Camera capable of taking images had been around for ages but still were unable to capture moving images, this was a problem many people tried to resolve, with the first basic film camera capable of capturing “moving images” was made in 1895 in France by the Lumière brothers who along side the first camera made the first projector with these they recorded short clips of daily tasks and would show them as part of ‘the cinema of attractions’ which would often be found in carnivals as film was not a permanent industry at the time.
The clip above is one of the short films shown in the cinema of attractions depicting a train arriving at the station.
Between the years of 1895 and 1927 film had evolved into a larger industry now showing full movies in contrast to short clips of everyday tasks and events, in this time the foundations of cinema had been established; mise-en-scène, cinematography, lighting, shooting on set and on location.
During the 1920s cinema was scene as a form of art in many countries however in America was seen as a business opportunity and filmed studios arose, everything was vertically integrated meaning film companies would own cinemas and only show their films in these cinemas.
By the 1930s there were 8 large cinema studios known as the big 5 and the small 3, the big 5 being paramount, warner brothers, MGM, 20th century fox and RKO and the small 3 being Columbia, Universal and United Artists.
During the 1920s all films were silent and shot in black and white, until in 1927 when sound was introduced. The first film released with sound played at the same time was called the jazz singer, directed by Alan Crosland staring Al Jolson produced by warner brothers.
The problem of black and white was solved later in 1935 in the film Becky sharp directed by Rouben Mamoulien and used three strip colour film or technicolour meaning it was shot 3 times in different colours and then overlayed onto each other.
The industry had become so large it had attracted government attention, the government rule it unfair that cinemas would only show films created by the studio that owns them and were told they had to open the cinemas to other companies and independent film makers, Howe the companies did not listen.
This led to the paramount court case in 1948 where it was ruled illegal for film companies to exclusively show there own companies films, this made independent film making a feasible career and allowed foreign films to be shown.
By the 1950s television had become more affordable and was owned by most Americans, this slowed cinema as people would just stay at home instead of going to the cinema.
To overcome this cinema introduced bigger, wider and brighter film along with more refined colour and 3d films, televisions could not compete with this.
In the 1970s cinematographer garret brown invented the Steadicam which allowed a cameraman to use a hand held camera without the imperfections of humans.
In the 1990s computer generated imagery or CGI became more common and widespread. The first large scale film to use CGI for a large portion of the film was Jurassic park, which used CGI from industrial light and magic a company owned by George Lucas.
The first entirely CGI full length feature film was released in 1995 being Toy Story made by John Lassiter for Pixar animation studios.
In the 2000s technology had advanced enough that video cameras had become a very common item this led to a rise in citizen film making.
then in 2007, the iPhone was released and Netflix was created, this became the first legal streaming service for television and movies.
Following the release of the iPhone the first entirely shot on iPhone film was released in 2015 called tangerine, which was directed by Sean baker.
Then later unsane was released in 2018 directed by Steven Soderbergh.
by 2017 streaming services had surpassed cinema and physical dvd for the first time the biggest being Netflix, Sky, Amazon Prime and Apple TV+.
In 2018 Hollywood released the first film shot entirely on imax camera which allowed filming on 70mm film and fed through horizontally in contrast to the regular vertical feeding. This film was avengers infinity war.