The History of Film

Cinema was not born of void. Earlier inventions, including, but not limited to, the magic lantern, diorama theater, the photograph, and vaudeville contributed to what went on in front of the camera in the earliest days of film history. Visit the show's website, historyoffilmpodcast.com for show notes, and contact me at historyoffilmpodcast@gmail.com. Enjoy the show!
I am using soundbites for movies as transitions, reminder...

Kodak, Edison, and Dixon are introduced, as are their first roles in the story of film history. Next week we cover movies they made.
I use movie clips as transitions in this show. Once we reach sound film, all the clips will be very pertinent, but for now, it is just for the joy of movies and as a reminder of where we are eventually headed. This week the movies were:
Iron Man (2008)
Sabrina (1954)
Jaws (1975)
Br...

Let's all go to the movies! Sorry, I am two days late. Today we discuss the kinetograph, and the movies made on it, including Fred Ott's Sneeze, Comic Boxing, Serpentine Dance, and more.
If you want to contact me, my email is historyoffilmpodcast@gmail.com. The website for the show is historyoffilmpodcast.com.
I am using soundbites from movies as transitions, reminders of what this is all leading up to, and for ...

This episode we cover an exciting, but ultimately unfruitful, film made in the Black Maria, and voyage to Europe to meet the Lumiere family, and their incredible contributions to cinema.

I told you the clips would start becoming useful just as soon as I could make them do it! This week we have sound clips from
The Edison-Dixon Experimental Sound Film (1895?)
Singing in the Rain (1954)
Amelie (2001) (the only o...

This week we look at some of the "firsts" in film history as they occurred in the Lumiere's early projections. We also describe a few advancements in film technology, including the Latham Loop, and the Geneva Drive.

I have had to take the website down for a little while. There were just too many tech issues. But you can still listen at historyoffilm.buzzsprout.com. But I will return with a website soon. You...

In the most dramatic and magical episode of the show so far, we cover the life and achievements of cinemas first great magician, Georges Méliès. The only movie clip is from the 2011 film Hugo, which touches on subjects of film history and Méliès specifically.  I cover the origins of edition, and the first special effects, called "in camera effects." As of 21 October, 2020, the website still isn't up yet, but I am wor...

It was a big episode this time, and it took me a long time to write. But here it is! As I said at the end of the episode, a huge thanks to Stephen Herbert and Luke McKernan, whose work has proved to be the single most referenced resource I have used in making the show so far. You can their website here: https://www.victorian-cinema.net
The definition I used for "tracking Shot" came from the third edition of Film: A Cr...

We cover the life and accomplishments of Charles Pathé! This is actually the first in a series of at least two episodes, as I hope to upload one about Leon Gaumont and Alice Guy within two weeks. Thank you all for staying with me through my December 2020 hiatus. Look forward to exciting shows this upcoming year! Also, I accidentally said that my email was historyoffilm@...com (I wish) it is actually historyoffilmpodcast@gmail.com. ...

CORRECTION: Okay, it turns out Max Linder is much more remembered than I thought he was. Not only is he featured, albeit briefly, in many of the texts I didn't initially find him in, but he is even mentioned in the 2009 film Inglorious Bastards directed by Quinten Tarantino. The reason I thought he wasn't in many film history books were:
A) I had a lot less of them, and
B) He is usually featured much later, someti...

It's the second part of episode 11, in which we cover Alice Guy's movies. Movies, after all, are just as much a part of film history as the people who made them (more actually). 
In this episode, we discuss:
Faust et Méphistophélès (1903)
A Story Well Spun (1906)
The Drunken Mattress (1907)
A Sticky Woman (1906)
Madame’s Cravings (1906)
The Consequences of Feminism (1906)
La Esmerelda (1905...

Edwin S. Porter and some of his early films and achievements are highlighted here, as well as some achievements that he did not... well, achieve. 

There are a couple of references that didn't fit into the flow of the show that I would like to put here:

All of the definitions I used in todays episode were taken directly from the third edition of Film: A Critical Introduction by Maria Pramaggiore and Tom Walli...

It’s a big one again this week! We complete our second and Gil episode focused on filmmaker Edwin S. Porter, and discuss how his movies relate to film history. This includes technical innovations, genre development, and early examples of voyeurism in film. 

There are several movie clips used in the show, but one of them is unusual for this program. It’s an excerpt from an IGN video review. The link for you to watch the whole review ...

The reason my voice sounds just a little off is because I have been pretty sick for more than a week now. This is far and away the best I have sounded in a while though, so I went into the makeshift recoding booth and gave you my best!
This week's show its all about the growth of cinemas's audiences and industry, and attempts by powerful people (mostly Thomas Edison) to control that industry. Towards the end of the s...

This was a wonderful episode to produce, even if it was tricky. If you would like to learn all of the things that I didn't get to in this episode, like some of the wonderful names nickelodeon’s had, I really can't recommend At The Picture Show: Small-Town Audiences and the Creation of Movie Fan Culture by Kathryn Fuller enough. I wish there was an audiobook for it (but I feel that way about every book).

A couple...

This is actually the first of a two-part episode that I was originally going to call "Trustbusters." This week, we cover the early events of Carl Laemmle's life and see the feature film become the dominant form of cinematic presentation in the United States.  Next week it is the star system and the exodus to California, where the center of film production has stayed (in the U.S. at least) ever since.

If you...

This episode is actually a bonus episode, rather than the other “bonus” episode I’ve released, which was 30 minutes long and took weeks to make. 

This episode gets a little heavy, but suicide is a heavy subject. If you, or someone you know, is having suicidal thoughts, know that there is help. In the United States, you can visit https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org to make contact with people who are here to help you right now. You...

16- The Stars are Born

Here it is, episode 16, which in my heart, is the Kill Bill Vol. II of the podcast. This one pares a lot with episode 15, so I have a couple of brief recaps of the last episode to make the episode flow a little better.
I played a clip from Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal from 1982 and was very tempted to play the emperor’s death sounds again when I was talking about the downfall of Edison’s trust. ...

Just as promised in episode 15, this week we begin our journey through the early influences of feature-length movies that will eventually take us into the studio era of the U. S. film industry and D. W. Griffith. Film D'art is more important for what it inspired than what it accomplished, and funnily enough, is skipped over entirely in a book I have on the History of French film, but is still worth discussing. It represents th...