9 Tech innovations that changed the film industry ( through the ages)
One industry that has been expansively affected by technological changes is film. Both mechanical and digital innovations have influenced everything from equipment to distribution, changing how films are made and the manner in which we consume them.
With the medium being just around 120 years old, we take a look at the biggest tech
innovations that, through time, changed
film for the better.
Movie cameras - Late 1800's
The movie camera – a camera that could capture a sequence of photographs onto filmstrip in quick
succession – was a late
invention of the 1800s, and without it we wouldn’t have the visual medium that we all love to enjoy while in dark rooms chomping on popcorn and
answering our cell phones.
Synchronous sound – 1920s
Before sound could be captured simultaneously to picture, there was the
golden age of
silent films.
This era was famous for over the top (slapstick)
acting, the use of intertitles (titles between shots), and live-
music accompaniment to films in theatres. Even early projectionists are credited to have done
live sound effects for films too (surely one of the most fun jobs in the last century).
But it all meant there were narrative limitations.
The process of synching sound had been achieved in 1914 with
The Photo-Drama of Creation, in which slides and phonograph records were synched up. But it was Warner Brothers’ “
Vitaphone” that took the system to feature films.
Colour -1939
There’s nothing wrong with a good black and white film, regardless, colour changed film for the better. Not only because it gave the medium the ability to mimic life more realistically than ever before, but it also led to more narrative possibilities, with the prime example being
The Wizard of Oz (1939) which famously depicted Dorothy’s Kansas in black and white, but then brought Oz to magical life in Technicolour.
Film was never the same again… until
The Artist of course
Green Screen - 1940
Early digital compositing started in the 1940s with the ‘traveling matte’ – a process that was used to superimpose backdrops with actors performing against a blank, coloured wall. These screens’ colours have changed throughout the decades, but the process and effect have remained the same.
It is a time-consuming technique in which a scene is filmed against the coloured (green) screen, then re-filmed with a filter on the lens that removes all the coloured (green) areas of the film.
Lastly, the layers are composited together in a final recording by laying them over each other one frame at a time. You can’t help but respect the technique.
It allowed for actors to be ‘anywhere in the world’ and also create optical illusions, all the while saving on production costs.
Lightweight/portable equipment - 1950's - 60's
Hollywood was famous for building huge studios and sets in its early days. Film always had a larger than life mystique about it. However once lightweight cameras and smaller sound recording devices became available, there was a shift in the style and themes explored in film.
The most famous movement to make use of this tech change was the French New Wave starting in 1950. The revolutionary movement made use of the new equipment that could capture images on location, and a new grittier, documentary
visual-style emerged that allowed filmmakers to explore social issues where they happened… on the streets
Camera rigs the dolly (1907) the steadicam ( 1976)
The dolly and steadicam are inventions that signify benchmark camera techniques. You’ll be hard pressed to find a major motion picture that doesn’t make use of either or both of these inventions.
The dolly, to put it simply, is the placing of the camera on wheels that move along tracks.
The steadicam was the solution to many a cameraman’s problem – getting the smoothness of a dolly system, but with the freedom of hand-held shooting.
Effectively a rig that places the camera on more than one point on the human body, the steadicam utilises the cameraman’s back, shoulders and chest/stomach to support the camera as well as his hands.
The result is famous shots such as the boy riding his scooter in
The Shining(1980),
Digital single lens reflex cameras
The move from film and celluloid to digital cameras was a big one in cinema history, especially for amateur and budget filmmakers.
The ability to record onto memory cards and internal storage, and not use chemicals, saved on production costs and time. The compact nature of these cameras was also a plus for aspiring filmmakers, because setup times were reduced.
Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) - 1973
It’s hard to believe that there were once films with absolutely no CGI, but you have to go back 40 years to 1973, and the sci-fi
Westworld, to find the first use of computer-generated imagery in film. Aptly it was a 2-D digital rendition of a robotic-cowboy’s vision… we wouldn’t want it any other way.
Pixar created the first feature-length computer-animated movie in Toy Story (1995) and nowadays it’s more and more uncommon for films not to make use of CGI in one way or another, as it often saves on production costs
The internet - 1990's
The internet has to make this list because it has changed, and is changing the manner in which films are consumed and distributed, not to mention the types of films we watch and who is making them.
Instant access, worldwide
distribution and everyone with a cell phone are now all players in the video-creation game. What was once a medium of the few – those who could afford the equipment – is now the most democratised (and sought-out) medium available. We all want video, and we want it now.
New formats (web shows, podcasts) and new ways of accessing video (streaming, downloading) means that the power has shifted from the industry to the consumers. It’s all very Romantic, and it pisses off the powers that be to no end
The future....
The industry has to realise that the medium is moving into an age of digitally made, and digitally distributed movies.
Not only must the industry adapt to find new ways of monetising digital consumption so that the legal ways of accessing films becomes more appealing than piracy, so must filmmakers, old and new, otherwise they run the risk of being left behind.
Technology is arguably having its most profound and pronounced effect on film in this day and age. It’s an exciting age in film history — the digital era.
