Technical Firsts

[zettel45]

Thinking about the "most revolutionary films" thread led me to think about all the minor technical aspects of film-making that we take completely for granted but which still must've been invented by some bright spark or other.



A brief list of candidates for investigation is below - I'm sure there are many, many others, so feel free to chip in with your own. And the question, of course, is can any of these firsts be pinned down to a particular movie?



The first tracking shot.

The first panning shot.

The first overhead shot.

The first POV shot.

The first jump-cut.

The first dissolve.

The first freeze-frame.

The first close-up.

The first extreme close-up.

The first flash-back.

The first dream-sequence.

The first voice-over.

The first fictional story where a real person appears as him/herself



On your marks. Set. Go!

[will.15]

I think you asked a lot of questions that can't be answered.



The first movie with a close-up might be The Great Train Robbery, but it doesn't appear in the story. It is at the very end as one of the bank robbers points his gun at the audience, but it's out of continuity as he is already dead.

[zettel45]

name='will.15' date='15 July 2010 - 07:50 PM' timestamp='1279219833' post='452381']I think you asked a lot of questions that can't be answered.



The first movie with a close-up might be The Great Train Robbery, but it doesn't appear in the story. It is at the very end as one of the bank robbers points his gun at the audience, but it's out of continuity as he is already dead.

Yes, I realise that for many of the categories, the answer is probably lost in the mists of time. I was just wondering if any of them had somehow been identified.



The first voice-over, for example, must've been relatively late (ie, after the invention of talkies).

[CaptainWaggett]

It won't be the first, I'm sure, but there's a voice-over in Hitchcock's Murder.

[Steve Crook]

name='zettel45' date='15 July 2010 - 06:43 PM' timestamp='1279215790' post='452338']

Thinking about the "most revolutionary films" thread led me to think about all the minor technical aspects of film-making that we take completely for granted but which still must've been invented by some bright spark or other.



A brief list of candidates for investigation is below - I'm sure there are many, many others, so feel free to chip in with your own. And the question, of course, is can any of these firsts be pinned down to a particular movie?



The first tracking shot.

The first panning shot.

The first overhead shot.

The first POV shot.

The first jump-cut.

The first dissolve.

The first freeze-frame.

The first close-up.

The first extreme close-up.

The first flash-back.

The first dream-sequence.

The first voice-over.

The first fictional story where a real person appears as him/herself



On your marks. Set. Go!

The answer to a lot of those is Rescued by Rover (1905)



Steve

[zettel45]

name='Steve Crook' date='15 July 2010 - 09:49 PM' timestamp='1279226980' post='452498']

The answer to a lot of those is Rescued by Rover (1905)

Cheers, Steve. I looked up RBR, and that, in turn, led me to look up the history of cinema. Interestingly, a lot of the very early developments are pretty well documented. They can't (usually) be traced to one particular film, but the period when a particular technique was first attempted can often be specified within a narrow time-frame.



Tracking shots, for example, are almost as old as film itself. Once the movie pioneers had done filming trains pulling into stations (see video clip above) they quickly moved on to filming from the moving train itself. They were especially fond of putting the camera on the front of the train - for a short while, this was almost its own genre. Of course, that's not using a tracking shot as a narrative device, but at least it meant audiences would already be familiar with the technique when it began to occur in dramas.



The panning shot can be nailed down even more precisely: a special new camera stand was designed for the filming of Queen Victoria's golden jubilee celebrations specifically because the guy filming it wanted to pan the camera round to follow the procession as it went by.



Flash-backs, POV shots and a whole range of other techniques now taken for granted were all firmly in place by the outbreak of WWI.



Oddly though, things are less clear when it comes to some of the later developments. For example, I could find next to nothing on the history of voice-overs in cinema (though I must admit, I didn't do hours of painstaking research).



So let's narrow the search: can anyone provide anything on the history of the voice-over in movies?

[Steve Crook]

name='zettel45' date='16 July 2010 - 10:18 AM' timestamp='1279271923' post='452625']

Oddly though, things are less clear when it comes to some of the later developments. For example, I could find next to nothing on the history of voice-overs in cinema (though I must admit, I didn't do hours of painstaking research).



So let's narrow the search: can anyone provide anything on the history of the voice-over in movies?

Well that won't have happened until the introduction of sound

Unless you include a title card acting as a voice-over to explain something rather than to show what people are saying



Steve

[zettel45]

name='Steve Crook' date='16 July 2010 - 11:24 AM' timestamp='1279275855' post='452660']

Well that won't have happened until the introduction of sound

Unless you include a title card acting as a voice-over to explain something rather than to show what people are saying



Steve

Yes. That's why I thought it might be easier to find out about voice overs than the earlier, more basic developments. But a huge amount of effort has (understandably) been put into researching that crucial early period, whereas some of the later innovations seem to have slipped through the cracks.



And your comment about title cards raises the thorny question of what exactly is a voice over? Ah well, I'll do some digging and report back.

[will.15]

name='CaptainWaggett' date='15 July 2010 - 08:28 PM' timestamp='1279222083' post='452419']

It won't be the first, I'm sure, but there's a voice-over in Hitchcock's Murder.

It is the first use of an actor in a movie with a voice over.

[CaptainWaggett]

Isn't the first close-up meant to be from Life of an American Fireman - presumably of the fire alarm box?

[christoph404]

One of the cinemas most revolutionary and innovative camera devices was first used quite recently...well 1976 to be more precise, its now used extensively in just about every feature film ever made since then..... " Bound for Glory" was the first feature film to use the device, but films like "Rocky", "The Shining" and "Marathon Man" really popularized the technique. Im referring to the "Steadicam", counter weighted hand held camera support enabling smooth movement just about anywhere ,without the need for tracks.