Intro To Film Studies Flashcards
Camera obscura
(Latin: “Room darkened”)
Light enters a dark space through a small opening. The image of an object is then projected onto a surface in front of the opening.
Who “discussed” camera obscura first?
Aristotle discussed the principle in 4th century BC.
Giovanni Battista della Porta
born in Renaissance Europe (16th Century) and was convinved he had perfected the ‘camera obscura’ box.
He used a lens and projected an image of the devil on the wall.
Johannes Vermeer
Dutch painter in the 17th century who is thought to have used the camera obscura technique to trace his images.
The Magic Lantern
(“Lanterna Magica”)
An early type of image projector developed in the 17th century.
It projected images on painted glass slides onto a screen.
In 18th and 19th centuries it was used by magicians to trick those watching with apparitions of ghosts, the dead, etc.
Principle of “Persistence of Vision”
An important film precursor.
The principle that suggests that the human eye perceives motion in a series of images shown in rapid succession, so that we do not observe the “black spaces’ between the images
Phi Phenomenon
Replaced the Principle of “Persistence of Vision”
Shares its basic idea, that cinema is founded on the illusion of motion perceived by the fallible human eye.
Phenakistoscope
(In Greek “to perceive”)
A 19th century optical toy and an early form of animation.
Consists of two disks.
Zoetrope
A 19th century optical toy and a precursor to animation.
Had pictures placed into a mounted cylinder.
(Greek: “zoe: life”,”trope: turning”)
Louis Daguerre
Created daguerrotypes that fix images to metal plates in 1839.
When did split second exposure times become possible?
In 1878.
George Eastman
Devised still camera in 1888 that makes photos on rolls of sensitized paper, called KODAK
KODAK
Celluloid film that was used in the film industry until the 1950s
Eadweard Muybridge
An English photographer known for his experiment in 1878 where he set up a row of 12 cameras to study the movement of a horse.
The experiment concluded that when the eye is exposed to more than 10-11 frames per second, it perceives motion.
Thomas Edison
Patented the kinetograph camera and kinetoscope viewing box in 1891.
(Kinetoscope parlors open in 1894 and are very popular.)
W.K.L Dickson
Thomas Edison’s assistant that invented 35mm film with 4 perforations per frame that is still used today.
The Black Maria
A studio built by Edison and his assistant Dickson in 1893.
The studio was a black box that let in light in a slanted portion of the roof. Moved on a track to follow sunlight.
Early films shot at the studio were about 20 seconds long of acrobats, wrestlers, etc.
