A Brief History of Cinema, Television, and Media

1
A Brief History of Cinema, Television, and Media

• Original Presentation Fall 1997, Regent
  University
• Joseph G. Kickasola, PhD. Associate Professor
• Director of the Baylor University Communication
• New York Program
• Power Point Jonathan Sutton M.A., M.Ed.
• Blackman High School

2
Do you think we will ever live in a society like
Fahrenheit 451?

• Or, do you think society is going to benefit from
  all of this new knowledge, information, and
  technology occurring today?

3
Before we can answer the question

• we need to know where we have come from, where
  we are at, and where we are heading

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The Silent Era - Beginnings

• 1895
• Thomas Edison - Kinetoscope
• Frenchman Lumier - Cinematographe

Film industry first located near Manhattan in New
Jersey
Question One
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1902 Georges Melies

• Trip to the Moon
• Jules Verne Story
• Remade in Smashing Pumpkins music video Tonight,
  Tonight

• Melies didnt think best work.
• He did understand popularity.
• First to Fade In/Fade Out
• First to use Stop Motion

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• 1903
• Edwin S. Porter
• The Great Train Robbery
• Considered first successful narrative film
• Short only five minutes

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• Original Movies - two minute montages of movement
  
• Porter thought these movies were gettingstale
• Sent camera crew out west to shoot movie
• Considered first Western

Question 2
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Stone Temple Pilots Interstate Love Song
www.wsix.com

• What cartoon character is the silent film
  character alluding to?
• How do you think this video could be dealing with
  issues of entrapment and/or escape?
• Why did the filmmakers incorporate Silent Film
  techniques into mid 1990s filmmaking?

9

• 1915 Birth of a Nation

• Dir. D.W. Griffith

• First feature length movie (nearly two hours)
• Racist storyline glorifying the Ku Klux Klan

• Griffith was from Kentucky
• Bought into Social Darwinism
• Admired by President Wilson

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• By the end of the 1910s, Filmmaking was moving
  to California
• Land was plentiful and cheap
• Rules were lax
• Filmmakers were beyond Thomas Edison and his
  goons reach
• Hollywoodland was originally a land development

Question 3
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1919 Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Dir. Robert Wiene

• Part of German Expressionism movement
• Influenced by effects of the Great War
• Allegorical to German History
• Mise en scene
• Influenced Film Noir
• Remade in 2005
• Red Hot Chili Peppers used this style
• in their music video The Other Side

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Red Hot Chili Peppers Other Side www.wsix.com

• What does this video say about industrialization?
• What kind of world exists throughout the video?
• Why are the images absurd?
• What artist is alluded to throughout the video?
• Why did RHCP agree to make a video using art
  techniques from the 1915s?

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Early Film Stars

• Douglass Fairbanks
• Mary Pickford
• Buster Keaton
• Charlie Chaplin
• Clara Bow
• Rudolph Valentino

Question 4
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Nanook of the North
Dir Robert Flaherty

• Struggles of Canadian Inuit Family
• First Feature Length Documentary
• Heavily Staged
• Distorted Reality
• Considered unethical today

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1927 Jazz Singer

• Stars Al Jolson
• First talky
• Warner Brothers advanced synch sound
• Vitaphone sound printed on record not
• film
• Jolson is in blackface
• Because he was Jewish and the message of the
  film, critics been kinder

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Question 5
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Talking Era Hollywoods Golden Age1928 - 1945

• California studio
• system in place
• Moguls ran the business
• Vertically Integrated
• companies
• Many consider this
• the best age of the cinema

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Movie Clip

• Who Framed Roger Rabbit opening clip on
  videotape
• Through the viewing of this clip, assess how the
  studio system was organized and carried out
  during the Golden Era of Hollywood.

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1934 - Triumph of the Will
Dir Leni Reifenstahl

• Chronicles the
• 1934 Nazi Party
• Congress
• Hitler godlike
• True German Leader returning Germany to glory
• Propaganda highly staged
• Considered one of the greatest films ever
• Influences cinema to this day
• Raises question of art and morality

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Television Arrives

• 1940 First American Network Television
  Broadcast WNBT in New York
• Color Television also introduced
• Considered Futuristic

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1941 Citizen Kane
Dir Orson Welles

• Penultimate Hollywood Studio Film
• Critics consider it best ever made
• Welles Boy wonder
• Best work
• Broke all cinematic conventions up to that time
• These conventions now part of everyday filmmaking

Question 6
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Movie clip

• Citizen Kane Opening Clip
• Why do you think telling this story in various
  flashbacks was important to Wells?
• In your own words explain the opening sequence
  using the news reel footage? How is this
  different from the newspaper reporters trying to
  figure out the meaning of Rosebud?

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1943 - 1961 Italian Neorealism

• Gritty films about everyday life
• Reaction to the effects of WW II
• Shot on location
• Long takes
• Vittorio De Sica
• Roberto Rossollini
• The Bicycle Thief
• best known movie

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• 1948 Golden Age of Television
• Uncle Milton Berle begins TV comedy show
• Ushers in Golden Age of television
• Shows include I Love Lucy and Leave it to
  Beaver
• Jack Bennie, George Burns and Gracie Allen
• Became THE mass medium

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• 1950s
• Italians, French,
• and Japanese enter mainstream filmmaking
• Influenced by the United States
• Reject US studio system
• Seek to create own styles

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1955

• US Census reports 67 of all US Households have
  televisions
• Helps create the pop culture
• 1998 movie, Pleasantville is a parody

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Weezer Just Like Buddy Holly www.wsix.com

• What 1970s television show does this video use
  footage from and parody? What film and television
  stars make guest appearances throughout the
  video?
• This show and the television show both idealized
  the 1950s. Why do you think they portrayed the
  era in this way.
• What mass media is shown at the start of the
  video?
• How does the dress differ from teens dressing
  today?

This video is heavy in the use of editing using
the Kulishov effect.
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1955 Indian Filmmaking

• By this time India making movies
• Western (British) influence
• Created own style
• Today India produces more movies and makes more
  money than US industry
• Higher ticket sales
• Fractionalized into sects and regions within
  country

Question 7
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French New Wave

• 1958 1965
• Youthful filmmakers
• Rejected Classical Hollywood form
• Long moving shots with jump cuts
• Made movies for low cost
• Influence by film critic Andre Bazin
• Jean Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut Eric Rohmer
• Adhered to Director as auteur theory

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(No Transcript)
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Sixpence None the Richer Kiss Me www.wsix.com

• Original Video Directed by Brandon Dickerson
• The video is a parody of Jules et Jim
• The video is an homage to French New Wave
  filmmaker Francois Truffaut
• Song went on to international fame
• MTV created a remake of the video for the movie
  Shes All That
• Why do you think the filmmakers chose to make
  this video within this style for the band with
  this song?

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1964 Hard Days Night
Dir Richard Lester

• British Comedy
• Cinema verite cinema of truth
• Irony is this type of filmmaking is highly
  stylized
• Cut to the beat of the music
• Considered to be first long form music video
• Satire of youth rebellion and defiance to
  authority
• Highly influential with MTV, BET and todays mass
  youth culture

Question 8
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(No Transcript)
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1965 - 1970

• 1965 Television networks move to all color
  format
• Shows still rural friendly until 1970 when
  replaced
• Green Acres and Andy Griffith Show

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1970s The New Hollywood

• Younger generation of mavericks buck the studio
  system
• George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen,
  Stanley Kubrick, and Robert Altman
• Technology and commercialism mix
• Star Wars (1977)
• Video tape changes film industry

Question 9
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1980s

• Cable television develops
• Personal computers affordable
• Home satellite dishes affordable
• New Hollywood now in power
• Old Classics remade
• Spike Lee and minority cinema emerges

Question 10
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Darren GrantNew Minority Filmmaker

• Mother is a well known Indy filmmaker from
  Seattle who has taught in Los Angeles
• Attended Cal State Northridge
• Had friends die in the 94 Northridge Earthquake
• Directed over 80 RB music videos including
  Destinys Child, Kirk Franklin, Mary Mary, and
  Jewell.
• First feature, Diary of a Mad Black Woman

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Kirk Franklin Looking for Youwww.wsix.com

• The music within this music is ironic when
  compared with the images. How so?
• What kind of message is being portrayed?
• After watching this video, what elements make up
  minority cinema?

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The Digital Age

• 1990 present
• Computer, Cinema, and Television Meet

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1990s
Question 11

• Computer, cinema, and gaming meet
• Forrest Gump, Jurassic Park, and ID4
• Cinema, computer graphics merge
• Cable outlets now viable moneymakers
• HBO, Showtime, IFC, TMC
• Mass media increasingly narrowcasting
• Virtual reality and gaming pair with TV and
  cinema

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Die Brucke www.reelgood.tv

• Shot in June 1999 in Northern Virginia
• Directed by Jason Dickerson
• First Assistant Director Jonathan Sutton
• Five time film festival award winner including
  Spindletop and Festival Der Nationen
• Part of the Regent University (VA) short film
  distribution in the early 2000s

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2000s

• The rise of Digital Video
• Non Linear Editing Software now consumer friendly
  and affordable
• Everybodys a filmmaker
• Proliferation of content on WWW
• Media is now everywhere
• YouTube, Facebook
• Filmmakers have to think world wide
• NYU Singapore

Question 13
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Breaking Up is Hard to Do www.reelgood.tv

• Directed by Jonathan Sutton
• Shot over one weekend in March 1999
• Over one year in post production
• Crew consisted of nearly forty people
• Premiered April 2000 at a DGA screening in Los
  Angeles
• East Coast Premier May 2000 at the Naro Indy
  Theater in Norfolk, Virginia
• Budget was less than three thousand dollars
• 2001 Festival Der Nationen (Ebensee, Austria)
  Bronze Bear Award
• One of forty five award winning films from Regent
  University (VA) students
• Viewed at numerous festivals across the globe as
  one of several short films promoted by Regent
  University

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What does the future hold?

• The world is increasingly a media driven place
• Gens X and Y have become increasingly savvy
• Mass media replaced with fractionalization
• Post Modern Society
• Critics Marshall McLuhan, Francis Schaeffer,
  and Neil Postman
• The Google Generation processes differently

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And now we arrive

• at our original question

46
Will we live in a society like Fahrenheit 451?

• Or, is society going to benefit from all of this
  new knowledge, information, and technology?