CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the study
The invention of photography as stated by Uwakwe (2010) played a big role in the history of film. Joseph Niepce was the first person to make practical use of a film and camera around 1816, though his images lasted for short time. But as regards motion picture, two people were noted to be trying to capture and portray motion between 1870s and 1880s. The first as explained by Hanson (2005) was Etienne – Jules Marey. Marey wanted to measure and transcribe motion, starting with blood and heart and then, moving on to how animals move. She succeeded in doing this. However, Biagi (2003) stated that in 1882, Marey perfected a photographic gun camera that could take 12 photographs on one plate, which happens to be the first photographic gun camera. British photographer, Eadweard Muybridge, was the second to capture the motion of animals on film. Both Marey and Muybridge had influence on Edison who is now credited with developing the motion picture industry in the United States of America.
The real stage for the development of a projected image was set in 1877. Leland Stanford, the former California Governor, needed to win a bet he had made with a friend. Convinced that a horse in full gallop had all four feet off the ground, he had to prove it. He turned to Eadweard Muybridge, a known photographer of that time who worked on the problem for four years before arriving at a solution.
The lumiere Brothers, Louis and Auguste, made the next advance. In 1895, they patented their cinematograph, a device that both photographed and projected action, (Baran, 2002). Edison recognized the advantage of the cinematograph over his kinetoscope and invented the vitascope, a machine that projected moving pictures on a screen large enough for everybody in the theatre to view simultaneously.
Dominick (2002) stated that Edison’s and Lumiere brothers movies were largely reproductions of “weight lifters lifting, acrobats tumbling, jugglers juggling, babies eating etc and so with time, the novelty become less attractive for the audience. Edison porter, an Edison company cameraman saw that film could be a better storyteller with more artistic use of camera placement and editing. His 12 – minute “The Great Train Robbery” produced in 1903 was the first movie to use editing, intercutting of scenes, and a mobile camera to tell a relatively sophisticated tale.