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History of Technology 6: Early History of Movies 13 Views
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Description:
Grab some popcorn, because today, we're learning about the early history of movies.
Transcript
- 00:02
So radios turned sound into a form of mass communication and cameras [woman sitting in a chair listening to the radio]
- 00:08
allowed images to be reproduced gazillions of times so chances are
- 00:12
somebody in the early 1900's could be forgiven for saying well this is it
- 00:18
technology has plateaued because really what could be more [Calvin Coolidge giving a speech]
- 00:22
impressive than turning the President's speech into sound waves and sending it
Full Transcript
- 00:26
thousands of miles away impressive! people everywhere could simultaneously
- 00:30
hear every word he said if he breathed they heard it and if he accidentally swore [Calvin Coolidge breathing heavily down the microphone]
- 00:35
because he stubbed his toe they'd hear it too it's ok Cal everyone does it the modern
- 00:40
age had also brought pictures any given moment time could be caught on film [Person taking photographs and falls off cliff]
- 00:45
weddings births sat on the toilet all the important stuff how could these
- 00:50
magical modern marvels possibly be topped well as it turns out pretty easily [man developing new discoveries]
- 00:55
people could figure out ways to make those pictures move and what would be a
- 00:59
good name for the moving picture oh let's think let's think, yeah movies
- 01:05
so the vast majority of us have watched one or two movies or maybe we should say [Girl with feet up watching a movie]
- 01:09
one or two thousand so yeah we've all seen them but do we all really know what
- 01:15
they are they may seem like magic but movies are really just thousands of [man dressed as a wizard waving a wand at a film reel]
- 01:19
still pictures strung together and moved really fast that's pretty much it.
- 01:25
Thought it'd be more impressive than all that but that's it. Even with simple camera [Horse galloping in a field as person takes a photograph]
- 01:29
technology folks were able to take pictures fast enough to create little
- 01:33
flip books that were like the primordial ancestors of movies.. the first movie ever
- 01:39
was created using this basic tech and showed a few seconds of a guy riding a
- 01:43
horse no it wasn't avatar but it was a start [Man riding a horse and avatar character photo bombs]
- 01:47
so the technological leap from cameras to movie cameras was more like a
- 01:51
technological hop sure it took a couple of decades tinkering but eventually people
- 01:55
in Europe in America had figured out how to reliably capture moving pictures [Global map of countries developing movies]
- 01:58
they also figured out how to reliably capture audience's attention and make
- 02:02
lots of money in the process but the technological side of movies is only
- 02:06
half the story or maybe like 25 percent of the story or 27% tops. The lesson is
- 02:11
mostly about the huge waves of cultural changes wrought by relatively small [Waves approaching the shore]
- 02:15
inventions it's all about the rise of film is a serious money-making industry
- 02:19
and it's about the messages that sent out to viewers all over the world you [Man outside a movie theatre and dollar bills rain down]
- 02:24
know like er, that we should all fear giant apes. Well that can be your take
- 02:28
away from this lesson you're welcome
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