Lecture Week 4 Posted by Sarah:):) , Tuesday, August 25, 2009 at 7:59 PM, in

In today's lecture we talked about the history of the big screen to the small screen. As technology has developed, filmmakers are given more opportunities within their field. The introduction of narrative feature length film gave the filmmakers the chance to tell stories and exhibit their creative side, rather than just capturing moving images. Television seemed like a hinderance to filmmakers at first before they realised they could make money in this medium as well. They released movies to television as a delayed release and still collected payment for this. With the introduction of portable video cameras and the internet, amateur filmmaking prevailed. Anyone could now record and upload their own videos to the internet. There is a lot of argument as to whether this is positive or negative. On the flip side, anyone could now display artistic talent and we can find some really good films on the internet. Anyone could get their message across, regardless of their money or status. These films are accessible to the general public and some people have been discovered in this way. On the down side, anyone can post anything on the web and there is some really terrible films out there. It is said that this will inhibit the integrity of filmmaking as an art and insults the medium. Since people are digesting all these messages without censorship or filtering, their intelligence is also at stake. I personally think that no matter what the final decision, the internet is here to stay and it is at people's own discretion as to whether they view these videos.Here is a brief timeline of what we talked about in the lecture.

1906- first feature length narrative. Australian film Ned Kelly.

1927- introduction of dialogue. The Jazz Singer

1929- first all colour movie

1933- first drive in theatre

1937- Disney released Snow White. First feature length animated film

1939- TV introduced at New York trade fair

1952- introduction of 3D

1955- movies on TV

1956- first proper VTR

1963- 'percepto' vision, aromarama

1967- Sony introduces VCR and portapack

1970- IMAX debuted

1972- pay TV introduced

1985- first Blockbuster Video store opens

1986- Pixar makes first fully animated film

1995- Toy Story first feature length CGI film

1997- DVD video released.

We also took a look at Troops - an internet video sensation that parodies the popular TV show Cops and Star Wars. We also saw Guy Ritchie's short internet film advertising BMW. These internet films were innovative as we had never seen anything like them before. The internet is a popular medium that many can utilise to show their amateur videos or advertise their product to the masses. The success of youtube and many internet campaigns demonstrates this fact. This is the BMW ad with Madonna, directed by Guy Ritchie.