimulate these two senses
are innumerous. Consequently, the combination of them
generates infinite different styles and stories. But all these
different possibilities are found in one of three possible film
forms.
 NARRATIVE

FILM

DOCUMENTARY EXPERIMENTAL
ANALYZING FORMS
STRUCTURE PERSPECTIVE THEME

FILM
NARRATIVE FILM
They refer to movies that tell a story. These kinds of movies are
mostly screened in theatres/cinemas, broadcasted on TV,
internet and VOD. They are mostly termed fictional filmmaking.

• The Structure

The structure of Narrative Filmmaking has always been the

classical three act structure of story telling.
Act 1, Act 2, Act 3 sometimes used interchangeably as
Beginning, Middle and Ending.
THE THREE ACT STORY STRUCTURE
DOCUMENTARY FILM
Documentary filmmaking is concerned with the exposure and
analysis of real facts and historical events. Subjects of
documentaries can be wild life, politics, and any other subject
matter.
Even though documentary cinema explores actualities, not all
documentaries present the absolute truth a hundred percent of
the time. Filmmakers, like any other artists, are both privileged
and burdened by the power of manipulation. As such, they are
blessed and cursed by the possibility to bend the truth.
 Structure of Documentary
• Subjective Documentary Film
• Objective

“Voice of God” The Eye witness

Also Known as Account
the Narrator’s Documentation Interviews
Voce or Voice
Over
Experimental Film
Also known as Avant-Garde. As the word “experimental”
suggests, this type of movie is trying something new, different,
so different that, at first, it may cause confusion, if not
annoyance on the viewer.
In simple terms, experimental films are incredibly easy to
define but quite difficult to understand since most people have
no preconception of what they are. Imagine a movie that is
neither narrative nor documentary. What remains? Chaos,
disorder, incoherence. A combination of ideas forced together
by the filmmaker without any regards for characters, structure,
or theme.

Watch Un Chien Andalou by Luis Bunuel. Acclaimed as the first

experimental film made
Watch Alfred Hitchcocks’s Rear Window

Thank You