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The picture worth $25,000
Some English friends who rode horses had a bet worth $25,000. One of the friends said a horse has all four hooves off the ground when galloping. The others did not believe him, so they made a bet about it. He bet $25,000 dollars that the horse did in fact have all hooves off the ground when galloping. They set up cameras that took a rapid sequence of pictures. When the pictures were developed they saw that horses did leave the ground briefly when galloping. -
The First Multiple Shots Camera
Etienne Marey, a frenchman, created a camera. The camera which was shaped like a gun shot multiple pictures at a time. The camera took twelve pictures per second. This was a big breakthrugh at the time. Marey probably got rich off this because people wanted what was new and improved. -
Peephole Kinetoscope
Thomas Edison created the first "theater". He made something called a peephole kinetoscope. It only allowed one person to view the moving images. The photographs or drawings were showed at a rapid sequence, making them appear to move. Edison knew that he could make a lot of money from this invention, so he sold them to the theaters. Even though it only allowed one person to view at a time, it was a big breakthrough, so people came and watched the moving images. -
The Cinematographe
Edison knew his kinetoscope would make more money, so he avoided making a projector. Despite his efforts the Lumiere brothers, Louis and August, made a projector they called a cinematographe. It played short films which were thirty to sixty seconds long. Two films they made were about a man falling off a horse and a kid attempting to catch a fish in its fishbowl. The first people to see the cinematographe were the people who lived in Paris. They were charged one franc to watch a film. -
Nickelodeon
First there was Vaudeville, which was where everyone went to see the musicals. The owners decided that to get more moeny and more entertainment they showed short films between acts. Thus they became Nickelodeons, instead of Vaudevilles. The short films were occumpanied by pianos and sound effects. When they became Nickelodeon theaters they were getting more than twenty-six million viewers. When people realized how much money was being made from Nickelodeons they tried to create a monopoly. -
The Great Train Robbery
It was a film that lasted twelve minutes, which was a long time in that era. The film was made up of fourteen different scenes. Edwin Porter, Edison's chief of production, created this film. His goal was to make movies more about story telling. There was a shift between different narrative sequences. There was also different camera positions and the cameras were not all placed at the same distance. -
MPPC
When people realized the Nickelodeons were making so much money they decided to make a monopoly to control everything. Edison was a part of this, along with several other companies. They called it the Motion Pictures Patents Company (MPPC). -
Moved to California
The people wanted to get away from the controlling MPPC. One was to do this was to move locations. They moved to the West Coast. It had better lighting as apposed to the rainy New York. Another reason they moved to California was an easy escape. California is closer to Mexico than New York. This allowed for an easy escape if Edison sent men after them. -
Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford, or America's Sweetheart as she was nicknamed, was a very popular actress during the Silent Era in film. Pickford was a co-founder of the film studio United Artists. She one of thirty-six founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She was in fifty-two films. She was so influential that she helped make the films she starred in. She had a pay of five hundred dollars a week. -
Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin was another popular actor in the Silent Era. Before 1917 he was paid a hundred fifty dollars a week, but after 1917 he was paid more than a million a year. He communicated messages about good and evil in society through his films. He was a very humorus actor. His first film was Keystone Studios's Making a Living which he did in 1914. In 1919, Chaplin co-founded the United Artists. -
Warner Bros
Warner Bros is a very popular film studio. It was created in 1923 by Harry, Albert, and Sam Warner. They started out as theater owners. In 1918 they were in Hollywood and created their studio. Their first nationally syndicated film was during World War I. Their first major deal was the acquisition of the rights to Avery Hopwood's 1919 Broadway play, The Gold Diggers. -
Acadmy Awards
The first awards show honored the best films of 1927 and 1928. Tickets were five dollars and two hundred seventy people attended the event which lasted fifteen minutes. Louis Mayer created the ceremony. It is the only Academy Awards ceremony not to be broadcast either on radio or television. An actor or director could be awarded for multiple works within a year.
