The Story of Communication:
Movies—Fascinating Facts
- The magic lantern, forerunner of motion picture projection, was
once considered devilish magic.
- We see a series of still pictures as continuous motion because
it takes the eye and the brain a fraction of a second to lose
an image. Its called persistence of vision.
- Draw a cage on one side of a disc and a canary on the other.
When the disc is spun, the canary will appear inside the cage.
- Movies can be traced back to a bet by the railroad tycoon who
founded Stanford University about the movement of a trotting
horse.
- Thomas Edison did not invent motion pictures. He ordered his
chief engineer to build a camera and projector.
- The first portable movie camera, a French invention, was also
a projector and a film printer.
- The first paying movie audience, seeing ocean waves approaching,
ducked in fear of getting drenched.
- The four Warner brothers got into the movie business by opening
a nickelodeon. To seat patrons, they borrowed chairs from a nearby
funeral parlor. During funerals, their patrons had to stand.
- One of the first news films was of a Spanish American War naval
battle. It was a fraud, using toy boats in a bathtub.
- Silent film cinemas were usually quite noisy.
- Hollywood was created by independent movie makers hiding from
detectives hired to shut down patent infringement.
- The Keystone Kops were especially popular with immigrant audiences
who were delighted that they could laugh at police.
- Charlie Chaplins salary rose in one year from $125 weekly to
$10,000 weekly plus a bonus.
- Warner Bros. introduced sound movies because they were nearly
bankrupt and desperate.
- As a experiment in color, some movies had film scenes dipped
in vats of dye, such as red for scenes of a burning building.
- Hollywood movies gained popularity in Europe during World War
I when European studios shut down for lack of film stock. Cellulose
was needed for explosives
- Bollywood, Indias film industry, turns out four times as many
films as Hollywood.
- The film All Quiet on the Western Front, made a dozen years
after the horrors of World War I, was denounced for its pacifism
and was banned by a number of European governments.
- The movie industry fought the nascent television industry hard.
Today, television provides a big slice of movie income.
- Some countries turn a blind eye to DVD piracy. Chief among the
victims are their own movie industries, which attract fewer patrons.
- The Blair Witch Project was made for $31,000. It has earned close
to $250 million.
Other Resources for Movies

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