Evolution Of Motion Pictures (1940)

You will be surprised to know that the idea of movies originated more than 3,000 years ago. The Chinese, Persians, and Japanese had moving pictures. They were shadow plays, stories told in pantomime without words, shadows of living people shown in silhouette on a white screen. In Egypt, Ramses II built a temple and dedicated it to Egyptian goddess. The figure of Isis was carved on the 110 pillars of the great temple. Each figure in a slightly different position. As the Egyptians drove by the pillars in their chariots, they glimpsed the figure of Isis. As they increased their speed, it appeared to move, the images merging into one another as the horses galloped past. Isis was moving. She was alive. Yes, a moving picture. Of course, it was an optical illusion, and it was crude, but the effect was there. Nothing further happened in the march of the movies until many centuries later, when Leonardo da Vinci, who painted the celebrated Mona Lisa, first brought to the world the principle of photography. From the window of his studio, he viewed with the eye of an artist and a poet the beautiful landscape and watched two lovely ladies walking in the garden. On this sunny Italian afternoon, something important was about to happen. As he drew together the curtains, a ray of light focused through one of the round leaded panes of the glass and fell upon the white canvas of his easel. He saw a picture, a moving picture. In great wonderment, he looked closer. Yes, the figures were moving and the picture reproduced the scene taking place in his garden. Da Vinci was about to discover the basic principle of photography. But he noticed as the light struck the canvas, the figures were upside down. What to do about it? He figured that rays of light travel only in a straight direction. As the light from outside struck the glass lens in his window, the images were reversed. He built a machine with lenses and mirrors and this creation of his caused a reproduction of the landscape outside to be reflected from a right angle mirror down onto a white table. This reversed the images and caused the picture to appear right side up. Da Vinci called his invention the camera obscura. If he had found the means to hold the images, he would have had photography, but as the light faded, his pictures died with the coming of night. Then came Athanasius Kircher. He called his invention the magic catoptrica. It was nothing more than a magic lantern. By means of a round bottle of clear water to condense the light, an oil lamp, reflector, and a lens on the outside of the machine, he created the first means of projecting pictures. This is the great granddaddy of our present-day projecting machine. Kircher was also an artist. He painted pictures of skeletons and goblins on glass slide and projected them on the walls of his room. His friends and neighbors were very much frightened at seeing these strange apparitions. Then came the urge to make his pictures more lifelike. To make them move. This comic figure created much amusement and wonderment on the part of the audience. Here is the early ancestor of Mickey Mouse. And this is how it was done. The jaw was painted on one glass, the mouth on another, both being movable, and each operated separately by hand. The importance of persistence of vision was brought to light in the 19th century by Dr. Roget before the London Society of Scientific research. We cannot see both sides of this card at the same time. We see the bird and then the cage, but as the card is revolved rapidly, the bird appears to be in the cage. If it were not for this persistence of vision, the pictures we were looking at now would be only a blur. He invented a large hollow top with openings in the side and little figures painted on the interior. As the top was twirled, it created the curious effect you see here. It was the first mechanical device to picture lifelike motion. The greatest forward stride in motion picture history was made by Louis Jacques Daguerre, who began his experiments in 1839 and by 1850 was doing a rushing business in what he called daguerreotypes. He invented the photographic wet plate and succeeded in imprisoning the images created by Leonardo da Vinci centuries before. Let's drop into Daguerre's studio. Here is a happy bridal couple who are being daguerreotyped so their portraits may be handed down to posterity. Daguerre produces the birdie, tells them to keep an eye on and ask them to uh smile, please. The bridegroom keeps one eye on his turtledove and the other on the stuffed canary. They have to sit absolutely still for from 5 to 10 minutes and naturally look almost scared to death, but nevertheless very proud of their first family portrait. In 1860, Coleman Sellers photographed athletes and dancers in various positions of action, and mounting these glass plates on a sort of paddle wheel, revolved it slowly in front of a magic lantern and showed the public the first synthetic pictures of motion. He called it kinetoscope. This combined the temple of Ramesses, Zoe's top, Leonardo da Vinci's camera obscura, Kircher's magic lantern, Dr. Roget's persistence of vision, and Daguerre's negative and positive images. 1875, Eadweard Muybridge in California invented a method of instantaneous photography. Previous to this time, an exposure of several seconds was necessary. Leland Stanford, then governor of California, engaged in a $25,000 wager with James R. Keene, maintaining that all four feet of a trotting horse were off the ground at various times during the animal's progress. Keene said no. To decide the bet, they engaged Eadweard Muybridge who set up a battery of 24 cameras side by side with black thread stretched across the track attached to the shutter on each camera. As the horses trotted by, they broke the threads and clicked the shutters. And one of the photographs showed the horse with all four feet clear of the ground. This is the winning snapshot. So, photography proved that Governor Stanford was right. Now, the greatest genius of all, Thomas A. Edison. He had invented the phonograph and made tiny photographs running spirally around one of his phonograph cylinders. This was a modern improvement on the Egyptian zoetrope. Fred Ott, one of Edison's employees, was photographed on this cylinder while singing a song, Up in a Balloon, Boys. Here's the funny little picture and listen. Up in a balloon, boys. Up in a balloon. Way up in the clouds, boys. I just feel it move. So, Edison's first movie was a squawky. The cylinder machine was unsatisfactory, but one day word came to Edison that George Eastman, the Kodak man, had invented a thin, flexible strip of photographic material covered with sensitized emulsion. It was known as film. Edison ordered a small quantity and made some tests with it. He found it was the ideal medium to use in animated photography. So, the problem of making practical motion pictures was solved September 2nd, 1889. Edison drew plans for his first film camera and then went to the Paris Exposition. On his return, he was taken to his secret experimental room five, where his assistant, W. K. L. Dickson, started the machine going and appeared in a picture on the wall saying, "Good morning, Mr. Edison. Glad to see you back." So, Mr. Edison's second movie machine was also a talkie. Now, a studio was necessary, so Edison built this little shack and called it the Black Mariah. It cost exactly $637.67. And with a studio, talent was needed. Mary Pickford was not yet born and Charles Chaplin was only 3 years old, so Fred Ott proved that he was better at sneezing than singing. Pictures made on the old cylinder machine were very poor and the glass plates that had been used were thin and fragile, but now the problem was solved. Edison soon showed the world that at last movies were a reality. Edison put a blazing electric torch into Kircher's magic lantern of 250 years ago and with Eastman's film, he put the essence of life into Kircher's shadow pictures on the wall. From the union of Edison's camera and Eastman's film, the movies were born. They were crude at first, but this was a great forward stride. Each year saw progress until pictures like this were given to the world and the cavalcade of the movies forged ahead. The Mutoscope was designed to defeat the Edison Kinetoscope patents. Edison used film running in an endless band, so the Biograph company built a nickel slot machine with movies created by hundreds of little photographs on cards that flapped over as you turned the crank. This is how it works. This reel shows a very historic gathering in 1910 all of the motion picture producers of that period. There I am in a nice new suit stopping in a rather awkward position. And now my other partner, Albert E. Smith. The picture ends with a fine study of dear old Mr. Edison and his genial smile. In 1906, I began to experiment with the making of animated cartoons using my training as a newspaper artist. I changed the drawing slightly for each separate exposure, thus making the figures appear to move. It took a great deal of time and patience. Hours and sometimes days were required to complete one of these cartoons. This principle of a series of slightly different drawings photographed successively and then run through the camera at the regular rate of speed is the same method used in making the animated cartoons of today, such as Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies. So, this film made in 1906 was the world's first animated cartoon. A new step in photography was accomplished when we discovered how to make slow motion and fast motion. Slow motion might be called the poetry of motion. The effect is achieved by cranking the camera at about 150 pictures per second, and fast motion by cranking very slowly. Motion pictures have long been employed by institutions of learning as a means of spreading knowledge and aiding scientific experiments. See how the camera photographs the eye of a fly, the eye being dissected and examined through a microscope. By this means you can look through and study the eye and note the lenses in the fly's eye. Like the lens of a camera, they are circular and curved. Here's the fly's eye on the head of a pin. The thousands of lenses in the eye plainly showing. Mr. Tolhurst performed an almost incredible feat by photographing this little man using the fly's eye as a photographic lens in conjunction with his microscopic camera. Here they are, thousands of little men in the fly's eye. A fly can see in all directions at once. That is why he is so difficult to swat. This little Spanish drama featuring beautiful Mildred Harris is a sample of the silent films of a few years ago. Settings, costumes, acting, photography, all could not be improved. Still, something was lacking. Audiences of today accustomed to seeing and hearing the characters on the screen particularly hearing them can hardly believe that in the past they were satisfied with pictures like this. Listen to the silence. Isn't it curious and unsatisfying to see the lips moving and no sound coming forth? Those silent dramas were shadows, merely an improvement over the shadow plays of the Chinese. This little demonstration must make you all realize how far the movies have marched since those first flickering shadows you saw in the early part of this film. In a few moments we will witness the transformation from silence to sound and we will then hear the very latest development in modern singing and talking pictures. In 1928 by radio amplification, sound became an integral part of the motion picture and the movies began to talk. The beautiful voice of Irene Dunne. In this outline of film history, we have journeyed into the past and have seen the wonders of the present. But, what of the future? Much of this tremendous achievement is due to the genius of that great benefactor of mankind, whose beloved personality is but a memory, and whose name now belongs to the ages, Thomas Alva Edison. Mhm.