Silent Film techniques

Thomas Edison's Black Maria studio

1890s: Early movie cameras were large and heavy, so all action was limited to a small performance space; early movies were considered to be just a novelty. Films were mostly equivalent to animated gifs, capturing simple actions and performances.

George Melies' A Trip To the Moon

1902: The magician invented special effects and made the first science fiction film, breaking through some of the limitations of a locked down camera in a movie studio. He invented stop-motion, dissolves and fades-ins and fade-outs

The Lumiere Brothers

1895: The invention of the portable camera allowed filmmakers to take the camera out into the world and changed filmmaking forever; documentary film and sophisticated physical comedy resulted from the liberation of the camera.

Audiences ran screaming from the theaters when they saw the train coming.

This is considered to be the first documentary film footage ever shot.

Buster Keaton

Vaudeville comedian-turned filmmaker

Visual comedy gets sophisticated

Keaton was a master of visual comedy, and even though many of his films are around 100 years old, contemporary filmmakers continue to apply his ideas and approaches to silent film, the use of framing, constructing a gag, and integrating absurdist and surrealist elements into film.

How to write a film with no dialogue

Some helpful suggestions for constructing a silent film with a real-world example.

Jacques Tati: Where to find visual comedy

Tati essentially made silent films in the sound era, drawing inspiration from silent film greats like Buster Keaton. His films used sound, but all dialogue was incidental and all sound was recorded in post-production.

Montage: Creating new Meaning through the collision of shots

Innovation in editing emerged from limited access to film stock, leading to experimentation in editing.

Montage: Creating new Meaning through the collision of shots

Innovation in editing emerged from limited access to film stock, leading to experimentation in editing.

(Lev Kuleshov, born 1899, taught film theory starting in 1919)

Kuleshov effect:

Cutting from man with expressionless face to soup suggests hunger.

constructing meaning

Cutting from a man with expressionless face to a child in a coffin suggests grief.

Sergei Eisenstein's film Potemkin (1925) contains the Odessa Steps sequence, arguably the most influential montage sequence in film history.

Dziga Vertov's documentary Man With a Movie Camera (1929) revolutionized nonfiction film and was one of the first experimental films made.

Film History: Montage

Principles of soviet montage film editing

In the 1920s Soviet filmmmakers invented the sophisticated language of montage. These techniques are the building blocks of almost all contemporary films.

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