The Departure of the Workers of the Lumire Factory Essays

The Departure of the Workers of the Lumire Factory Essays The Departure of the Workers of the Lumire Factory Essay The Departure of the Workers of the Lumire Factory Essay Essay Topic: Hilarious The staggering cost of making a blockbuster movie makes one wonder how it all began. When did the studios decide to venture so much money on just one movie, and how do they know that we, the paying public, will want to watch it? Audiences have become much more discerning than they were in those heady days, just over one hundred years ago, when the first paying audience watched their first film.In 1895, the first moving picture, The Departure of the Workers of the Lumire Factory, showed just that employees leaving their place of employment. It was hardly a riveting subject one would have thought. However, the very first cinema audience viewed it with amazement. They were used to seeing magic lantern shows, but this showed real moving subjects. The cost to the early filmmakers, the Lumire brothers, was minimal, only the price of the film.Although they were not the first to project a moving image, the Lumire brothers invented the first portable motion-picture camera, film processing un it and projector all in one machine. They called it the Cinematographe and it made motion pictures very popular. Another of their early movies, The arrival of a Train at the Station, showed the train coming in diagonally across the screen. When it was shown, there was panic. The audience found it so realistic that they thought the train was going to crash into them. The Lumire brothers also filmed the first visual gag. A gardener is watering, when a boy steps on the hose. The gardener looks into the nozzle of the hose to see what is wrong. The boy steps off and the gardener is sprayed with water. This now seems tame, but at the time, people found it hilarious.Despite the popularity of their moving pictures, the Lumire brothers failed to see the commercial possibilities of their invention. Louise Lumire even said, The cinema is an invention without a future. How wrong he was! The new devotees of the emerging film industry had already realised that the home movie approach wasnt going to satisfy their audiences for long an d began to look for more interesting subjects.The first film that told a story was produced in 1903 by the laboratories of Thomas Edison in England. It was The Great Train Robbery, and it caused a nation-wide sensation. This was shortly followed by the first full-length feature film. It was an Australian production called The Story of the Kelly Gang and was shot on location in Victoria by Charles Tait at a total cost of 450. The premiere was held in Melbourne on 24 December 1906, six years before the first full-length features were made in either America or Britain.The first nickelodeons (motion-picture theaters) opened in November 1905, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Soon nickelodeons were opening all over the country and everybody began to go to the movies. Most of the early movies were made in New York and New Jersey, and it was not until 1913 that films began to be made in Hollywood. Since then, every movie mogul has tried to make a bigger and better film, with, it would seem, no expense spared. Has the moving picture show reached its zenith? Possibly not; there are still people who see film differently. They are the true artists, who are looking to create something new and fresh with this amazing medium, without the backing of the movie mogul empires. Perhaps there are even more wonders to behold in the future of cinematography.