No film really captures reality in its entirety. Film makers decide where to place the camera and what the audience will see, These are decisions made by film makers from a number of choices possible called variables. Film makers choose a specific variale for a specific effect.

Early films are very similar to still photos from the point of view of movie making. The big difference is that the images move rather than being stationary. Later the camera starts to take a more active role. The camera begins to move - often in phantom rides - where it is placed on a moving object like a boat or train. The camera also begins to move on its own axis (pans and tilts).

Early films tend to be one shot. Later films shots are strung together. Early films tend to document events - especially performances (Lumiere Brothers and Edison) while Melies did more "special effects" which allowed for things to happen which would not be possible on a stage.

Early films tend to lack plot. "The Gardiner" is one of the first to have one, although it too is one shot with no camera movement. The Great Train Robbery and Trip to the Moon are early films with plots and are made up of many shots.

Early films tend to be black and white (and various shades of gray) but there develops a process of giving some bit of the frame some color by painting it in and by tinting the entire scene.

Trip To the Moon

This short film is still very much a "stage production" which could never have been done on stage because of the "special effect" that occur with people appearing and disappearing in front of your eyes. In a sense it is much like "A Cook in Trouble", but longer, and more importantly with cuts between scenes. Notice too, the kind of "tableaux" formations which was common on stage.

Like the serial photography homage, the film has a definite "male gaze" with women in shorts and basically parading around tto give people (men) something to look at!

The Great Train Robbery

This film is often seen as the first true "film" with a narrative text. It is in competition with Trip to the Moon although the use of location shots and sets and the editing tend to favor The Great Train Robbery.

The film techniques are still primitive by today's standards. There is no cutting within a scene. Notice how long the shot is where the people come off the train and have their caluables taken and one of the passengers is shot. No director today would shot the scene that way.

The acting is "histrionic" or "overly dramatic". - a hold over to some degree from stage acting where the audience is distant from a performer who does not appear as large as one projected on the screen.

Some prints were tinted and some had some parts of the frame hand painted.

The final shot of Justis D. Barnes firing at the camera is well known and audiences loved it. Projectionists often showed it at the beginning and end of the film,

Gilbert Max. "Bronco Bill" Anderson who plays a bandit, the shot passnger and the tenderfoot dancer , from Little Rock Arkansas is a well known figure in early films as well. as being one of the founders of Essanay Studios with George Spoor (who later did work on 3D films). The studio managed to acquire Chalie Chaplin as one of its stars. Essanay ultimately was absorbed into Warner Brothers.

Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

For information about thes film, click on the title above.