In a world where we are constantly bombarded with video technology on our computers and smartphones, it’s crazy to think that this type of technology was once nonexistent. In the early days of film technology, all films were silent, meaning they had no sound synchronization either on the film itself or by an orchestra or recorded track.
Why were they silent?
Sound recording technology was first developed in 1877 with Thomas Edison’s phonograph. With the phonograph, a person could speak into the machine and the machine would replay what the person had just said. This is why it was referred to as the “talking machine.”
Phonographs and other prototypes of speakers were used to accompany silent films during the late 1920s, yet before this, all films were silent due to the fact that sound recording capabilities within the film itself were not yet developed and wouldn’t be until the 1930s. In the early days of film, only moving pictures could be recorded - not the sound that went along with them. This is why all films were silent before the late 1920s.
The First Film
The oldest surviving silent film is known as the Roundhay Garden Scene. It was recorded on October 14, 1888, by inventor Louis Le Prince in Roundhay, Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. The footage depicts Le Prince’s son, his in-laws the Whitleys, and a woman named Annie Hartley enjoying an afternoon in the garden of Oakwood Grange, the Whitley’s home.
Le Prince’s invention of the moving picture predates Thomas Edison’s, making him the first to successfully capture moving images on camera.
The First Commercial Silent Film Screening
The first commercial movie screening happened on December 28, 1895, at the Grande Cafe in Paris. Brothers Louis and Auguste Lumiere developed a film using their invention the Cinematographe which showed scenes of everyday French life, charging admission to see their series of shorts.
The First Feature-Length Silent Film
In 1906, the first feature-length silent film was produced in Australia, titled The Story of the Kelly Gang. The film was directed by Charles Tait and depicted the adventures of the outlaw Ned Kelly and his gang. The film was more than an hour long, making it the longest narrative film seen in the world at the time.
The First Film With Sound
The first “talkie,” a film with synchronized recorded music and speech, was The Jazz Singer, a movie about a young Jewish man who defies his devout religious traditions by becoming a jazz singer. The film was released in 1927 and directed by Alan Crosland.
Can you believe that all films were once silent? It’s difficult to imagine in an age where video and sound are so prevalent in our every day lives. Yet this used to be the reality for early filmmakers and cinephiles. Silent films were a major source of entertainment from the early 1890s until the 1930s when sound-on-film capabilities were introduced.
Answer: There first silent film was called, Birth of a Nation. It was produced by D.W. Griffith
D.W. Griffith
Griffith. American filmmaker (1875–1948) David Llewelyn Wark "D. W." Griffith (January 22, 1875 – July 23, 1948) was an American movie director and white supremacist. He is best known as the director of the Ku Klux Klan 1915 movie The Birth of a Nation and the 1916 follow-up movie Intolerance.
https://simple.wikipedia.org › wiki › D._W._Griffith
The oldest surviving silent film is known as the Roundhay Garden Scene. It was recorded on October 14, 1888, by inventor Louis Le Prince in Roundhay, Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, England.
The Horse in Motion, animated from a plate by Eadweard Muybridge, made with an array of cameras set up along a racetrack Roundhay Garden Scene, which has a running time of just over two seconds, was filmed in 1888. It is believed to be the world's earliest surviving motion-picture film.
An 11-minute-long escapade telling the story of a gang of bandits who rob a passenger train, The Great Train Robbery is a spectacle- and drama-laden film.
The best known of these early supernatural-based works is the 3-minute short film Le Manoir du Diable (1896), known in English as both "The Haunted Castle" or "The House of the Devil". The film is sometimes credited as being the first ever horror film.
Roundhay Garden Scene is a short silent motion picture filmed by French inventor Louis Le Prince at Oakwood Grange in Roundhay, Leeds, in Northern England on 14 October 1888. It is believed to be the oldest surviving film. The camera used was patented in the United Kingdom on 16 November 1888.
The earliest surviving film, known today as the Roundhay Garden Scene (1888), was captured by Louis Le Prince and briefly depicted members of his family in motion.
For the first color in a film you have to travel back into the silent era, pass by 1922's The Toll of the Sea (starring Anna May Wong), for which the six-year-old Technicolor Corporation had licked a projection problem, but not the “blue” problem.
On October 6, 1927, Warner Bros. released The Jazz Singer, the first feature-length film to incorporate synchronized sound for sequences of dialogue. Though these sequences were limited and brief, hearing the voices of the film's stars was a revelation for audiences. The following year, Warner Bros.
Just a few years after the first filmmakers emerged in the mid-1890s, Mellies created “Le Manoir du Diable,” sometimes known in English as “The Haunted Castle” or “ The House of the Devil,” in 1896, and it is widely believed to be the first horror movie.
around 75% of original silent-era films have perished; only 14% of the 10,919 silent films released by major studios exist in their original 35 mm or other formats; 11% survive only in full-length foreign versions or film formats of lesser image quality.
A small, but not insignificant, number of films of the Teens and Twenties utilized plots which included voodoo themes, but none of them have survived. Instead, the distinction of being the first zombie movie is usually awarded to Victor Halperin's 1932 opus, White Zombie.
On October 6, 1927, Warner Bros. released The Jazz Singer, the first feature-length film to incorporate synchronized sound for sequences of dialogue. Though these sequences were limited and brief, hearing the voices of the film's stars was a revelation for audiences.
The last silent feature film was The Poor Millionaire in 1930. Produced by Richard Talmadge (1892-1981), who also starred as both the hero and the villain, the story concerned a young millionaire whose life is turned upside down when his identical twin brother, an escaped convict, begins to impersonate him.
Some of the most notable silent movies off all time are A Trip to the Moon (1902), Ben-Hur (1907), The Birth of a Nation (1915), Nosferatu (1922), The Thief of Bagdad (1923), Battleship Potemkin (1925), The Phantom of the Opera (1925), Metropolis (1927) and The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928).
Introduction: My name is Pres. Carey Rath, I am a faithful, funny, vast, joyous, lively, brave, glamorous person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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