Theatre 100: Intro to Theatre

Film History
The Great Train Robbery
1903
Thomas Edison
“Inventor” of the movies
• 1889: Demonstrates the KinetoScope (film
viewer)
• 1891: Receives a patent for the
KinetoScope and KintoGraph (camera)
• 1892: Builds the first film studio, the Black
Maria
• 1894: First KintoScope parlor opens in
New York City
KinetoScope
KinetoGraph
Black Maria
Edison’s first studio, 1891
West Orange, NJ
Annie Oakley
1896- Edison’s Greatest Marvel
VitaScope
Koster & Bial's Music Hall
1903
1. First store front movie house opens in
Pittsburgh
2. The first movie with a plot is released
The Nickelodeon
Price of admission: 5 cents
Aberdeen’s First Movie House
• The Bijou (would change its name a number of
times)
• Opened in 1906 with 4 short films
• Continuous screenings: 3 to 5pm and 7:30 to
11pm, 7 days a week
• Price of admission: 10 cents
• Located on south Main, 5 blocks from downtown
• Moved to a downtown location in 1907
• Closed in 1957
The Great Train Robbery
“Bronco Billy” takes aim at the audience
The Great Train Robbery
•
•
•
•
•
•
First movie with a plot
Running time: about 12 minutes
Type of film: Western
Shooting location: Wilds of New Jersey
Produced by the Edison Company
Director: Edwin Porter
Quo Vadis
Italy, 1912
Running time: Over 2 hours
Price of admission: $ 1.50
The Birth of a Nation
1915
• First American Screen
Masterpiece
• Directed by D. W. Griffith
• Running time: 3 hours, 10
minutes
• Filmed in California
The Birth of a Nation
Ford’s Theatre
The Birth of a Nation
In Battle
Theatre Organ
Capitol Theatre, York PA
Music Cue Sheet
1927- First Sound Movie
Vitaphone
Sound on disc
Picture Palace
Roxy Theatre (1927)
New York City
Roxy Theatre
Opens March 1927
Atmospheric Theatre
Keith-Albee Theatre, Huntington, WV
The Lobby
Fox Theatre, San Francisco
Aberdeen’s Movie Palace
• Capitol Theatre
• Opens January 1927
• First performance, a play:
The Green Hat
• First movie: Kid Boots
• Theatre closes summer
1990
• Now home of the Aberdeen
Community Theatre
Capitol Theatre
1927
First Film at the Capitol Theatre
America’s Greatest Film
• Citizen Kane
• Released in 1941
• Directed by and
starring Orson
Welles
• Based on the life of
William Randolph
Hearst
America’s most successful films
Films loose their audience to
Television
Hollywood attempts to win
back their audience
1. Phase out black and white production
2. Produce big budget epic films
3. Attempt to “pull the audience” into the
film
4. More liberal use of sex, “adult” themes
and language, and nudity
The Big Budget Epic
1956
1959
Natural Vision (3D)
• Introduced in 1952
• First film: Bwana Devil
• Required two cameras and two projectors:
one for the left eye, one for the right eye
• Audience had to wear glasses to get the
effect
• About 45 films were shot in 3D
• The “Craze” lasted about 3 years
First 3D movie
3-D Movies
• Most Successful:
House of Wax
• Staring Vincent
Price
• Released in 1953
Secret of 3D
Cinerama
Huge picture on a huge screen
Cinerama
•
•
•
•
•
Used 3 cameras and 3 projectors
Projected onto a large, curved screen
Used 6 channel stereo sound
First film: This is Cinerama (1952)
Last film: How the West was Won (1962)
Cinerama Camera
3 Projectors and a curved
screen
Martin Cinerama, St. Louis
A Cinerama Auditorium
3 overlapping images
Compare: This is Cinerama with
High Noon
CinemaScope
• “Poor man’s Cinerama”
• Used a single camera and a single
projector
• Required an anamorphic lens
• Projected a wide picture on a nearly flat
screen
• Contained a 4 channel stereo sound track
• First film: The Robe (1953)
• “Scoped” films are still being produced
The Robe
The Robe: A Biblical Epic
One frame of a CinemaScope
film
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
The frame projected
Hays Office
• Created in 1922 to head off government
censorship
• Establish a self administered, industry
wide “code of decency”
• The Code ruled Hollywood from 1934 to
1968
• Determined what could and could not be
said or shown on the silver screen
The Code…
1. Methods of crime shall not be shown
2. Excessive and lustful kissing shall not be
shown
3. Sex perversion is forbidden
4. Venereal diseases are not a fit subject
for motion pictures
5. Pointed profanity (Hell, S-O-B, God, God
damn, Damn) is forbidden
6. Drug use is forbidden
Three arms of the industry
1. Production
2. Distribution
3. Exhibition
1948:
Supreme Court forces the studios to sell off
one of the Arms. They sell Exhibition giving
the local Theatre Manager more choice over
what they could show
First film released without the
Production Code seal
• Released in 1953
• Included the words
“virgin” “seduction”
“mistress” and
“pregnant”
• Was a financial
success
Present film Rating System
November 1968
• G: General audience
• PG: Parental guidance suggested
• PG-13: Parents strongly cautioned, some
material may be inappropriate for children
under 13
• R: Restricted: Under 17 requires an
accompanying parent
• NC17: No one under 18 admitted