Week 4 Lecture - From the Big Screen to the Small

1895 - The birth of cinema. The Lumiere brothers show 20 x 1 minute clips of moving images to a paying public. Movies have come a long way since these humble beginnings.



1906 - The first full length narrative feature film, "The Story of the Kelly Gang" was released in Australia. See a short clip of the film below.



1927 - The birth of the 'talkies' or films involving dialogue with the release of the movie "The Jazz Singer".
1929 - The first full-length full-colour and sound movie "On With the Snow" was produced.
1933 - The first Drive-In movie theatre.
1937 - The first full-length animated feature, Disney's "Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs" was released.



1939 - TV was formally introduced at the New York World Fair. This was also the year many 'classic' movies were released including "Gone With the Wind" and "The Wizard of Oz".
1952 - First 3D movie released.
1955 - Movie back catalogue released to TV.
1956 - The first practical videotape recorder was released.
1959 - Two interesting but short lived ideas emerged; percepto-vision where viewers were given a small electric shock during crucial moments in horror films & Aroma-Rama or smell-a-vision.
1963 - The first Multiplex cinema opened. Also the first consumer version of a video recorder was released.
1967 - Sony introduced the PortaPak, the first portable video camera system.
1969 - Sony release the VCR.
1970 - The first IMAX is built.
1972 - Pay TV is introduced.
1985 - The first blockbuster video store is opened.
1986 - Pixar released the first fully computer-generated and computer-animated film.
1995 - Toy story was the first totally computer-generated feature length animated film.



1997 - DVD's are released.
1999 - TiVO released.
2001 - BMW releases a series of short films promoting their cars on the internet.



2002 - Movielink is introduced, a large bank of movies you could legally download from the internet.
2005 - Blue Ray discs are introduced.
2006 - YouTube creates a new place for video's to be viewed from.
2007 - For the first time a movie was released online before its DVD was released. The film was the sequel to Jackass.
2009 & beyond - The movie industry probably needs to work more with the internet as many people are now illegally downloading TV shows & movies off the internet rather than paying for them at the cinema or on DVD. Who knows where it will take film in the future...