With the advent of the newest technologies in film making, the quality of the movies produced compared from the beginning of the first walkie-talkie in the late 19th century up to the present times, it should be noted that there has been numerous changes since then that created a lasting impact on how films are produced up to this day. In this respect, this paper examines the effects of the digital media in regards to the film making industry whether these new technologies managed to help film directors and viewers in their analysis of the films. For this, 6 films will be analyzed according to the technology they used when they were initially released. This aims to make a short comparison between the films produced in the earlier phase of the 20th century up to the present times in order to track down what major improvements contributed to the rise of viewer satisfaction in them.
Edwin Porter’s The Life of an American Fireman was a silent epic film that features the some of the latest in motion in late 19th century motion picture. The films previously way back to the first demonstration of Boxing Cats by Edison, Porter’s film already took its advantage as a silent film to demonstrate the lives of the firefighters in the US; the camera’s improvement from a statutory flash and capture camera became essential in documenting the lives of the ordinary people. What makes this movie really epic was the storyline itself; the actors were good mime characters and the emotions were clearly evident on their faces such as emotions of anger, happiness, and many more. Like the colloquial saying, less is more; this was the charm of the Porter’s film because he successfully provided the audience with the information about their time and culture through the camera. Meanwhile, Casablanca was another noir film that implicitly promotes the active involvement of the men on the militia activities; especially since the male protagonist of the film was drafted to fend off the invading Germans across Europe. Yet, another charm of this film was that it managed to capture the real emotion of the people who played the characters. In addition, those who were watching the film might see some important aspects of the noir film they might deem useful in the future. Noir films such as these were clearly rooted to the existence of the American culture because these films helped the nation re-define what American was made off and how the wars became entangled in the history of the American people. Foremost, the main thing that these films teach the younger generation was the difference in status in life; most especially the people before seemed to be a little bit matured in thinking despite being a child in appearance. Another important repercussion of watching these films was that they provide people with some amusement especially the days when people does not have anything much to do except gossip. According to Belton (2013), the role of films back in the day surpasses far more than the entertainment aspects; in ordinary circumstances in the 1950s, watching films can be as difficult for some of the people particularly to those people with color. Those with color, as Belton notes, were placed as high and isolated from the rest of the White audiences in favor of the privilege of being white complexion. In this respect, Belton explained that back then, when people of different races or culture were seen as eccentric. Yet the function of the theatres as social buildings allowed the propagation of various films which entertained the society at that time. Another film that explores the culture of Americans in the post-World War II period was the film directed by Griffith titled The Birth of a Nation and this chronicles the history of the United States through visual images; another mime film that emerged in the latter phase of the 19th century was Edison’s Boxing Cats directed in 1894 as the first experiment that deals with live filming of cats punching each other while the man on the middle of the miniature boxing ring appears as amused due to the fighting animals. It is widely presumed as Edison yet the film was only a short clip and there were no sounds to highlight the tension of the scene especially when the two cats appear to enjoy their duel in front of the camera. It was also the first mini production that involved putting costumes on animals (e.g. gloves) for the sake of entertainment. In the contrast of all the above mentioned films, by the mid-1950s to 1960s, the shift towards the spoken cinematic dialogue seemed to captivate the audiences more since with the addition of music, the spoken language by the characters allows everyone to understand whatever their feelings and associate themselves with the character they were rooting from the start. In the late 1970s-1990s, colored films began to appear as response to the emergence of the colored televisions and camcorders that allows directors to shoot videos with color. Hence, the brand ‘Technicolor’ was widely adopted in this period and most movies who had this kind of logo either on their credits or openings were rest assured that the film they were about to see was colored and not the traditional black and white film popular in the previous eras. Such notable films are as follows: Bladerunner which is a scientific fantasy film and the romantic flick Singin’ in the Rain gained popularity amongst the audiences who gained the chance to listen and compare whether films from the silent era were more beautiful compared to the ‘talkies’. With the further emergence of the digital media, the mainstream media became more diverse and thus, many gadgets are being sold that caters the demand of the masses for viewing cinemas, improving of the film quality and so on. Likewise, in order to gain the attention of the majority including the film critics, directors and writers collaborate with each other in order to produce films that can surely become a blockbuster hit in the office so that the film industry can gain more money to pay the artists and fund the next films in the future. In conclusion, the technological gadgets of the 21st century contributed to the increase of movie viewing amongst the adults, and these adults became more engrossed in watching that these trends has been continuously exploited by the advertisers who sell their tools for money. (Evans 2009).
REFERENCES
Belton, J. (2013). American Cinema/American Culture. 4th Ed. [Kindle Version]. New York: McGraw-Hill. Retrieved from Amazon.com
Evans, B.B. (2009). Electronic Media as Entertainment: Film. In An Introduction to the Entertainment Industry. Eds. Stein, A. & Evans, B.B. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.
