FILM - AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORICAL OVERVIEW - CRASH COURSE SERIES

The merging of still photography with mechanized projection instruments in the late nineteenth century gave us what became the rich and exciting art of cinema. Here is its story, starting with the Lumiere brothers in Paris and Thomas Edison in America. Early experiments evolved into film classics such as The Great train Robbery (1903), the Mack Sennett, Charlie Chaplin, and Buster Keaton comedies, the expressionist films of Fritz Lang and Sergey Eisenstein, and the early 'talkies'. A century of film-making is reviewed in words and pictures that cover the comedies, musicals, and drama. Readers learn how film-making technique has changed over time, from the magic lantern to advanced methods of computer animation, rear projection, Technicolor, 3D, special effects, camera panning and perspective, script-writing and directing.