Last updated on 2012-04-09, by Tony

6 Technological Innovations In Film Industry

The horses in Google doodle is used to celebrate Eadweard James Muybridge’s 182nd birthday. The British man was commemorated for his great contribution to photographing. He used multiple cameras to capture motion in stop-action photographs and then play it consecutively to make those photographs move.

His animal locomotion can be viewed as the earliest animated gif. Based on his theory, software has been developed to help us make animated gif. You can make animated gif with Ulead GIF Animator or convert swf to animated gif.

His action also laid the foundation for the birth of animation and film which is of great importance. The popularization of movies promotes the development of film industry. Since film industry has gone through major ups and downs in history, this post will review six technological innovations in film industry for you.

1. Animal locomotion

James Muybridge was named Father Of Cinema for his animal locomotion even though he found it accidently. He was hired to photograph the racing horse to see whether all four hooves of a horse were off the ground at the same time while trotting. He took several photos in a short time and later he found those stop-action photos could move by playing them quickly. Anyway, it laid the foundation for shooting movies.

2. First film

On December 28 1895, in a dark base room of Paris, The Lumières held their first private screening of projected motion pictures. It was the first public screening of films at which the admission was charged. The brothers played ten short movies at that night but they didn’t realize those were the earliest movies.

3. The invention of Kinetoscopes

Edison managed his plans to create a device that would do “for the Eye what the phonograph does for the Ear”. He invited the Kinetoscope which introduced the basic approach that would become the standard for all cinematic projection before the advent of video.

4. Sound film

In 1919, De Forest filed the first patent on his phonofilm process. This enabled the recording of sound in electrical waveforms which can be translated back into sound waves when the movie was projected. The first sound film was named The Jazz Singer. Since then, the era for sound film began.

5. Digital movie

In December 1999, Toy Story became the first digital movies made without consuming any films. It was transferred to six metropolises in the USA via Internet. Toy Story hinted the coming of the era of digital movies.

6. 3D movie

Released in 2010, Avatar became the most profitable movies in the world, exceeding Titanic. The most amazing part of this movie was the applying of 3D effect. With this powerful weapon in hand, Avatar robbed over 2.7 billion dollars in the world. Since then a new era of 3D movie began,

Those are the six technological innovations of film industry. From silent to sound and from digital to 3D, films have gone through so many innovations, in the future it will be much better.