56 Moving Images: Making Movies, Understanding Media
feature individual character development, inventive use of city locales, and
dramatically expressive compositions.
As you can see, in this fi rst decade of fi lm, certain building blocks of cinematic
form and technique began to emerge. At fi rst, movies typically mimicked
still photography and theater: a view that uses the stage as its frame, and a
single, unedited shot or series of theatrical tableaux. However, through the
advances shown in the work of innovative fi lmmakers, key basic methods
emerged to convey visual ideas more eff ectively, to tell simple stories, and to
enchant and entertain.
- Edison and Dickson’s kinetoscope was designed
for a single viewer. The Lumière brothers’
cinematograph was made to project films to an
audience. How did this development alter the
context, uses, and impact of motion pictures? - What traditions involve an audience facing a
performance or show? What artistic forms involve
a frame? How does this influence the types of
work produced for these formats?
- In what ways are motion pictures similar to the
theater? How are the two art forms different?
How is the cinema similar to and different from
painting?
Framing the Discussion
Figure 2-19 Alice Guy
Blaché directing My
Madonna at her Solax
studios in New Jersey in
- (Courtesy Fort Lee
Library)
56 Moving Images: Making Movies, Understanding Media
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