Moving Images, Understanding Media

52 Moving Images: Making Movies, Understanding Media

the choice of framing and use of perspective with such

fi lms as the well-known Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat

contribute signifi cantly to the audience’s engagement

with the material, as shown through the fearful reactions

of some of the spectators.

Projecting Motion Pictures

Th e limitations of the motion pictures as unveiled by

the Lumière brothers in December 1895 were answered

by both technical and artistic means. Th e projection

system used in the cinematograph would not support

the tension of long rolls of fi lm, and this was solved

through the Latham Loop, an advancement named

aft er its inventors, the Latham family, in which a small

loop was incorporated into the path of the fi lm through

projection. Th is reduced the tension on the fi lm rolling

through the projector, so longer reels could be used

without assured breakage.

Th e next improvement was with the pull-down mechanism

of the claw in the projector. R.W. Paul pioneered a solution

known as the Maltese Cross, which uses a pin to pull down

the fi lm frame-by-frame in intermittent motion as the cross

rotates. It was fi ne tuned by 1905 and became a permanent

pull-down mechanism for 35-millimeter fi lm.

Remember that a fi lm roll is a long strip of light-sensitive

material that must be developed to produce an image. Th e

standard size of fi lm established by the Edison studios and

the Lumières was 35mm, and later other sizes of fi lm were

created, such as the smaller and cheaper 16mm and 8mm and

the larger 70mm for increased quality when projected. Later

in the twentieth century, videotape recording was introduced,

in which magnetic tape was used instead of the fi lm negative.

Th e medium that you are probably most familiar with is

digital video (DV), in which sensors record images as digital

information.

Louis Lumière brought his camera to record events in front

of a factory, at his brother’s house, and on streets. If the Lumières

can be seen as the originators of non-fi ction fi lms with their

minute-long, motion-picture documents of daily events, the

fi lmmaker who provided a number of the fi rst strong creative

breakthroughs in fi ction fi lm is Georges Méliès.

The Illusionist

Cinema is built on illusion: We believe we are seeing movement in front of us on

the screen. In fact, as fi rst indicated by scholars Joseph and Barbara Anderson,

our brains are actively seeking to create this illusion as we are working to

Figure 2-14 In Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat,

the train has traveled from the distance and is

now pulling into the station and towards the

viewer. (Courtesy Photofest)

Figure 2-15 35mm fi lm being inspected

and edited by British director Thorold

Dickinson. (Courtesy Getty Images)

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