High Quality
Open the downloaded document, and select print from the file menu (PDF reader required).
cinematography--------------------------------(sin-uh-muh-tahg'-ruh-fee)Cinematography is the technique and art of making motion pictures, which are asequence of photographs of a single subject that are taken over time and thenprojected in the same sequence to create an illusion of motion. Each image of amoving object is slightly different from the preceding one.ProjectorA motion-picture projector projects the sequence of picture frames, containedon a ribbon of film, in their proper order. A claw engages perforations in thefilm and pulls the film down into the film gate, placing each new frame inexactly the same position as the preceding one. When the frame is in position,it is projected onto the screen by illuminating it with a beam of light. Theperiod of time between the projection of each still image when no image isprojected is normally not noticed by the viewer.Two perceptual phenomena--persistence of vision and the critical flickerfrequency--cause a continuous image. Persistence of a vision is the ability ofthe viewer to retain or in some way remember the impression of an image afterit has been withdrawn from view. The critical flicker frequency is the minimumrate of interruption of the projected light beam that will not cause the motionpicture to appear to flicker. A frequency above about 48 interruptions asecond will eliminate flicker.CameraLike a still camera (see CAMERA), a movie camera shoots each pictureindividually. The movie camera, however, must also move the film precisely andcontrol the shutter, keeping the amount of light reaching the film nearlyconstant from frame to frame. The shutter of a movie camera is essentially acircular plate rotated by an electric motor. An opening in the plate exposesthe film frame only after the film has been positioned and has come to rest.The plate itself continues to rotate smoothly.Photographic materials must be manufactured with great precision. Theperforations, or holes in the film, must be precisely positioned. Thepitch--the distance from one hole to another--must be maintained by correctfilm storage. By the late 1920s, a sound-on-film system of synchronous SOUNDRECORDING was developed and gained widespread popularity. In this process, thesound is recorded separately on a machine synchronized with the picture camera.Unlike the picture portion of the film, the sound portion is recorded andplayed back continuously rather than in intermittent motion. Although editingstill makes use of perforated film for flexibility, a more modern techniqueuses conventional magnetic tape for original recording and synchronizes therecording to the picture electronically (see TAPE RECORDER).If the number of photographs projected per unit time (frame rate) differs fromthe number produced per unit time by the camera, an apparent speeding up orslowing down of the normal rate is created. Changes in the frame rates areused occasionally for comic effect or motion analysis.Cinematography becomes an art when the filmmaker attempts to make moving imagesthat relate directly to human perception, provide visual significance andinformation, and provoke emotional response.History of Film Technology
Several parlor toys of the early 1800s used visual illusions similar to thoseof the motion picture.These include the thaumatrope (1825); thephenakistiscope (1832); the stroboscope (1832); and the zoetrope (1834).The photographic movie, however, was first used as a means of investigationrather than of theatrical illusion. Leland Stanford, then governor ofCalifornia, hired photographer Eadweard MUYBRIDGE to prove that at some time ina horse's gallop all four legs are simultaneously off the ground. Muybridgedid so by using several cameras to produce a series of photographs with veryshort time intervals between them. Such a multiple photographic record wasused in the kinetoscope, which displayed a photographic moving image and wascommercially successful for a time.The kinetoscope was invented either by Thomas Alva EDISON or by his assistantWilliam K. L.Dickson, both of whom had experimented originally with movingpictures as a supplement to the phonograph record. They later turned to GeorgeEASTMAN, who provided a flexible celluloid film base to store the large numberof images necessary to create motion pictures.The mechanical means of cinematography were gradually perfected. It wasdiscovered that it was better to display the sequence of images intermittentlyrather than continuously. This technique allowed a greater presentation timeand more light for the projection of each frame. Another improvement was theloop above and below the film gate in both the camera and the projector, whichprevented the film from tearing.By the late 1920s, synchronized sound was being introduced in movies. Thesesound films soon replaced silent films in popularity. To prevent themicrophones from picking up camera noise, a portable housing was designed thatmuffled noises and allowed the camera to be moved about. In recent years,equipment, lighting, and film have all been improved, but the processesinvolved remain essentially the same. RICHARD FLOBERGBibliographyBibliography: Fielding, Raymond, ed., A Technological History of MotionPictures and Television (1967); Happe, I. Bernard, Basic Motion PictureTechnology, 2d ed. (1975); Malkiewicz, J. Kris, and Rogers, Robert E.,Cinematography (1973); Wheeler, Leslie J., Principles of Cinematography, 4thed. (1973).film:--------------------------------film, history of--------------------------------The history of film has been dominated by the discovery and testing of theparadoxes inherent in the medium itself. Film uses machines to record imagesof life; it combines still photographs to give the illusion of continuousmotion; it seems to present life itself, but it also offers impossibleunrealities approached only in dreams.^The motion picture was developed in the1890s from the union of still PHOTOGRAPHY, which records physical reality, withthe persistence-of-vision toy, which made drawn figures appear to move. Fourmajor film traditions have developed since then: fictional narrative film,which tells stories about people with whom an audience can identify because
their world looks familiar; nonfictional documentary film, which focuses on thereal world either to instruct or to reveal some sort of truth about it;animated film, which makes drawn or sculpted figures look as if they are movingand speaking; and experimental film, which exploits film's ability to create apurely abstract, nonrealistic world unlike any previously seen.^Film isconsidered the youngest art form and has inherited much from the older and moretraditional arts. Like the novel, it can tell stories; like the drama, it canportray conflict between live characters; like painting, it composes in spacewith light, color, shade, shape, and texture; like music, it moves in timeaccording to principles of rhythm and tone; like dance, it presents themovement of figures in space and is often underscored by music; and likephotography, it presents a two-dimensional rendering of what appears to bethree-dimensional reality, using perspective, depth, and shading.^Film,however, is one of the few arts that is both spatial and temporal,intentionally manipulating both space and time. This synthesis has given riseto two conflicting theories about film and its historical development.Sometheorists, such as S. M. EISENSTEIN and Rudolf Arnheim, have argued that filmmust take the path of the other modern arts and concentrate not on tellingstories or representing reality but on investigating time and space in a pureand consciously abstract way. Others, such as Andre Bazin and SiegfriedKRACAUER, maintain that film must fully and carefully develop its connectionwith nature so that it can portray human events as excitingly and revealinglyas possible.^Because of his fame, his success at publicizing his activities,and his habit of patenting machines before actually inventing them, ThomasEDISON received most of the credit for having invented the motion picture; asearly as 1887, he patented a motion picture camera, but this could not produceimages. In reality, many inventors contributed to the development of movingpictures. Perhaps the first important contribution was the series of motionphotographs made by Eadweard MUYBRIDGE between 1872 and 1877. Hired by thegovernor of California, Leland Stanford, to capture on film the movement of aracehorse, Muybridge tied a series of wires across the track and connected eachone to the shutter of a still camera. The running horse tripped the wires andexposed a series of still photographs, which Muybridge then mounted on astroboscopic disk and projected with a magic lantern to reproduce an image ofthe horse in motion. Muybridge shot hundreds of such studies and went on tolecture in Europe, where his work intrigued the French scientist E. J. MAREY.Marey devised a means of shooting motion photographs with what he called aphotographic gun.^Edison became interested in the possibilities of motionphotography after hearing Muybridge lecture in West Orange, N.J. Edison'smotion picture experiments, under the direction of William Kennedy LaurieDickson, began in 1888 with an attempt to record the photographs on waxcylinders similar to those used to make the original phonograph recordings.Dickson made a major breakthrough when he decided to use George EASTMAN'scelluloid film instead. Celluloid was tough but supple and could bemanufactured in long rolls, making it an excellent medium for motionphotography, which required great lengths of film. Between 1891 and 1895,Dickson shot many 15-second films using the Edison camera, or Kinetograph, butEdison decided against projecting the films for audiences--in part because thevisual results were inadequate and in part because he felt that motion pictureswould have little public appeal. Instead, Edison marketed an electricallydriven peep-hole viewing machine (the Kinetoscope) that displayed the marvelsrecorded to one viewer at a time.^Edison thought so little of the Kinetoscopethat he failed to extend his patent rights to England and Europe, an oversightthat allowed two Frenchmen, Louis and Auguste LUMIERE, to manufacture a moreportable camera and a functional projector, the Cinematographe, based onEdison's machine. The movie era might be said to have begun officially on Dec.28, 1895, when the Lumieres presented a program of brief motion pictures to apaying audience in the basement of a Paris cafe. English and German inventors
Add a Comment
Bhavadharini Gupthaleft a comment
socialnikhilleft a comment