In a cinema movie, many still photographs are projected
onto a screen in quick succession. Our eyes do not see them as separate still
photographs, but blend them into a single moving image. Early movies had black
and white pictures and little or no sound. Modern movies are colourful, have
realistic sound, and use DIGITAL EFFECTS.
The first “movies” were little more than mechanical
toys. The phenakistoscope, invented in 1832, has a series of still pictures
printed around the surface of a large cardboard disc. Each picture depicts one
stage of a continuous movement. When you spin the disc quite fast and stare at
a single point, the pictures merge together and give the illusion of
movement.
Filming is an expensive process, so it is usually planned in
advance. After writers provide a story, artists sketch the scenes that need to
be filmed on a storyboard. The director (who is responsible for the overall
look of a movie) uses this to work out how to arrange cameras, lighting, and
other equipment.
Movie sound is usually recorded at the same time as the filming. The
sound may need to be edited in a recording studio like this one. The sound
editor’s job is to make sure the sound is exactly in step with the
pictures. He or she is also responsible for adding music (called the score) to
the movie.
Movie action can be very dramatic and exciting when seen on the
gigantic screen of an IMAX cinema. The screen is so big that it completely
fills your field of view (what you can see), and you easily forget the people
and other things around you. That is why you feel so affected by the action on
the screen.
A movie camera works in much the same way as a still camera and has
many of the same components. Instead of taking only one photograph, it takes 24
separate photographs each second. A motor inside the camera works a mechanism
that pulls film past the lens from a large spool. Small, square holes punched
along the edges of the film ensure that the film is pulled through steadily and
at exactly the right speed.
AUGUSTE AND LOUIS LUMIERE
Cinema, as we call it today, was invented by the French brothers
Auguste (1862–1954) and Louis (1862–1948) Lumière. They
developed the first practical film projector, a machine they called the
cinèmatographe, in 1895. Also in that year, they made the first ever
motion picture and opened the first cinema to show movies.
Computers can be used when movies require dazzling
special effects that would be impossible to create in real life. The effects
are called digital because they are created with digital technology. Movies
that need digital effects are turned into a series of digital photographs. Once
in digital form, they can be edited, mixed with animation, and changed in other
ways.
