Over the past century movie making
has greatly advanced in its development. Thomas Edison created the
first film which was played on a personal viewing device called a kinetoscope.
Edison's original purpose for the kinetoscope was to help industrial workers
train for their jobs. The kinestoscope, was shortly replaced by screen
projectors which showed the picture to a whole room of people at once.
The many possibilities that motion
pictures held were soon discovered and they quickly gained a great deal
of popularity. Many of the earliest films were documentaries or what
were called "actualities". They allowed the audience to experience
things they had previously only read about in books. Novelty films
told short stories and were also well liked. Both actualities and
novelties were short, simple, and told from one point of view.
As movies continued to develop, reliance on camera technology
increased to achieve dramatic effects. Edwin S. porter is known for
introducing the element of editing into his films as a storytelling technique.
His film, "Life of an American Fireman" (1903), cuts back and forth between
the interior and exterior of a burning building in order ti heighten dramatic
effect. This type of editing was known as "temporal overlap editing".
Although it allowed the audience to watch different points of view, it
was rather confusing and hard to follow. This type of editing was
later replaced by "crosscutting" in which the action would cut back and
forth between two separate locations, implying that the scenes take place
simultaneluosy. This form of editing presented a comprehensible and
clear method of obserbing multiple view points and also created subjective
time. It is, however, an "un-natural" way of viewing a film, since
it is not possible for a human to be in more than one place at one time.
No matter It allows us to experience the omniscience that we have
all, at one time or another, wished for. Vive la cinema!
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