Saul Bass: The forgotten Auteur

“His titles are not simply unimaginative ‘identification tags’-as in many films-rather, they are integral to the film as a whole. When his work comes up on the screen, the movie itself truly begins.”

—Martin Scorsese

“Saul Bass wasn’t just an artist who contributed to the first several minutes of some of the greatest movies in history; in my opinion his body of work qualifies him as one of the best film makers of this, or any other time.”

 —Steven Spielberg

Every human being who has had exposure to mass media and advertising has seen the work of Saul Bass in one form or another, perhaps mostly unknowingly. I am quite sure who ever reads this blog post must have seen the logo of AT&T or Quaker Oats or Minolta on the internet or in print. If in case someone is  passive towards logo designs and can’t seem to recollect the rough visual structures of the above mentioned ones, even then I am reasonably sure that anyone who reads this post must have seen cult classics like Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ and ‘Vertigo’ or Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Spartacus’ and ‘The Shining’.

If movies are not your thing and you haven’t seen any of the above mentioned ones… then I suppose you are perhaps reading the wrong blog!

All jokes apart, the point I am really trying to put forward is that Saul Bass is one of the most celebrated graphic designers of our time, even though he’s been dead for more than two decades his designs still live on ubiquitously in one form or another.  We unsuspectingly see fragments of his design every day.

Design is thinking made Visual.

Saul Bass was born to Eastern European Jewish immigrant parents in 1920, Bronx, New York. He started working from the age of sixteen in trade advertising for films. During 1930s Saul Bass studied part-time at the Art Students League in Manhattan. He also attended Brooklyn College in 1944–45 with Hungarian emigrant artist and designer György Kepes.

Kepes had worked in Germany with compatriot and former Bauhaus teacher László Moholy-Nagy, and who headed the Light and Color Department at the New Bauhaus, Chicago (founded by Moholy-Nagy in 1937). Bauhaus, was an art school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933.  The school was closed by its own leadership under pressure from the Nazi-led government which had claimed that it was a centre of communist intellectualism. Though the school was closed, the staff continued to spread its idealistic precepts as they left Germany and emigrated all over the world.

It was while studying with Kepes that Bass transformed from a young man interested in modern art, design, and film, to a full-fledged modernist in Bauhaus and European Modern Movement mode.

“I want to make beautiful things even if no one cares.”
– Saul Bass

Kepes’s belief that graphic design and motion pictures could play a major role in changing the world because they were less hidebound by tradition than other art forms resonated with Bass’s political views (then leftist, later liberal) and validated his chosen area of work. In the early 1950s, however, Bass began to distance himself from what he increasingly found to be overly rigid approaches to design and let other aspects—gut feelings, intuition, emotions, and humor as well as earlier and newer inspirations, from the bold reduction and flat color of the German Plakatstil (Plakatstil is the German for “poster style”, an early style of poster art that originated in Germany in the 1900s, the common characteristics of this style are bold eye-catching lettering with flat colors. Shapes and objects are simplified, and the composition focuses on a central object. They are also known as Sachplakat) of the early twentieth century to surrealism and experimental filmmaking—play greater roles in his work, and as a result he forged a more personal and distinctive style and approach to design.

He worked in New York as a freelance commercial artist for advertizing agencies and companies, including Warner Bros. In 1946 Saul Bass went to Los Angeles, where he continued to work as a commercial artist. By 1952 he had a practice of his own, which was registered from 1955 as Saul Bass & Associates.
In 1954 he received his first commission from the director Otto Preminger to design the title sequence for his film “Carmen Jones”. The same year Saul Bass designed the title sequence for Preminger’s “The Man with the Golden Arm” and it caused a sensation. Saul Bass became the leading title designer in Hollywood; the directors Bass worked in this capacity include Alfred Hitchcock (“Vertigo”, “North by Northwest”, “Psycho”), from 1960 Stanley Kubrick (“Spartacus”, “The Shining”), from 1990 for Martin Scorsese (“Good Fellas”, “Cape Fear”, “The Age of Innocence”, “Casino”); and, in 1993 Steven Spielberg: the title sequence for “Schindler’s List”.

Between 1991 and 1996 Saul Bass also designed the posters for the Oscar Awards ceremony. In addition to his work for Hollywood, Saul Bass has created the corporate image of numerous companies, including United Airlines, AT&T, Minolta, Esso, BP, and Continental Airlines, for which he also designed the company logos.

Bass expanded the boundaries of graphic design to include film title sequences, and his highly evocative, and often impossibly compressed, images of intense clarity and subtle ambiguities transformed not only how titles were seen but also how they were conceptualized and regarded. Here was modern design on the cinema screen. Between 1954 and 1980 Bass was responsible for forty-one title sequences and several advertising campaigns for a wide variety of films in a wide variety of genres.

His most notable sequences, apart from those for Hitchcock, include The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), Bonjour Tristesse (1958), Anatomy of Murder (1959), and Exodus (1960), all for Otto Preminger; Walk on the Wild Side (1961) for Edward Dmytryk; Seconds (1966) and Grand Prix (1966) for John Frankenheimer; and the credit epilogues for Around the World in Eighty Days (1956, Michael Anderson) and West Side Story (1961, Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins). From Spartacus (1960, Stanley Kubrick and Anthony Mann) on, most of the title sequences were created in collaboration with his wife and former assistant, Elaine, including three tour-de-force openings for Cape Fear (1991), The Age of Innocence (1993), and Casino (1995), all directed by Martin Scorsese.

Between 1960 and 1966, five directors or producers asked Bass to undertake work on a film in addition to titles and advertising, work in which he was called upon to function variously as production designer, art director, choreographer, assistant director, and second unit photographer. The specific tasks ranged from scouting locations, to visualizing and storyboarding sequences within the movies themselves— the racing sequences in Grand Prix, the shower sequence in Psycho, the battle scene in Spartacus etc. When Bass designed and storyboarded battle scenes for Spartacus, for example, he functioned as a production designer, art director, choreographer, and assistant director rolled into one. When he conceptualized and made preliminary sketches of the gladiatorial school for the same film he functioned more as a production designer. Indeed, his work on that occasion was handed over to production designer Alexander Golitzen for development and realization. Golitzen was concerned that his credit be distinguished from that of Bass, as was Boris Leven, production designer for West Side Story. Psycho production designers (their official credit was art directors) Robert Clatworthy and Joseph Hurley seem to have had no such concerns. Clatworthy recalled thinking that giving the storyboarding of the shower scene to Bass was a “good idea,” stating that “Saul wouldn’t fall into the cliché as we might readily do.” Although what Bass did came to be referred to as visual consultancy, there was then no established industry term for this type of work. Hitchcock preferred “pictorial consultant,” while Stanley Kubrick favored “visual consultant,” a term Bass came to prefer.

Bass also served as visual consultant on five feature films – Spartacus (1960) , Psycho (1960) , West Side Story (1961) , Grand Prix (1966) and Not with My Wife You Don’t (1966) where he created sequences within the films as well as the titles.

In 1973 Bass directed the sci-fi feature Phase IV-a story about oversized, world-conquering ants. In all, Bass’s list of credits includes over 60 films. Saul Bass also began collaborating on film projects with his wife and partner, Elaine. They began making their own short films, and, in 1969, they won an Oscar for Why Man Creates, a combination of live action and animation which takes a philosophical look into man’s creative impulse. Bass and his wife continued to make award-winning short films for the inter- national festival circuit until his death at age 75.

Bass also created commercials, sponsor tags, and show openers for television and designed a wide range of advertisements, as well as packaging, retail displays, album covers, book covers, sculpture, lettering, typefaces, ceramic tiles, toys, exhibitions, and a postage stamp.

Many of the more than eighty logos and identity programs he created are still in use today; his major programs include Lawry’s (1959–96), Alcoa (1961), Celanese (1965), Continental Airlines (1965– 67), Bell Telephone (1968–81), Quaker Oats (1969), United Airlines (1973), Girl Scouts of America (1978), Minolta (1981), AT&T (1981–96), the J. Paul Getty Museum (1981), and The Getty (1993–96).12 The enormous circulation of his designs, through logos and screenings and the constant reworking of all manner of Bass images by younger designers, ensures that his work, including that undertaken in collaboration with Elaine, continues to impact many of us daily. The opening sequence for the AMC television series Mad Men, which mixes imagery from North by Northwest (the skyscraper) and the spiraling, falling man (Vertigo and Casino), is among the current homages to Bass.

The “Catch me if you can” (2002) opening title is a tribute to Saul Bass.

One marked characteristic of the Bass title is that its images undergo a journey whereby they are transformed into the unexpected.

In the opening to Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, bars of text ascend and descend, mimicking elevators in motion; white lines invade the screen, simulating the grid pattern in the skyscraper that dominates the opening shot. Another of Bass’s famed transformations is  the eyeball that swirls into the vortex at the opening of Vertigo.

When Saul Bass began to do titles those were the dark ages for the designers, they lived in caves and were not considered important by the industry. Saul Bass went through a very intense learning experience with some extraordinary film-makers. From the Wylers, the Wilders, the Hitchcocks, and the Premingers.

According to Saul Bass, a title could set mood and prime the underlying core of the film’s story; to express the story in some metaphorical way. The title was a way of conditioning the audience, so that when the film actually began, viewers would already have an emotional resonance with it. Saul Bass felt that films really began on the first frame. This was, of course, back when titles were strictly typography, mostly bad typography. In U.S. films of the early to mid-1950s, the majority of what then were often called title backgrounds consisted of a fairly short list of credits, often in unimaginative lettering, rolling over a static image that suggested the genre of the film: for example, an image of a cowboy for a Western, a book for a literary adaptation, or a rolled parchment for a film set in medieval times. The status of the opening credits was so low that in many cinemas they ran as the under curtain was raised, while audiences chatted were settling in, going to restrooms, or involved in chitchat. Bass felt that this was a period that could work for the film. Otto Preminger agreed with Saul Bass and they took a shot at it with the opening sequence of The Man with the Golden Arm. Bass’s challenge was to create a symbol that captured the drama and intensity of the film without resorting to sensationalism. The result was a compelling image of a distorted, disjointed “arm,” the semiabstract form of which helped distance the image from the harsh realities of shooting up drugs, although they are implicit in the disfiguration. As well as being disembodied, the black “arm” has the appearance of being petrified and transformed into something else, just as the Frank Sinatra character in the film is transformed by his addiction. The reductive metaphorical symbol was featured in a comprehensive advertising campaign notable for its scope and uniformity as well as for the fact that images of the stars were either excluded or minimized.

The symbol for the film turned out to be about as difficult to accept as the film itself. It also broke from the general point of view about how films were sold. The notion that a single visual element, good, bad, or indifferent, could become a statement for a film was not a notion that existed before ‘The Man with the Golden Arm’. Before that period, almost all film ads, used a potpourri approach. Advertisers threw everything into the pot, using the theory that, as a filmgoer, you would find something in the ad that would inspire you to see the film. If you didn’t like one image, you’d like another. Large amounts of money were at stake if a film bombed, and, because film ad posters were then considered the main means of selling a film to the public, the film studios were reluctant to chance using adventurous modes of expression or, indeed, any that differed from the norm. Conventions favored posters in which several aspects of the film were represented at the same time, often in a highly illustrative manner and sometimes in a sensationalist one.  The idea of having a film expressed within the framework of one single, reductive statement was a very daring notion in the 50s. It was a particularly scary notion for distributors and film- makers alike. Making one statement that would be sufficiently provocative and true to the film, and that would sell the film was never thought of before. It was to Otto’s credit, that he didn’t flinch when this occurred and allowed Saul Bass to go through with the design and the rest is history. Set against a black background and accompanied by Elmer Bernstein’s driving jazzlike score, with its disjointed sounds expressive of anguish and torment, the sequence features white bars that appear, disappear, and form abstract patterns before finally uniting into the symbol of the “arm.” Contrasts between the black and white heighten the deafening intensity, and the disjunctures encapsulate the mood of the main character, a downbeat drummer with an inclination for gambling and drugs.

 

Bass on Title Sequences:

Bass believed that films, like symphonies, deserved mood-setting overtures and used ambiguity, layering, dissolves, and texture as well as startlingly reductive imagery, animation, and live action—sometimes using both animation and live action in the same title sequence—to shape how people experienced the time before a film began. Bass also encouraged audiences to see things in hitherto unconsidered ways in order to heighten awareness, create ambiguities, or raise expectations that something unusual was about to happen. In Vertigo, we experience the human eye as never before. As well as using titles to symbolize and summarize the film and to establish mood, Bass began to integrate his titles into the narrative process. He used the term “time before” for prologues dealing with the time before a film began. It could be years, as in those between the two world wars (The Victors, 1963, directed by Carl Foreman) or the minutes before the start of a Formula One race (Grand Prix, 1966, directed by John Frankenheimer).

 

 

Saul Bass and the Case of the iconic shower scene in Psycho:

Bass’s contribution to what is arguably the most famous scene in U.S. cinema—the shower scene in Psycho has been under serious discussion. Bass’s contribution to the shower scene—a fascinating collaboration, from novel and script to musical score—remains problematic, not least because issues of authorship are far from dead in many academic disciplines, design history and film studies included.

Bass’s contribution to the scene was substantial, it was ignored for many years by auteurist commentators who took their cue from Hitchcock’s evasive reply to a question regarding Bass’s contribution to Psycho above and beyond the title sequence for which Bass had a separate credit (his main credit was for “pictorial consultant,”. Hitchcock stated, “He did only one scene, but I didn’t use his montage. He was supposed to do the titles, but since he was interested in the picture, I just let him lay out the sequence of the detective going up the stairs, just before he is stabbed.” By 1966, when the statement was published, this low-budget movie, filmed in about one month, had become world-famous, and the shower scene even more so. Hitchcock’s statement that Bass’s only contribution was to advise on a quite different scene is a gross understatement at best and a more than wickedly mischievous one at worst. Although Hitchcock thereafter never publicly acknowledged Bass’s contribution to the shower scene, others involved in the movie did, some on more than one occasion.

Bass enjoyed extremely good relations with those for whom he worked, from CEOs of leading companies and voluntary organizations for which he provided pro bono work, to film directors and producers. Bass forged lasting friendships with many people who admired not only his talents but also his integrity and warmth. He was always extremely respectful of the directors from whom he learned a great deal about filmmaking when he was new or relatively new to the game, repeatedly referring to Preminger, Wilder, Wyler, and Hitchcock as “my masters” and “mentors” in filmmaking.

References:

1. “Saul, Can You Make Me a Title?”: Interview with Saul Bass Author(s): Pamela Haskin and Saul Bass Source: Film Quarterly, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Autumn, 1996), pp. 10-17 Published by:  University of California Press Stable URL:  http://www.jstor.org/stable/1213323
2. Reassessing the Saul Bass and Alfred Hitchcock Collaboration Author(s): Pat Kirkham Source: West 86th, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Spring-Summer 2011), pp. 50-85 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Bard Graduate Center Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/659384
3. Anatomy of Design; Jan-Christopher Horak (2014)
4. http://www.bass-saul.com/
5. http://www.babylon.com/definition/Plakatstil/
6. http://www.theartstory.org/section_movements_timeline.htm
7. http://thelawdictionary.org/trade-advertising/
8. http://www.saulbassposterarchive.com/gallery/film-posters/

Charlie Chaplin : The immortal prodigious film maker

If any one person has dominated world cinema by the scope of his creative genius, it has been Charlie Chaplin.  Charlie Chaplin has been among the first few in the movie world to truly understand the power of the screen as a tool of education, art and entertainment. Where the others have sought the means of word, spoken or written, Chaplin succeeded in spreading his social gospel through his pantomime.

Charlie Chaplin is considered as one of the greatest filmmakers in the history of  cinema, whose movies are still popular throughout the world. In a career spanning over seventy five years, Chaplin gave many memorable performances. This versatile comic genius acted, directed, produced, wrote and composed music for almost all of his films and was recognized as ‘The Little Tramp’, the character he played in his silent films. Chaplin is widely accepted as one of the founding fathers of cinema and has influenced an array of filmmakers and comedians. His films show, through the Little Tramp’s positive outlook on life in a world full of chaos, that the human spirit has and always will remain the same. Some of his greatest films include ‘Modern Times’, ‘The Great Dictator’, ‘The Gold Rush’, ‘The Immigrant’ and ‘The Kid’.

Charlie Chaplin’s movies have always had a message of intense personal flavour and conviction. Charlie Chaplin provoked thought with his tender comedies. His humor focused on the simplicity of daily routines and the funniness within them. People all over the world identified with Chaplin’s character because he had the same problems, they had.  He had to work. He was often broke. He felt pain and sadness. He fell in love, and the women he fell in love with didn’t always fall in love with him. Chaplin made people laugh at situations that were sometimes painful—situations that his audience had experienced themselves. The audience worldwide recognized Chaplin on the screen as the Tramp, characterized by: his clown shoes, cane, top hat and a mustache.

Charlie Chaplin was a keen observer of the social structure that existed in the society. Chaplin through his films portrayed the day to day struggles that the working classes faced within that structure. Most of Chaplin’s films consist of a social message. Chaplin created depictions of class inequality in a new highly popular medium that reached large, cross-class audience not only in the United States but internationally. Chaplin’s personal experience in London’s poor districts during his childhood and his British cultural background made him a keen critic of the class difference which he portrayed in his American films.  Charlie Chaplin had more to him than just comedy. Charlie Chaplin opened his films with a static title card which announced the story of the film briefly to the audience.

Opening Title of Modern Times (1936)

Charlie Chaplin had a very rough childhood that truly affected his cinematic style. Themes of Chaplin’s own troubled life are very clearly visible in his films.  Charlie Chaplin’s dissenting views against the American Capitalist culture made him  a victim of McCarthyism and forced him to leave the country which was home to him for 40 years. Often people overlook and fail to appreciate the critical film making of Charlie Chaplin. Charlie Chaplin was one of the first few film-makers to truly understand and exploit the real potential of visuals in his films which continue to fascinate scholars and cinema buffs till date.

Chaplin had hired his own publicity staff by 1916 and was in control of the print exposure he got. Charlie Chaplin was not as quiet about his art as his silent screen persona would appear, in contrast he published prolifically throughout his career about film as a new art, his reaction to the American audience , his character of the tramp. His initial writings were confined to the publicity pieces of his early years.

The earliest serious attention given to Chaplin and his films  came from France, where the culture traditionally recognized arts and their benefits to the society. For the French, Chaplin represented the first artist on the screen who could reveal the human condition in a single gesture, bring lyricism to the physical brutality of his activities and promote a universalstatement on the nature of man and authority in the complex technocratic world of the twentieth century. Louis Dullec, key member of the French Impressionists (1920s) felt Chaplin’s films had all the tenets to prove film as art with its own expressive potential.

Kuriyama (1992), in her article “Chaplin’s Impure Comedy: The Art of Survival” goes a little in depth about Chaplin’s failed marriages. Charlie Chaplin’s first wife was named Mildred Harris and Chaplin married her, despite their iffy relations, only because she claimed she was pregnant. The claim was false, but soon Harris did actually become pregnant. Chaplin’s first son was born deformed and died a few days later. Charlie Chaplin blamed himself for the baby’s death and suffered his first extreme case of depression. Kuriyama (1992), believes that Charlie Chaplin’s inability to control his life actually drove him to perfect his films. She also believes that Chaplin wouldn’t have been the same as an actor and a director if not for all the tragedy that occurred in his life.

Charlie Chaplin’s movies not only give comic relief but also consist of elements of utopia which Chaplin often employs to depict and fulfill his version of the ‘the American Dream’. The use of elements of utopia and cynicism can be seen almost ubiquitously in most of his films. For Instance famously, in Modern Times (1936)  Charlie Chaplin and the Gamin enter into an idealized dream sequence – it is a comical and stereotypical vision of the perfect American home in a capitalistic society. They collectively imagine, through a dissolve, their happy life together in a bright cheery home. Chaplin is shown wearing a blazer over the clothes he wore in the initial factory sequence, which suggests that he dreams of a better standard of life and a higher position at his workplace just like any normal American. He also wears a scarf to add swagger and humor to his look. The gamine on the other hand is dressed like the stereotypical American wife; she is well dressed, has a charming smile, is always happy to serve her husband and always keeps the house nice and tidy. This sequence represents Chaplin’s American Dream. Chaplin is shown plucking an orange from a nearby tree just outside the window. Grapes are visible beyond the kitchen door which are also easily plucked. An obliging cow is quickly summoned outside the kitchen door, always available for fresh milk. And a steak is cooking on the stove. The Tramp is inspired to promise: “I’ll do it! We’ll get a home, even if I have to work for it.” They are brought back to the rough reality of their situation when a policeman motions them to move along. The dream sequence is backed by an appropriately fantasy like musical theme which is soft and melodious like the innocent dream of the pair of vagabonds.

In the same movie, Modern Times, in a Jail sequence Chaplin is shown enjoying all the modern comforts of home in his cell―good food, an open cell door, and friendly jailers. He reads in the newspaper about unemployment, labor unrest, and other dramatic events in the outside world. His room also consists of a poster of Abraham Lincoln, who was a civil rights activist and perhaps a household name in America.

In this scene, as Chaplin reads about the harsh life in America outside the jail room, we can hear the twerking of birds which is accompanied by a peaceful soundtrack which gives a normal day like feeling to the scene and momentarily erases the social stigma of the prison, which perhaps is a well crafted cynical social comment by Chaplin on the life in America where just like the rest of the industrial world, it is hard to make a living and the prison perhaps is a safer place to live in where a person is given food, shelter and protection. The presence of the poster of Lincoln in Chaplin’s jail room perhaps symbolises Chaplin’s outlook on social and economic conditions of America. Chaplin perhaps through his pantomimic narrative highpoints the need to initiate social and economic reforms to improve conditions in America. Abraham Lincoln perhaps is a role model for the Tramp who wants to follow in his footsteps to raise his  voice against the repressive social and economic structure of America during the Depression years.

The use of elements of utopia and cynicism is very common in Chaplin films. Chaplin uses these elements to give his idea of the perfect or ideal society, which is both thought provoking as well as humorous for the audience. Elements of utopia and cynicism make Chaplin’s cinema standout from the rest with its unique style and form.

Chaplin through his films desires for an egalitarian social system where the working classes have equal civil, political, social and economic rights. Chaplin perhaps desires for a society where individual rights of the working classes such as the freedom of thought and conscience, speech and expression, assembly and movement are protected from infringement by governments and private organizations so that they are not alienated from humanity.

Charlie Chaplin initially resisted the technological advent of sound in movies in 1930s for which he was heavily criticized. Chaplin feared that the addition of sound would lead to severe loss of the advantages of the pantomimic cinema. Chaplin’s resistance was an economic one as he feared loss of his market which he captured through is pantomimic cinema.

Charlie Chaplin

Chaplin was one of the rare film-makers who not only financed and produced all his films, but was the author, actor, director and soundtrack composer of them as well. Chaplin’s contribution to the field of cinema is of great importance because he was one of the first few film-makers to really understand the potential of film and played an vital role in defining film as an art form. Chaplin’s contribution to early cinema still holds relevance and importance in the present day and age and all the modern film-makers are in his debt.

Links to some of Charlie Chaplin’s Films:

Tamil Politics and Cinema: The Mutual Admiration Societies

Tamil cinema has a long history comparable to other Indian language cinemas. Since its beginning in the silent era, Tamil cinema has grown into a multi- million dollar industry. Located in the Chennai district of Kodambakkam, Tamil Nadu’s cinema city, it produces 150-200 feature films annually. It is often referred to as Kollywood, an amalgam of the words Kodambakkam and Hollywood. Describing the significance of cinema in Tamil society, Baskaran (1996) points out that ‘since its existence, Tamil cinema has grown to become the most domineering influence in the cultural and political life in Tamil Nadu’. Politics and cinema live off each other in Tamil Nadu where temples have been erected to marquee stars. Here stars have gone beyond the script and influenced the nature of politics at the regional and national level.

 

When cinema arrived in British India in the late 1890s, it took root in the three major metropolises, Bombay, Calcutta and Madras (renamed Chennai). Films were immensely popular as many theatres and cinema halls began appearing in these cities. Equally, many Indian pioneers fascinated by motion pictures ventured into film production. The Tamil film industry begins about the same time as Hindi and Bengali cinema in the second decade of the twentieth century.
The post-Independence years saw cinema and politics take different directions in North India. Though there was some political content in certain movies, there was no overt politicisation. Likewise, a few movie stars did get involved in politics but never played a pivotal role. While in recent times many are involved in election campaigns, and are essentially ornaments for the respective political parties.

However, in South India, and particularly in Tamil Nadu, politics and cinema are inseparably intertwined in a big way. The larger-than-life image of actors like N.S. Krishnan, M.G. Ramachandran, Sivaji Ganeshan, N.T. Rama Rao, and now Jayalalitha have dominated the political scene. Political leaders like the present Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi and his mentor C.N. Annadurai also came in from careers in cinema, as screenplay and dialogue writers.
 Unlike in the north, Tamil film stars served as integral component of their parties. In most cases, they were the ´stars´ around whom their parties revolved. Significantly, from 1967, every single chief minister in Tamil Nadu has been a personality with connections to the silver screen.

Media moguls such as S.S. Vasan established film studios, production companies and cinema halls giving impetus to the growth of the industry. During the pre-WW2 period, films embraced new genres in addition to mythological dramas. Contemporary social themes of family disputes, caste discrimination, strong overtones of anti-British sentiments and Indian patriotism were seen in the films.
The post-war period also saw the proliferation of Tamil movies that were infused and influenced by Dravidian politics. Tamil Nadu is the home to India´s original rationalist movement, started by E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker (Periyar), known as the Suyamariyaathai lyakkam, or Self-Respect Movement, which promoted healthy political protest against caste oppression, the imposition of Hindi as national language and superstition in religion. Periyar also founded the Dravida Kazhagham or Dravidian Party in 1943, to which both today´s ruling party and chief opposition trace their lineage.(DMK and AIADMK) Periyar nurtured and cashed in on the talents of people like C.N Annadurai, who went on to form his own party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in 1949.

E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker (Periyar)

 C.N Annadurai, a writer, had under the guidance of Periyar wrote numerous plays that advocated the social causes that the party stood for including abolition of zamindari system, widow remarriage, and most importantly a passionate support for anti-Brahmin causes that included the gradual phasing out of Sanskrit and Sanskritized Tamil from the presidency. He was also an uncompromising defender of Tamil identity and heritage.
Socio-historical reasons had enabled the Brahmins to remain the ruling elite in the state. They were better educated and dominated most fields and professions. In addition there was the stamp of authority provided by orthodox Hinduism. The emerging non-Brahmin elites chose to adopt the Dravidian ideology to overthrow what they saw as Brahmin hegemony. The clearly perceived position of power that the numerically inferior Brahmins enjoyed, made them vulnerable targets. The democratic process made easy the mobilisation of non-Brahmin caste groups on the basis of the Dravidian ideology.
Periyar´s Dravidian movement was opposed to participation in politics. It was also very much under his autocratic control. A group of dissidents, including Karunanidhi, revolted under the leadership of C.N Annadurai and formed the DMK in 1949. Starting out as a social reform movement, the DMK later decided that change was impossible without capturing political power through democratic means. In 1957, the DMK decided to enter electoral politics and secured 15 seats in the state assembly and two in Parliament. In 1962, the figure went up to 50 in the state assembly and eight in Parliament. 1967 saw it capture power for the first time when it got 138 out of the 234 seats in the state. The DMK also won all the seats (25) it contested for the Lok Sabha. In 1971, the party registered a landslide victory when it captured 184 seats in the state and 23 in Parliament. The party seemed invincible.

“Of interest in all this is the role played by films and film personalities. It was the DMK that first attempted to use cinema for propaganda. Annadurai had once said that if it takes 10,000 political meetings to convey one message, it only takes one single ´hit´ movie to deliver the same.”

Annadurai’s plays, eloquently written in chaste Tamil and employing metaphors and alliterations gained popularity in both rural and urban areas. There was an aspect of communal bonding to his plays that were brought to life by guerilla theaters that were very popular with the people. Most of the actors who went on to rule Tamil Cinema during the prime of the Cinema-politics nexus had whetted their skills and politics in these theaters. The dominance of a Brahmin heavy bureaucracy which in turn was perceived to the be the lifeline of the Congress party in post independence India provided the fuel to the anti-Brahmin fire of DMK’s films. Plays like Nalla Thambi (Good Brother, 1948), Velaikari (Servant Girl, 1949) which were made into movies were instrumental in highlighting the excess of the Zamindari system and the avarice that the Congress supposedly stood for. Through these films Annadurai explained ‘‘some of the elementary principles of socialism and stressed that we should depend upon our own labor for our progress and well being and not some unknown factor.

The real impact of using movies to promote social causes however came with the introduction of electricity in the 1950′s to rural areas and the sudden growth of the local movie theaters. Parasakthi (1952) changed the landscape.

The courtroom scene from Parasakthi (1952)

At a time when movies had in excess of 50-60 songs, and subtle social messages, it created a furor and ushered in an era of strong political movies. The use of informal conversational dialogues written by debut writer M. Karunanidhi, delivered with all the passion of a stage actor by debut actor Sivaji Ganesan, the use of strong visuals of anti-elitism such as a priest molesting the heroine in front of a temple idol had a far greater impact than expected. Censor boards went into over drive protesting the abuse of Hindu customs and culture, but the movie stayed and catapulted both Karunanidhi and Ganesan into popular politics. In producing films under close censorship, the DMK turned to deception. The use of double meanings in dialogue became a DMK forte. They also created a character called ‘‘Anna’’ the Tamil word for older brother and the popular name for Annadurai who appeared in almost all the DMK films as a wise and sympathetic counselor. In an historical film, for example, the dialogue might go, ‘‘Anna, you are going to rule one day,’’ at which the audience would break into wild applause.
Karunanidhi developed a writing style that was flowery and alliterative, and it soon became very popular. Courtroom scenes, inquiries in royal courts in historical movies and short dramas introduced into films that had a modern setting, provided ample scope for Karunanidhi´s captivating writing style. His reputation had producers advertising their movies by proclaiming, “Story and Dialogue by Kalaingar (Artist) M. Karunanidhi”. When film titles were projected in the cinema halls, his name would be shown ahead of the stars and greeted with applause.
The 1950s was the period when Dravidian politics began to have a special bearing on Tamil cinema, with the newly formed Dravida Munnetra Kazhakam (DMK) effectively using cinema as a propaganda tool to reach out to the masses. Party functionaries and prolific scriptwriters C. N. Annadurai and M. Karunanidhi together with charismatic actors like M. G. Ramachandran (MGR) contributed to this objective. Personal differences arose between Ganeshan and Karunanidhi, and Ganeshan crossed over to the Congress. To make up for Ganeshan, Karunanidhi, whose dialogues were increasingly getting political, weaned an actor from the Congress camp into the DMK fold. This was M.G. Ramachandran, until then a popular hero playing swashbuckling action roles.
1950′s was in many ways the prime of social cinema. Movies had a message and the dialogues, story were unabashedly a political propaganda tool for a party and its social message. It had its downsides too, with an overactive congress ruled state decrying these movies and censoring them to the extent of making them comical. Anti-congress messages, praise for the Dravidian culture, social upliftment messages and the Hindi agitation resulted in a weakening of the congress party. The DMK party capitalized on this with a barrage of political movies that saw the meteoric rise of M.G Ramachandran (MGR) a constant in the party and an actor since 1945.

M. G. Ramachandran’s as a farmer in one of his films.

 

The 1960s witnessed a stronger bond between politics and stardom with MGR becoming synonymous with DMK. MGR’s movies decorated the virtues of the poor, downtrodden and the dignity of the labourer. With politically influenced costumes and songs that projected the hero and his party as the savior of the Dravidian people. Congress lost the election in a landslide to the DMK and never recovered its base in the state.
DMK filmmakers largely related the underprivileged position of women in society by treating them as a subset within the larger category of the downtrodden. Reference to the representation of the female as a ‘passive subject’ was useful in helping them achieve this objective.
Even as filmstars were used for political propaganda, they were using politics for their personal advancement. M.G. Ramachandran himself was constructing and consolidating a personal political base. Even when he starred in films not written by DMK idealogues, the lines he got carried hidden political meaning. An example was the constant reference to the rising sun, the DMK symbol. In colour productions, he would wear the party colours, black and red. Gradually, MGR´s screen persona started reflecting the DMK´s image. The difference between reality and make-believe blurred, and he continued to pull crowds.

This led to Annadurai famously remark “One million votes for his speech[MGR] and three million for his face.”

In his roles, MGR always appeared as an underdog, fighting oppression and injustice. He took special care to project a social message in most songs, and took care to act in different roles so that different segments of the population could relate to and identify with him. The movies, titled simply but astutely, in which he played lead roles include Padagotti (Boatman), Meenava Nanban (Fisherman Friend), Thoilaali (Worker), Vivasayee (Agriculturist), Rickshaivkaran (Rick-shawalla) and so on. These occupational groups began treating MGR as one of their own.
So powerful and lasting has been the MGR legacy that, 12 years after his death, the crowd cheered madly when Sonia Gandhi merely mentioned his name at an election meeting in Tamil Nadu.
A unique feature of the relationship between the movie stars of the Indian south and their fans was the proliferation of fan clubs. These clubs would hold special pujas in temples whenever a new movie of their matinee idol was released. M.G. Ramachandran probably encouraged the phenomenon of fan clubs from late 1940s onwards, and the clubs ended up as a well-knit federation that counted its membership in the millions. The clubs held annual conventions and also participated in social service projects.
 When MGR entered active politics, his fan clubs were in turn politicised and soon became an indispensable component of the DMK propaganda machine. The popularity of MGR within the party and state caused major convulsions. In a bid to counteract the phenomenon, Karunanidhi encouraged his son M.K. Muthu to enter movies. The father, while in office as chief minister, wrote the story and dialogue for Muthu´s first film Pillaiyo Pillai (Oh, What a Son). Muthu Fan clubs were set up overnight, with father Karunanidhi´s backing.
 MGR, realising what was in store, engineered a split within the party on the grounds of corruption charges against the incumbent regime. Incidentally, MGR did not have any problems in setting up new party structures―he merely converted his fan clubs into party branches.
In 1972 MGR, broke away from the party and floated his own that year. He named it after Annadurai and called it Anna DMK. MGR´s party won three elections in succession, securing 125 seats in 1977, 130 in 1980 and 125 in 1984. Karunanidhi had to remain content as opposition leader for 11 years. When MGR died in 1987 December, his wife Janaki succeeded him. But the government fell after one month. With MGR´s leading lady and then propaganda secretary Jayalalitha also staking her claim to party leadership, a split resulted. In 1989, a divided ADMK contested as two factions led by Janaki and Jayalalitha. The Janaki faction (one seat) was crushed by Jayalalitha (24 seats) but the DMK under Karunanidhi romped home the winner.
The MGR phenomenon was no doubt unique, and his mystique continues its hold over Tamil psyche even today. Before his death, he had come to personify the aspirations of the common people but as more than just a symbol. As political leader, he was also seen as a vehicle for realising their dreams.

MGR and Jayalalitha in a still from a 1960s tamil movie, appear to be pointing towards the rising sun (symbol of DMK).

Characteristics of Tamil Cinema:

Tamil cinema has a number of distinct characteristics that are unique to this industry. First, it has to be said that language is a critical marker of distinction. The Tamil language is only widely spoken in the state of Tamil Nadu. It is a classical living language and belongs to the Dravidian language group. In cinema, the use of Tamil generates a symbolic, embodied and affective connection to ‘Tamilness’ and Tamil identity. Movie dialogues and songs often glorify and celebrate the Tamil language, people, culture and identity. This locates both the film and the audience within a particular national imaginary and ethno-linguistic space which is Tamil and Tamil only. An important point to stress here is that because of the specificities of the language, Tamil cinema always portrays the Tamils while Hindi cinema more often than not represents an ‘Indian’ without an ethno-specific identity. The characters of Bollywood cinema are supposedly pan-Indian. Moreover, Tamil cinema set in particular locations in Tamil Nadu usually employ the respective district inflections or Tamil dialects.
Tamil cinema, it must be argued, also has distinct political and social content that sets it apart from Hindi cinema. The reverberation and articulation of Dravidian identity and Tamil nationalism are profound in Tamil cinema. A direct outcome of this is the particularisation of identity. Tamil cinema echoes a distinctly Tamil identity while Hindi cinema (Bollywood) is often regarded as emphasising a pan-Indian identity. The tendencies of separatism and linguistic nationalism asserted by the Tamils in South India are also a salient feature of the Tamil film industry.

South Indian Star Rajni Kant

Tamil cinema is always about Tamilians. This is not to suggest that Tamil cinema does not partake in Indian nationalism or privilege an Indian identity but rather, even in those scenarios, India is conceptualised through and from a Tamil (male) subject position. For instance, Mani Ratnam’s Roja and Bombay which were national hits begin with characters and places in Tamil Nadu caught at the centre of a national threat. The marking of ethnicity and the place of origin is quite common in Tamil cinema. Films are normally set in Tamil cities and villages even if they are fictional. These settings present recognisable differences and a social setting that is specific to Tamil Nadu. For instance, the construction of gender in Tamil society places particular emphasis on male and female bodies. Tamil masculinity is epitomised by the wearing of a moustache, physical prowess, authority, sexual virility and the capacity to control women. Clean-shaven male Tamil actors on screen are an exception, as opposed to Hindi cinema where it is a norm.

Indeed, Tamil cinema, like the other language cinemas of India, always tells a simple story with fanfare, melodrama and predictability. It is deeply moralising, self-righteous, and narrow-minded and upholds the social order; it also seeks to entertain as well as maintain the dominant values of a Hindu Tamil society. But it often always ‘only’ speaks to a Tamil audience. Tamil cinema for a Tamil audience speaks volumes about being Tamil. Where Bollywood nominally transcends such particularistic identities, depicting mostly generic characters, Tamil cinema employs Tamil-Indian identities both as a matter of fact and strategically.

References:

Baskaran, T. (1996). The eye of the serpent: an introduction to Tamil cinema. Madras: East West Books.

Cinema stars in politics, a strong link with huge appeal. (2014, February). Retrieved April 2014, from Ibnlive.com: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/cinema-stars-in-politics-a-strong-link-with-huge-appeal/454665-8.html

Nalankilli, T. (n.d.). History of Dravidian Parties and Leaders in Tamil Nadu (DK, DMK, AIADMK, MDMK, PDK, etc.). Retrieved April 2014, from http://www.tamiltribune.com: http://www.tamiltribune.com/hist701.html

Rahman, S. (2014, February). The glorious history of Tamil language movement . Retrieved April 2014, from http://www.dhakatribune.com: http://www.dhakatribune.com/long-form/2014/feb/27/glorious-history-tamil-language-movement

Ravichandran, P. (2013, June). Movies to Medai – The Theater of Politics in Tamilnadu. Retrieved April 2014, from /sumpolites.nationalinterest.in: http://sumpolites.nationalinterest.in/2013/06/13/medai-to-movies-to-medai/

Ravindran, G. (2007, June). Tamil Cinema and Tamil Nadu Politics:Mutual Admiration Societies? or …. Retrieved April 2014, from /blogs.widescreenjournal.org: http://blogs.widescreenjournal.org/?p=214

Srivathsan, A. (2013, february). A revolution betrayed. Retrieved april 2014, from http://www.thehindu.com: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/a-revolution-betrayed/article4373069.ece

Srivathsan, A. (2006, June). Films and the politics of convenience. Retrieved April 2014, from http://www.thehindu.com: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/films-and-the-politics-of-convenience/article3118113.ece

The Dravidian School of TAMIL CINEMA. (2000, June). Retrieved april 2014, from old.himalmag.com: http://old.himalmag.com/component/content/article/2159-TheDravidian-School-of-TAMIL-CINEMA.html

Velayutham, S. (2008). Tamil Cinema: The Cultural Politics of India’s Other Film Industry. New York: Routledge.

 

Open Source Cinema: The Future of Film Making

This gallery contains 5 photos.

Open Source generically refers to a software in which the source code is made available to the general public for use and/or modification from its original design, free of charge. The term Open Source was coined in 1998 by technology publisher Tim O’Reilly. This principle has since been applied to culture: there are now open… Read more.

World’s first feature film: The Story of Kelly Gang 1906

A  film that runs for 40 minutes or longer, according to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, American Film Institute, and British Film Institute is called  feature film.

The Story of the Kelly Gang is the world’s first full-length feature film directed by Charles Tait. Filmed outside Melbourne was made a hundred years ago in Australia about the notorious outlaw with the unusual body-armour. Hugely popular when it was first released in 1906.

SOURCE : http://www.movieposterdb.com/poster/8763d501

Majority of the film is missing, and a substantial part of what remains is significantly damaged. In fact, there remains a debate as to how long the film actually was, with estimates ranging from 40 to 70 minutes.

The Story of Kelly Gang‘s  style of acting reflects the popular style of melodramatic gesture. Even so, a lot is communicated. For a long period of time, it was thought that only nine minutes of the film survived. However, in 2006, an additional seven minutes was uncovered in the British National Film and Television Archive, which was subsequently restored to its best possible condition by the NFSA (National Film and Sound Archive, Australia) and the Haghefilm preservation laboratories in Amsterdam.

The first shot we have available displays an act of police brutality – a policeman attempts to physically harass a woman – but she is saved by one of the Kelly gang. For the first time in film history, the audience is presented with moral ambiguity and complex characterization. You feel little sympathy for the policeman when he is held at gun point.

If you anyone is interested in watching more fragments do watch the link below its the part 2 of the above video  :

(part 2 is majorly damaged)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqbiWCjwk_Y

Nanook Of The North : A story of Life and Love in the Actual Arctic

Documentary Films strictly speaking, are non-fictional, “slice of life” factual works of art. The first attempts at film-making, by the Lumiere Brothers and others, were literal documentaries, e.g., a train entering a station, factory workers leaving a plant.

The first official documentary or non-fiction narrative film was Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922), an ethnographic look at the harsh life of Canadian Inuit Eskimos living in the Arctic.  Flaherty is often regarded as the “Father of the Documentary Films”.

SOURCE : http://www.film.com/movies/whats-the-big-deal-nanook-of-the-north-1922

Nanook of the North was made in the days before the term “documentary” had even been coined. Filmmaker Robert Flaherty had lived among the Eskimos in Canada for many years as a prospector and explorer, and he had shot some footage of them on an informal basis before he decided to make a more formal record of their daily lives.The film’s tremendous success confirmed Flaherty’s status as a first-rate storyteller and keen observer of man’s fragile relationship with the harshest environmental conditions.

Nanook of the North is a silent documentary film. This film is considered the first feature-length documentary, though Flaherty has been criticized for staging several sequences and thereby distorting the reality of his subjects’ lives. Traditional Inuit methods of hunting, fishing, igloo-building, and other customs are shown with accuracy, and the compelling story of a man and his family struggling against nature is met with great success.

Inuit people used  guns for hunting when the film was being shoot but Flaherty encouraged Nanook to hunt using spears instead of guns because he wanted to show how the ancestors of Nanook used to hunt before the European influence. The hunting scenes actually involved wild walrus and seals. The scene in which Nanook builds an igloo had to be shot several times before he got it right. Furthermore, in order to accommodate interior shooting, he had to make it much larger than he ordinarily would, with a removable roof to admit adequate sunlight.

NANOOK OF THE NORTH remains invaluable for its depiction of the various procedures and stations of the life of an Eskimo and the beauty of the Arctic Landscape.

(In a sadly appropriate footnote, Nanook, the subject of the film, died of starvation not long after the film’s release.)  

The Lumiere brothers and the Cinematographe

The Lumiere brothers, Auguste and Louis, with Auguste being the elder, the Lumiere family eventually settled in Lyon. Their father Antoine, opened his own photographic studio and was  intrigued by this new phenomenon of moving pictures that was slowly developing. Antoine saw to it that his sons recieved a formal education as they attended the largest technical school in Lyon.

By 1894 the Lumieres were producing around 15,000,000 plates a year. Antoine, by now a successful and well known businessman, was invited to a demonstration of Edison’s Peephole Kinetoscope in Paris. He was excited by what he saw and returned to Lyons. He presented his son Louis with a piece of Kinetoscope film, given to him by one of Edison’s concessionaires and said, “This is what you have to make, because Edison sells this at crazy prices and the concessionaires are trying to make films here in France to have them cheaper”.

The brothers worked through the Winter of 1894, Auguste making the first experiments. Their aim was to overcome the limitations and problems, as they saw them, of Edison’s peephole Kinetoscope. They identified two main problems with Edison’s device:

• firstly its bulk – the Kinetograph – the camera, was a colossal piece of machinery and its weight and size resigned it to the studio.
• Secondly – the nature of the kinetoscope – the viewer, meant that only one person could experience the films at a time.

By early 1895, the brothers had invented their own device combining camera with printer and projector and called it the Cinematographe.

SOURCE : http://www.tcf.ua.edu/Classes/Jbutler/T112/Cinematographe.jpg

The Lumiere brothers are credited with the world’s first public film screening on December 28, 1895. The showing of approximately ten short films lasting only twenty minutes in total was held in the basement lounge of the Grand Cafe on the Boulevard des Capucines in Paris and would be the very first public demonstration of their device.

The Lumiere Brothers have been credited with over 1,425 different short films and had even filmed aerial shots years before the very first aiplane would take to the skies.

The video below further explains the  amazing journey through the birth of the motion picture.

Kinetoscope

The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device brought to practicality by Edison and his employees at Edison Laboratory. It was designed for films to be viewed individually through the peephole window of a cabinet housing its components. The Kinetoscope  creates the illusion of movement by conveying a strip of perforated film bearing sequential images over a light source .The Kinetoscope mechanism was driven by an electric motor.   Magnifying lenses in the peephole enlarged the film – a continuous band around fifty foot long which was arranged around a series of spools.

Virtual recreation of Edison’s Kinetoscope

While Edison seems to have conceived the idea and initiated the experiments of Kinetoscope,  Dickson one of Edison’s most talented employees apparently performed the bulk of the experimentation and hence is given a major part of the credit for turning the concept into a practical reality.

SOURCE : http://www.britishmovieclassics.com/_files/Image//kinetoscope.jpg

Kinetoscope  was one of the primary inspirations to the Lumière brothers, who would go on to develop the first commercially successful movie projection system.

Shooting a Film!

True motion pictures, rather than eye-fooling ‘animations’, could only occur after the development of film (flexible and transparent celluloid) that could record split-second pictures. French innovator and physiologist Etienne-Jules Marey  in 1880’s conducted some of the earliest experiments in this regard.

Marey, often claimed to be the ‘Inventor of Cinema,’  in 1882 constructed a camera or a “photographic gun” that could take multiple (12) photographs per second of moving animals or humans – called chronophotography or serial photography, similar to Muybridge’s work on taking multiple exposed images of running horses.

The term ‘shooting a film’ was possibly derived from Marey’s invention. Marey was able to record multiple images of  a object in motion on a single camera plate in contrast to Muybridge  who produced images on individual plates.

Marey’s chronophotographs (multiple exposures on single glass plates and on strips of sensitized paper – celluloid film – that passed automatically through a camera of his own design) were revolutionary.

Marey was able to achieve a frame rate of 30 images. Further experimentation was conducted by French-born Louis Aime Augustin Le Prince in 1888. Le Prince used long rolls of paper covered with photographic emulsion for a camera that he devised and patented. Two short fragments survive of his early motion picture film (one of which was titled Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge and the Roundhay Garden Scene)

The work of Muybridge, Marey and Le Prince laid the groundwork for the development of motion picture cameras, projectors and transparent celluloid film – hence the development of cinema. American inventor George Eastman, who had first manufactured photographic dry plates in 1878, provided a more stable type of celluloid film with his concurrent developments in 1888 of sensitized paper roll photographic film (instead of glass plates) and a convenient “Kodak” small box camera (a still camera) that used the roll film. He improved upon the paper roll film with another invention in 1889 – perforated celluloid.

The Earliest Surviving Motion Picture : Roundhay Garden Scene

The story of Cinema is at the heart of the Media Revolution. The history of Cinema spans over 100 years, from the latter part of the 19th century to the present day.

Today it is one of the most important tools of communication and entertainment, and mass media.The first glimpse of a movie astonished people in the early 1890s in the US and Europe, when short clips in Nickelodeon parlors were all the rage. Within a decade, the “movie” industry quickly became the most popular art form of the 20th century — and the most controversial.

Until the 1890s , parlor toys like flip books the Zoetrope (US), and the Daedalum (England) were the closet anyone could come to having recorded images that could be played over and over.Cinema was    invented during the 1890’s, during the industrial revolution. It  was considered a cheaper, simpler way to provide entertainment to the masses.  After the advent of Cinema people wouldn’t have to travel long distances to see major dioramas (A three-      dimensional miniature or life-size scene in which figures, stuffed wildlife, or other objects are arranged in a naturalistic setting against a painted background)  or amusement parks. During the first decade of the cinema’s existence, inventors worked to improve the machines for making and showing films.

One of the first technological precursors of film is the pinhole camera, followed by the more advanced camera obscura. Moving images were produced on revolving drums and disks in the 1830s with independent invention by Simon von Stampfer (Stroboscope) in Austria, Joseph Plateau (Phenakistoscope) in Belgium and William Horner (zoetrope) in Britain.

On June 19, 1878, under the sponsorship of Leland Stanford (California governor), Eadweard Muybridge successfully photographed a horse named “Sallie Gardner” in fast motion using a series of 24 stereoscopic cameras.

The second experimental film, Roundhay Garden Scene, filmed by Louis Le Prince on October 14, 1888 in Roundhay, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, UK is now known as the earliest surviving motion picture. It was recorded at 12 frames per second, and runs for 2.11 seconds. It was shoot using the Le Prince single-lens camera made in 1888. It was taken in the garden of the Whitley family house in Oakwood ,Grange Road, Roundhay, a suburb of Leeds, Great Britain.