BIRTH OF THE MOVIE INDUSTRY

The first cinematograph screenings organized for a paying public took place in Paris on 28 December 1895 and were an immediate attraction, showing in London's West End a few months later. Within a year, Queen Victoria saw films made by the Lumi¨¨re brothers at Windsor Castle, which were accompanied by a full orchestra. These very early films were projected at 16 frames per second and were about 50 feet in length, lasting about 50 seconds. Within a few years the average length of films had increased, together with the number of cinemas and other exhibition venues. The movie industry was born: movies had suddenly become a novel form of mass entertainment throughout Europe and the USA. At this time audiences saw little difference between live action (real scenes shot with a movie camera) and animation (drawn or painted images photographed frame by frame). The fact that light and shadow on a screen created scenes and people that moved was enthralling enough. In December 1937 Disney introduced the first full-length feature animation to a marvelling audience ¨C the entirely hand-drawn, colour Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. In 1998, some sixty years later, the Disney Studios, with Pixar, achieved another milestone with the first full-length feature 3D computer animated film, Toy Story. This time, although the computer-generated toys looked exactly like real toys, the challenge was not so much to create the illusion of reality but to endow the 3D toys with individualistic character and personality, as was so clearly achieved with Snow White. Good characterization is often more difficult to achieve in 3D animation than in 2D work. Read Chapter 7 for more information on character animation. From 1902 to 2002 and beyond we have seen the massive growth of an industry ¨C and the growth of audience expectations. Initially people were enchanted just peering through a slot and seeing a cycle of hand-drawn images moving. Then they were enthralled by the vision of real things and people moving on a large screen. Now they expect to see the impossible happen and look utterly real.