Basics of Film and Music 8/27

Pioneers of Film

• George Méliès - a magician who incorporated films into his magic shows

  • Experimented with new camera techniques - slow down, dissolves, fade-outs, superimpositions

  • One of the first to make films with a narrative/plot

• Edwin Porter - an American projectionist who had worked for Edison

  • Created The Great Train Robbery, the first major American narrative film

    • Retells the true story of a 1900 train robbery in Wyoming by Butch Cassidy

    • Tells the story with discontinuous action - shifting between multiple simultaneous events

Music for Early Film

• Venue options:

  • Small neighborhood movie houses wih a keyboardists

    • Nickelodeons - small theaters with a 5-cent admission price

  • Medium-sized theaters with a small ensemble (5-10 musicians)

• Early films were NOT SILENT!

• Music wasn’t only used for drama:

  • Covered the noise of the projector

  • Made it more relatable to the audience - compensated for lack of actors

• Originally improvised, but later written down/planned

• Music for early films was handled by the venus, not the filmmakers

  • If shown in a smaller theater, it would be accompanied by 1-3 musicians

    • Almost always a keyboard (especially organ)

    • Sometimes added a drummer (for sound effects), violinist/cellist, or singers

• The Wurlitzer organ was designed specifically for accompanying silent films

  • Invented in 1911; over 2,000 built