History

History of SM

SM City North EDSA, the first SM Supermall in the Philippines

The roots of SM date back to the 1950s when entrepreneur Henry Sy, Sr. established a shoe store in
Carriedo, the then-central business district of Manila. His aggressive and adamant strategy helped him gain
large profits within a few years and he later expanded his business in Quiapo to become a fully
functioning department store named "Shoemart", specialising in the sale of shoes, the sector of which the
store originally was. Shoemart was later abbreviated to SM and became commonly known as "SM" or
"Shoemart" by the locals. The SM in Carriedo was later abandoned and moved to the present site
in Quiapo near the Manila LRT Line 1. The old site was demolished in 1982 and was turned into its
Clearance Outlet.
The first SM Supermall, SM City North EDSA, was opened in 1985 and started the Philippine "malling"
phenomenon.[citation needed] Sy observed the malling hobby of Filipinos and opted to make every SM
Supermall like an amusement park. Each contains at least one or more amusement facilities, such
as cinemas, bowling centers, convention centres and game arcades.
Located in several cities and areas in Metro Manila, as well as major provincial cities, each SM is easily
accessible and situated by places of public interest, such aschurches, schools, and highways. SM opened its
first department store outside Metro Manila (SM Delgado) in Iloilo City in 1979 and was relaunched in
2004.
On May 21, 2006, SM opened the SM Mall of Asia.
On May 17, 2013, SM opened the SM Aura Premier. The same year, the company announced a merger
with SM Land, which owns SM Development and Commercial Properties Group. As a result, upon approval
by Securities and Exchange Commission, SM Prime is one of the largest property companies in the
Southeast Asia region, competing with Gokongwei-led Robinsons Land (which owns Robinsons Malls and
Tan-led Megaworld Corporation).
History of movie theater

A three slide projector with a "dissolve transition" feature from 1886.

Magic lantern shows
Main article: Magic lantern
The earliest precursors to movies were magic lantern shows. Magic lanterns used a glass lens, a shutter and
a powerful lamp to project images from glass slides onto a white wall or screen. These slides were originally
hand-painted. The invention of the Argand lamp in the 1790s, limelight in the 1820s and the intensely
bright electric arc lamp in the 1860s increased the brightness of the images.[7] The magic lantern could
project rudimentary moving images, which was achieved by the use of various types of mechanical slides.
Typically, two glass slides, one with the stationary part of the picture and the other with the part that was
to move, would be placed one on top of the other and projected together, then the moving slide would be
hand-operated, either directly or by means of a lever or other mechanism. Chromotrope slides, which
produced eye-dazzling displays of continuously cycling abstract geometrical patterns and colors, were
operated by means of a small crank and pulley wheel that rotated a glass disc.[8] Still photographs were used
later on after the widespread availability of photography technologies after the mid-19th century. Magic
lantern shows were often given at fairs or as part of magic shows. A magic lantern show at the 1851 World's
Fair caused a sensation among the audience.[9]
Silent film
Main article: Silent film

The Berlin Wintergarten theatre was the site of the first cinema, with a short silent film presented by
the Skladanowsky brothers in 1895.
L'Idéal Cinéma at Aniche, opened on November 23, 1905, during the silent film era, and is the oldest still-
active cinema in the world.
The next significant step towards movies was the development of an understanding of image movement.
Simulations of movement date as far back as to 1828, when Paul Roget discovered the phenomenon he
called "persistence of vision". Roget showed that when a series of still images are shown rapidly in front of
a viewer's eye, the images merge into one registered image that appears to show movement, an optical
illusion, since the image is not actually moving. This experience was further demonstrated through Roget's
introduction of the thaumatrope, a device which spun a disk with an image on its surface at a fairly high
rate of speed.[10] The French Lumière brothers' (Louis and Auguste Lumière) first film, Sortie de l'usine
Lumière de Lyon, shot in 1894, is considered the first true motion picture.[11]
From 1894 to the late 1920s, movie theaters showed silent films, which were films with no
synchronized recorded sound or dialogue. In silent films for entertainment, the dialogue was transmitted
through muted gestures, mime and title cards, which contained a written indication of the plot or key
dialogue. The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as film itself, but
because of the technical challenges involved, synchronized dialogue was only made practical in the late
1920s with the perfection of the Audion amplifier tube and the introduction of the Vitaphone system.
During silent films, a pianist, theater organist, or in large cities, even a small orchestra would often play
music to accompany the films. Pianists and organists would either play from sheet music or improvise; an
orchestra would play from sheet music.
Talkies
Main article: Sound film

1908 poster advertising Gaumont's sound films. The Chronomégaphone, designed for large halls, employed
compressed air to amplify the recorded sound.[12]
A "talkie" or sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to
image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in
Paris in 1900, but decades passed before sound motion pictures were made commercially practical. Reliable
synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early sound-on-disc systems, and amplification and
recording quality were also inadequate. Innovations in sound-on-film led to the first commercial screening
of short motion pictures using the technology, which took place in 1923. The primary steps in the
commercialization of sound cinema were taken in the mid- to late 1920s. At first, the sound films
incorporating synchronized dialogue—known as "talking pictures", or "talkies"—were exclusively shorts;
the earliest feature-length movies with recorded sound included only music and effects. The first feature
film originally presented as a talkie was The Jazz Singer, released in October 1927. A major hit, it was
made with Vitaphone, which was at the time the leading brand of sound-on-disc technology. Sound-on-
film, however, would soon become the standard for talking pictures. By the early 1930s, the talkies were a
global phenomenon. In the United States, they helped secure Hollywood's position as one of the world's
most powerful cultural/commercial systems (see Cinema of the United States). In Europe (and, to a lesser
degree, elsewhere), the new development was treated with suspicion by many filmmakers and critics, who
worried that a focus on dialogue would subvert the unique aesthetic virtues of soundless cinema. In Japan,
where the popular film tradition integrated silent movie and live vocal performance, talking pictures were
slow to take root. In India, sound was the transformative element that led to the rapid expansion of the
nation's film industry.

Types of Cinema Design

Multiplexes and megaplexes

Example of a Multiplex layout

Main article: multiplex (movie theater)
Canada was the first country in the world to have a two-screen theater. The Elgin Theatre in Ottawa became
the first venue to offer two film programs on different screens in 1957 when Canadian theater-owner Nat
Taylor converted the dual screen theater into one capable of showing two different movies simultaneously.
Taylor is credited by Canadian sources as the inventor of the multiplex or cineplex; he later founded
the Cineplex Odeon Corporation, opening the 18-screen Toronto Eaton Centre Cineplex, the world's largest
at the time, in Toronto, Canada.[13] In the United States, Stanley Durwood of American Multi-Cinema
(now AMC Theatres) is credited as pioneering the multiplex in 1963 after realizing that he could operate
several attached auditoriums with the same staff needed for one through careful management of the start
times for each movie. Ward Parkway Center in Kansas City, Missouri had the first multiplex cinema in the
United States.
Since the 1960s, multiple-screen theaters have become the norm, and many existing venues have been
retrofitted so that they have multiple auditoriums. A single foyer area is shared among them. In the 1970s
many large 1920s movie palaces were converted into multiple screen venues by dividing their large
auditoriums, and sometimes even the stage space, into smaller theaters. Because of their size, and amenities
like plush seating and extensive food/beverage service, multiplexes and megaplexes draw from a larger
geographic area than smaller theaters. As a rule of thumb, they pull audiences from an eight to 12 mile
radius, versus a three to five mile radius for smaller theaters (though the size of this radius depends on
population density).[14] As a result, the customer geography area of multiplexes and megaplexes typically
overlaps with smaller theaters, which face threat of having their audience siphoned by bigger theaters that
cut a wider swath in the movie-going landscape.
In most markets, nearly all single-screen theaters (sometimes referred to as a "Uniplex") have gone out of
business; the ones remaining are generally used for arthouse films, e.g. the Crest Theatre[15] in
downtown Sacramento, California, small-scale productions, film festivals or other presentations. Because
of the late development of multiplexes, the term "cinema" or "theater" may refer either to the whole complex
or a single auditorium, and sometimes "screen" is used to refer to an auditorium. A popular film may be
shown on multiple screens at the same multiplex, which reduces the choice of other films but offers more
choice of viewing times or a greater number of seats to accommodate patrons. Two or three screens may
be created by dividing up an existing cinema (as Durwood did with his Roxy in 1964), but newly built
multiplexes usually have at least six to eight screens, and often as many as twelve, fourteen, sixteen or even
eighteen.
Although definitions vary, a large multiplex with 20 or more screens is usually called a megaplex however
in the United Kingdom this was a brand name for large Virgin Cinema (later UGC). The first megaplex is
generally considered to be the Kinepolis in Brussels, Belgium, which opened in 1988 with 25 screens and
a seating capacity of 7,500. The first theater in the U.S. built from the ground up as a megaplex was the
AMC Grand 24 in Dallas, Texas, which opened in May 1995, while the first megaplex in the U.S. based on
an expansion of an existing facility was Studio 28 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which reopened in November
1988 with 20 screens and a seating capacity of 6,000.
Drive-in[edit]
See also: List of drive-in theaters

A drive-in with a 33-metre (108 foot) wide inflatable movie screen in the centre of Brussels, Belgium
A drive-in movie theater is an outdoor parking area with a screen—sometimes an inflatable screen—at one
end and a projection booth at the other. Moviegoers drive into the parking spaces which are sometimes
sloped upwards at the front to give a more direct view of the movie screen. Movies are usually viewed
through the car windscreen (windshield) although some people prefer to sit on the hood of the car. Sound
is either provided through portable loudspeakers located by each parking space, or is broadcast on an FM
radio frequency, to be played through the car's stereo system. Because of their outdoor nature, drive-ins
usually only operate seasonally, and after sunset. Drive-in movie theaters are mainly found in the United
States, where they were especially popular in the 1950s and 1960s. Once numbering in the thousands, about
400 remain in the U.S. today. In some cases, multiplex or megaplex theaters were built on the sites of former
drive-in theaters.
Other venues

A giant inflatable movie screenused at a temporary outdoor movie theater (open air cinema)

1967 Bedford mobile cinema

Some outdoor movie theaters are just grassy areas where the audience sits upon chairs, blankets or even
in hot tubs, and watch the movie on a temporary screen, or even the wall of a building. Colleges and
universities have often sponsored movie screenings in lecture halls. The formats of these screenings include
35 mm, 16 mm, DVD, VHS, and even 70 mm in rare cases. Some alternative methods of showing movies
have been popular in the past. In the 1980s the introduction of VHS cassettes made possible video-salons,
small rooms where visitors viewed movies on a large TV. These establishments were especially popular in
the Soviet Union, where official distribution companies were slow to adapt to changing demand, and so
movie theaters could not show popular Hollywood and Asian films.
In 1967 the British government launched seven custom-built mobile cinema units for use as part of
the Ministry of Technology campaign to raise standards. Using a very futuristic look, these 27-seat cinema
vehicles were designed to attract attention. They were built on a Bedford SB3 chassis with a custom
Coventry Steel Caravan extruded aluminum body. Movies are also commonly shown on airliners in flight,
using large screens in each cabin or smaller screens for each group of rows or each individual seat;
the airline company sometimes charges a fee for the headphonesneeded to hear the movie's sound. In a
similar fashion, movies are sometimes also shown on trains, such as the Auto Train.
The smallest purpose-built cinema is the Cabiria Cine-Cafe which measures 24 m² (258.3 ft²) and has
a seating capacity of 18. It was built by Renata Carneiro Agostinho da Silva (Brazil) in Brasília DF, Brazil
in 2008. It is mentioned in the 2010 Guinness World Records. The World's smallest solar-powered mobile
cinema is Sol Cinema in the UK. Touring since 2010 the cinema is actually a converted 1972 caravan. It
seats 8-10 at a time. In 2015 it featured in a Lenovo advert for the launch of a new tablet. The Bell Museum
of Natural History in Minneapolis, Minnesotahas recently begun summer "bike-ins," inviting only
pedestrians or people on bicycles onto the grounds for both live music and movies. In
various Canadian cities, including Toronto, Calgary, Ottawa and Halifax, al-fresco movies projected on the
walls of buildings or temporarily erected screens in parks operate during the Summer and cater to a
pedestrian audience. The New Parkway Museum in Oakland, California replaces general seating
with couches and coffee tables, as well as having a full restaurant menu instead of general movie theater
concessions such as popcorn or candy.

3D

A typical multiplex (AMCPromenade 16 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles)

Main article: 3D film
3D film is a system of presenting film images so that they appear to the viewer to be three-dimensional.
Visitors usually borrow or keep special glasses to wear while watching the movie. Depending on the system
used, these are typically polarized glasses. Three-dimensional movies use two images channeled,
respectively, to the right and left eyes to simulate depth by using 3-D glasses with red and blue lenses
(anaglyph), polarized (linear and circular), and other techniques. 3-D glasses deliver the proper image to
the proper eye and make the image appear to "pop-out" at the viewer and even follow the viewer when
he/she moves so viewers relatively see the same image.
The earliest 3-D movies were presented in the 1920s. There have been several prior "waves" of 3D movie
distribution, most notably in the 1950s when they were promoted as a way to offer audiences something
that they could not see at home on television. Still the process faded quickly and as yet has never been more
than a periodic novelty in movie presentation. The "golden era" of 3D film began in the early 1950s with
the release of the first color stereoscopic feature, Bwana Devil.[17] The film starred Robert Stack, Barbara
Britton and Nigel Bruce. James Mage was an early pioneer in the 3D craze. Using his 16 mm 3D Bolex
system, he premiered his Triorama program in February 1953 with his four shorts: Sunday In Stereo, Indian
Summer, American Life, and This is Bolex Stereo.[18] 1953 saw two groundbreaking features in
3D: Columbia's Man in the Dark and Warner Bros. House of Wax, the first 3D feature with stereophonic
sound. For many years, most 3-D movies were shown in amusement parks and even "4-D" techniques have
been used when certain effects such as spraying of water, movement of seats, and other effects are used to
simulate actions seen on the screen. The first decline in the theatrical 3D craze started in August and
September 1953.
In 2009, movie exhibitors became more interested in 3D film. The number of 3D screens in theaters is
increasing. The RealD company expects 15,000 screens worldwide in 2010. The availability of 3D movies
encourages exhibitors to adopt digital cinema and provides a way for theaters to compete with home
theaters. One incentive for theaters to show 3D films is that although ticket sales have declined, revenues
from 3D tickets have grown.[19] In the 2010s, 3D films became popular again. The IMAX 3D system and
digital 3D systems are used (the latter is used in the animated movies of Disney/Pixar).
The RealD 3D system works by using a single digital projector that swaps back and forth between the
images for eyes. A filter is placed in front of the projector that changes the polarization of the light coming
from the projector. A silver screen is used to reflect this light back at the audience and reduce loss of
brightness. There are four other systems available: Volfoni, Master Image, XpanD and Dolby 3D.
When a system is used that requires inexpensive 3D glasses, they can sometimes be kept by the patron.
Most theaters have a fixed cost for 3D, while others charge for the glasses, but the latter is uncommon (at
least in the United States). For example, in Pathé theaters in the Netherlands the extra fee for watching a
3D film consists of a fixed fee of €1.50, and an optional fee of €1 for the glasses.[20] Holders of the Pathé
Unlimited Gold pass (see also below) are supposed to bring along their own glasses; one pair, supplied
yearly, more robust than the regular type, is included in the price.
IMAX
IMAX is a system using film with more than ten times the frame size of a 35 mm film to produce image
quality far superior to conventional film. IMAX theaters use an oversized screen as well as special
projectors. Invented by a Canadian company, the first permanent IMAX theater was at Ontario
Place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. At the IMAX cinema attached to the National Media
Museum in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, in the United Kingdom, visitors to the museum's sixth
floor can observe the IMAX projection booth via a glass rear wall, and watch the large format films being
loaded and projected.[21]