Blog #2

There have been many changes in film since the 1930’s. After three decades and by the time it reached the 1960’s movies had improved in many ways by changing or adding techniques, conventions, technologies and other elements of film.

According to one website, http://www.chacha.com/question/when-did-the-first-movie-with-talking-sound-come-out, The first production that had sound was released on October 6^th 1927. Since this time, sound has obviously changed in movies. In the early 1930’s sound was not that clear, or easy to listen to for the most part. The sound was usually very full of treble, and low on the bass aspect, as this makes the sound kind of ear piercing and because of this the dialogue was often kept to a minimum. The music was often orchestral. As time progressed, movies started to be released that had a smoother sound quality, less treble, and more bass.

Color television was another huge accomplishment when it came to the technological side of things. It was invented in the mid 1950’s according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_television. It was not popular until the 1960’s, because of the expensive price, lack of materials, and broadcasting issues, such as broadcasting companies having to figure out a way to change their bandwidth, as the color TV’s used a lot more data. (About 3 times as much)

Also, in the early films, it is easy to notice some difference when it comes to film techniques. In the early 1930’s they were just realizing that you could change the camera view in from one image to the same image from a different angle. Films that were made later, closer to the 1960’s had many different techniques. It became standard to show many scenes from one angle and show the same scene from a different angle, but even more things were brought in. For instance, one thing that you see in television now days is the camera behind someone’s face when they are talking to another person. The person closest to the camera is not the point of interest, but the one looking at the camera is. This gives the viewer a better sense of the film being more realistic.

After realizing certain issues that needed to be improved, one of the conventions of film that stands out is the ability to act. As time progressed acting became a whole different job. It started very similar to plays and dramas, but later became more realistic. For instance, Citizen Kane was one of the most popular movies of all time. One of the reasons was because Orson Welles was able to have a more realistic narrative structure, as Orson Welles was able to use a style of acting that was not as common. For example, in that movie, there is a scene in the beginning where someone dies. Throughout the movie they are trying to figure out what the term “rosebud” that he said as he was dying meant. This was much more realistic than the idea of someone dying and no one really caring like in the train movie where someone dies and spins around in a circle, then it moves on to the next scene.

Even though many of the changes of film were during the mid 1900’s, there is still a lot changing today, as we are still adding ding techniques, conventions, technologies.