The technological developments in the Film Industry

By Travis Quailey

1910

The film industry was changing. Hollywood studios were creating longer, better-quality films, creating a generation of movie stars in the process. Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks.

1915

Some of the first three dimentional movies were created Power of Love (US '22), starring Terry O'Neil and Barbara Bedford and R. William Neill's Mars, aka Radio Mania (US '22), with Grant Mitchell as an inventor who succeeds in making contact with Mars via television.

1917

In 1917 The Gulf Between was the first film to use Technicolor.

1923 - 1925

The first movie to have a synchronized sound track was Fritz Lang's “Siegfried” which was produced in the year 1925.

1928

The first all-talking film “Lights of New York” was released.

1928

First feature-length sound film in color: MGM's The Viking, 1928. It had a synchronized score and sound effects, but no audible dialog.

1929

First all-color "talkie": Warner Brothers' On With the Show

1932

First film in 3-color Technicolor: Walt Disney's Silly Symphony: Flowers and Trees

1935

First feature film made entirely in 3-color technicolor: Rouben Mamoulian's Becky Sharp with Cedric Hardwicke and Miriam Hopkins.

1936

The First colour film to be shot entirely on location: Paramount's The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine was directed by Henry Hathaway. It was the second full-length feature film to be shot in three-strip Technicolor and the first in colour to be shot outdoors, with the approval of the Technicolor Corporation.

1952

First film ever to begin using Kodak's Eastman Colour process was a film known as Royal Journey. Royal Journey is a National Film Board of Canada documentary film chronicling a five-week Royal visit by then-Princess Elizabeth and the Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh to Canada and the United States in the fall of 1951.

1950’s-1960’s

Back in the 50′s and 60′s, Hollywood had to combat the growing threat of television by introducing large format films to audiences – Vista-vision, Cinerama, Ultra-Panavision – all new forms of film stock promising better image quality to larger screen sizes to improved sound… anything to draw in a viewing audience more readily able to sit in front of the TV in their lounge-rooms and not go out to the movies.

1970

The 'New Hollywood' or Post-classical cinema was invented.

1980

There were sequels being created after films already made, blockbusters and video-tapes were being used as a new way to purchase films and watch them on television.

1990

New special effects was being produced, independent films, and DVDs were being created instead of films being recorded on VCR’s.

1992’s-1993’s

1992-3: “pro logic” effect was transformed with twin digital channel surround sound formats – Dolby Digital and dts. Dolby Digital debuted with the release of Tim Burton’s "Batman Returns" and Spielberg’s "Jurassic Park"

1995

The rapid rise of CGI animated feature films was created and it was beginning with the famous Toy cartoon and first animated movie which was Toy Story.