Introduction

A History of Video:
1895 First movies were exciting simply because they moved. This video, "Exiting the Factory", was one of the first to be shown publicly to audiences. People were excited by it because it showed movement of not only people, but of animals and machines as well.

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1896 Luckily, it didn't take long before films had some kind of plot. There was no audio for films though. Often the film was sent out with a sheet of piano music. Movie houses had piano players playing the music that accompanied the film.

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1903 By the early 1900's we had feature films: movies that told a complete story from beginning to end. "The Great Train Robbery" was the first. Notice that the film is, stylistically, very simple. The camera sits in one place and films the action in front of it. Most early film simply captured what happened in front of the camera- that is not true for later film. media type="youtube" key="aRBi08Z00Ec?rel=0" height="315" width="420"

Through the early 1900's film grew wildly. Movie houses opened, cartoon reels and news reels were added. The first "movie stars" became very popular. One of those early stars was Charlie Chaplin. You'll notice in this Charlie Chaplin movie, the camera no longer films only one thing. The film cuts back and forth between Charlie and the couple on the park bench. Cinematography and film editing has begun.

Charlie Chaplin ~1914

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In the late 1927, feature films began including recorded sound. After nearly 30 years of live musical accompaniment, movies were able to hold their own voice and music. Here is an announcer in 1927 introducing "The Jazz Singer", the first movie was spoken sound.

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Advances continued. Live broadcasts, improved sound, changes in lighting, etc. Film today seems to have very little in common with these very early films we've looked at. Lots of the video we spend time watching today comes from YouTube and there is a lot of very terrible video on YouTube. Hard to hear, wobbly, boring, just plain hard to watch. With all of the truly terrible video that is out there, it's important for you to be able to recognize good audio when you see it.

Citizen Kane was a feature film released in 1941. Orson Welles, the star and director of the film, was given a lot of freedom to make the movie the way he wanted. The result was the beginning of true artistic cinematography. Nearly everything we learn in a basic video production class first appeared in the movie Citizen Kane. Different camera angles, creative lighting, deep focus, shot composition. Citizen Kane, besides just being a good movie, is required viewing for any student of video production. Here's just a small clip as an example. Know that nothing in this scene is accidental. Every detail was meticulously planned.

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Video today is an integral part of our lives. We use it to communicate, inform, entertain, and advertise. No matter what career you end up in, video is very likely to have some role. Will you be watching training videos? Will you be creating training videos? Will you be teleconferencing with business partners? Will you be recorded explaining your job, corporate product or service? Will you be informing people using video to spread that information? You can create quality video and your ability to do that will serve you well.