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Trick Films
In the early history of cinema, trick films were short film, short silent films designed to feature innovative special effects. History The trick film genre was developed by Georges Méliès in some of his first cinematic experiments, and his works remain the most classic examples of the genre. Other early experimenters included the French showmen Émile Isola, Émile and Vincent Isola, the British magicians David Devant and John Nevil Maskelyne, and the American cinematographers Billy Bitzer, James Stuart Blackton and Edwin S. Porter. In the first years of film, especially between 1898 and 1908, the trick film was one of the world's most popular film genres. Before 1906, it was likely the second most prevalent genre in film, surpassed only by nonfiction actuality films. Techniques explored in these trick films included slow motion and fast motion created by varying the camera cranking speed; the editing device called the substitution splice; and various in-camera effects, such as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Le Chaudron Infernal (Georges Méliès, 1903)
''Le Chaudron infernal'', released in Britain as ''The Infernal Cauldron'' and in the United States as ''The Infernal Caldron and the Phantasmal Vapors'', is a 1903 French silent trick film directed by Georges Méliès. It was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 499–500 in its catalogues. Plot In a Renaissance chamber decorated with devilish faces and a warped coat of arms, a gleeful demon throws three human victims into a cauldron, which spews out flames with each sacrifice. The victims rise from the cauldron as nebulous ghosts, then turn into fireballs. The fireballs multiply and pursue the demon around the chamber. Finally, the demon himself leaps into the infernal cauldron, which gives off a final burst of flame. Production Méliès plays the demon, identified in the Star Film Company's American catalogue as Belphegor. The film's special effects were created with pyrotechnics, multiple exposures, soft focus, and substitution splices. Versions Méliès' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Substitution Splice
The substitution splice or stop trick is a cinematic special effect in which filmmakers achieve an appearance, disappearance, or transformation by altering one or more selected aspects of the mise-en-scène between two shots while maintaining the same framing and other aspects of the scene in both shots. The effect is usually polished by careful editing to establish a seamless cut and optimal moment of change. It has also been referred to as stop motion substitution or stop-action. The pioneering French filmmaker Georges Méliès claimed to have accidentally developed the stop trick, as he wrote in ''Les Vues Cinématographiques'' in 1907 (translated from French): According to the film scholar Jacques Deslandes, it is more likely that Méliès discovered the trick by carefully examining a print of the Edison Manufacturing Company's 1895 film '' The Execution of Mary Stuart'', in which a primitive version of the trick appears. In any case, the substitution splice was both the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swashbuckler Film
A swashbuckler film is characterised by swordfighting and adventurous heroic characters, known as swashbucklers. While morality is typically clear-cut, heroes and villains alike often, but not always, follow a code of honor. Some swashbuckler films have romantic elements, most frequently a damsel in distress. Both real and fictional historical events often feature prominently in the plot. History Right from the advent of cinema, the silent era was packed with swashbucklers. The most famous of those were the films of Douglas Fairbanks, such as '' The Mark of Zorro'' (1920), which defined the genre. The stories came from romantic costume novels, particularly those of Alexandre Dumas and Rafael Sabatini. Stirring music was also an important part of the formula. The three great cycles of swashbuckler films were the Douglas Fairbanks period from 1920 to 1929; the Errol Flynn period from 1935 to 1941; and a period in the 1950s heralded by films such as ''Ivanhoe'' (1952) and '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horror Film
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Monster movie, monsters, Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, apocalyptic events, and Religion, religious or Folk horror, folk beliefs. Horror films have existed History of horror films, since the early 20th century. Early Inspirations predating film include folklore; the religious beliefs and superstitions of different cultures; and the Gothic fiction, Gothic and Horror fiction, horror literature of authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and Mary Shelley. From its origins in silent films and German expressionist cinema, German Expressionism, horror became a codified genre only after the release of Dracula (1931 English-language film), ''Dracula'' (1931). Many sub-genres emerged in subsequent decades, including body horror, comed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction Film
Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses Speculative fiction, speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as Extraterrestrial life in fiction, extraterrestrial lifeforms, List of fictional spacecraft, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, Mutants in fiction, mutants, interstellar travel, time travel, or other technologies. Science fiction films have often been used to focus on politics, political or social issues, and to explore philosophical issues like the human condition. The genre has existed since the early years of silent cinema, when Georges Méliès' ''A Trip to the Moon'' (1902) employed Special effect, trick photography effects. The next major example (first in feature-length in the genre) was the film ''Metropolis (1927 film), Metropolis'' (1927). From the 1930s to the 1950s, the genre consisted mainly of low-budget B movies. After Stanley Kubrick's landmark ''2001: A Space Odyssey (film), 20 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musical Film
Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the Character (arts), characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, but in some cases, they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate "production numbers". The musical film was a natural development of the musical theater, stage musical after the emergence of sound film technology. Typically, the biggest difference between film and stage musicals is the use of lavish background scenery and locations that would be impractical in a theater. Musical films characteristically contain elements reminiscent of theater; performers often treat their song and dance numbers as if a live audience were watching. In a sense, the viewer becomes the diegesis, diegetic audience, as the performer looks directly into the camera and performs to it. With the Sound film, advent of sound in the late 1920s, musicals gained popularity with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sherlock Jr
''Sherlock Jr.'' is a 1924 American silent comedy film starring and directed by Buster Keaton and written by Clyde Bruckman, Jean Havez, and Joseph A. Mitchell. It features Kathryn McGuire, Joe Keaton, and Ward Crane. In 1991, ''Sherlock Jr.'' was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2000, the American Film Institute, as part of its AFI 100 Years... series, ranked the film #62 in its AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs. David Thomson calls it "a breakthrough. It is as if a filmmaker had at last learned the point of the whole thing." The title references the fictional Sherlock Holmes. Plot Buster Keaton stars as Projectionist, who moonlights as an amateur detective. When the cinema is empty, he reads the book ''How to be a Detective.'' He is in love with The Girl ( Kathryn McGuire) but has a rival, "The Local Sheik" (Ward Crane). Neither has much ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966) was an American actor, comedian and filmmaker. He is best known for his silent films during the 1920s, in which he performed physical comedy and inventive stunts. He frequently maintained a stoic, deadpan facial expression that became his trademark and earned him the nickname "The Great Stone Face". Keaton was a child vaudeville star, performing as part of his family's traveling act. As an adult, he began working with independent producer Joseph M. Schenck and filmmaker Edward F. Cline, with whom he made a series of successful two-reel comedies in the early 1920s, including ''One Week (1920 film), One Week'' (1920), ''The Playhouse (film), The Playhouse'' (1921), ''Cops (1922), Cops'' (1922), and ''The Electric House'' (1922). He then moved to feature-length films; several of them, such as ''Sherlock Jr.'' (1924), ''The General (1926 film), The General'' (1926), ''Steamboat Bill, Jr.'' (1928), and ''The Camerama ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silent Comedy
Silent comedy is a style of film, related to but distinct from mime, developed to bring comedy into the medium of film during the silent film era (1900s–1920s), before synchronized soundtracks that could include dialogue were technologically available for the majority of films. While silent comedy is still practiced today, albeit much less frequently, it has significantly influenced modern comedic media. Many techniques used in silent comedy were borrowed from vaudeville traditions, with many silent comedy stars, such as Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, getting their start in vaudeville. Silent comedies often place a strong emphasis on visual and physical humor, frequently utilizing "sight gags" to convey stories and entertain audiences. These gags often involved exaggerated forms of violence, a style that became known as "slapstick". Classic examples of slapstick comedy devices include the "pratfall," slipping on a banana peel, getting soaked with water, and having a pie th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sight Gag
In comedy, a visual gag or sight gag is anything which conveys its humour visually, often without words being used at all. The gag may involve a physical impossibility or an unexpected occurrence. The humor is caused by alternative interpretations of the goings-on. Visual gags are used in magic, plays, and acting on television or movies. Types In a 1991 essay ''Notes on the Sight Gag'', Noel Carroll establishes a taxonomy of sight gags, breaking down the varieties into six types: ;The mutual interference or interpenetration of two (or more) series of events (or scenarios): The audience is fully aware of the on-screen situation, but some or all of the characters misunderstand it. This type is used in the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock film '' The 39 Steps'', in a scene where two characters attempt to check into an inn while disguising the fact that they are handcuffed together. The innkeeper assumes from their intense hand-holding that they are newlyweds, and the characters play along. ;Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Conquest Of The Pole
''The Conquest of the Pole'' () is a 1912 French silent science fantasy trick film directed by and starring Georges Méliès. The film, loosely inspired by contemporary events and by Jules Verne's '' Voyages Extraordinaires'', follows the comic misadventures of an international group of explorers on an expedition to the North Pole, where they encounter a man-eating frost giant and a dangerous magnetic needle. The film, one of Méliès's last cinematic works, was released by Pathé Frères to critical acclaim in France and the United Kingdom, but was a box-office failure and contributed to Méliès's mounting financial difficulties. It continues to be seen as one of his masterpieces and is sometimes named as his greatest work. Plot At an International Congress at an Aero Club, explorers from around the world argue about the best way to fly to the North Pole. All are in disagreement until the congress's president, the engineer Maboul of France, explains his plans for an "Aero-Bus," ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cecil Hepworth
Cecil Milton Hepworth (19 March 1874 – 9 February 1953) was a British film director, film producer, producer and screenwriter. He was among the founders of the Cinema of the United Kingdom, British film industry and continued making films into the 1920s at his Hepworth Studios. In 1923 his company Hepworth Pictures, Hepworth Picture Plays went into receivership. His works include ''Alice in Wonderland (1903 film), Alice in Wonderland'' (1903), the first film adaptation of Lewis Carroll's children's book ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''. History Hepworth was born in Lambeth, in present-day South London. His father, Thomas Cradock Hepworth, was a famous magic lantern showman and author. Cecil Hepworth became involved in the early stages of British filmmaking, working for both Birt Acres and Charles Urban, and wrote the first British book on the subject in 1897. With his cousin Monty Wicks he set up the production company Hepworth and Co. (also known as "Hepwix" afte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
