Week 5 Response to Content

Humans have been developing movies for over a century, and due to the rapid technological advances that have occurred throughout this century movies have undergone significant change. The first motion picture ever recorded was titled “horse in motion” in 1878 by Governor Leland in Californian. To record this picture he used 12 cameras placed side by side at a distance of 21 inches. Wires were connected to the cameras and set up in a way that when the horse, Abe Egerton galloped past, he triggered the wires. This allowed 12 successive photos of a galloping horse in a single stride of 22 feet to be taken. At the time, this was not intended for entertainment purposes; rather, it was used for practical purposes, to clear up the errors assumed about trotting and galloping horses (New York Times, 1880). Little did these horse enthusiasts realised that they had just stumbled upon the first motion picture, in turn breaking into a medium of entertainment that had never been explored.

For a long time motion pictures were created and admired by audiences without the luxuries that we have in today’s society. Walter Murch, an American film editor and sound designer explains that the first film on record with sound was in 1895. This film was an experiment of men playing a violin into a large megaphone and people dancing around it. Although this film has been put together only recently by Walter Murch,  it was recorded in 1895, therefore this film has become the oldest film with sound on record (Edited from, The cinema Audio Society Discussion Board, 2000).

In recent decades the technological advances of the film industry have hurled forward at an amazing pace. It is now possible to watch 3D films on a movie theater size television screen at home, played through a blue ray player or USB. There is an option of LED, LCD and Plasma screen televisions. People can chose between high definition, standard definition and full high definition. All this amazing technology that the population back in 1878, when the first motion picture was “accidently” recorded, would never have dreamt of.

This is the first motion picture spoken about above. 

Sources:

Unknown Author, “photographed in motion, instantaneous pictures of horses while running and trotting”, New York Times, January 14 1880. Sourced from  http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9A03E5D81131EE3ABC4C52DFB766838B699FDE August 26^th 2011

Edited excerpt from:

Discussion thread "Dickson Experimental Sound Film 1895", The Cinema Audio Society Discussion Board,  June 3 , 2000   www.ideabuzz.com/cas/webboard/ Sources from http://www.filmsound.org/murch/dickson.htm  August 26^th2011