Difference between revisions of "Nickelodeon"

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(Thomas Edison and Film)
(Thomas Edison and Film)
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[[Image:FredOtto.jpg|thumb|left|Fred Ott's Sneeze.]]
 
[[Image:FredOtto.jpg|thumb|left|Fred Ott's Sneeze.]]
  
Thomas Edison was an incredibly influential figure within both the silent and sound film industries. In 1893, he opened a “motion picture studio,” in the most literal sense of the phrase, in the back of his laboratory in New Jersey. There, he produced "Fred Ott’s Sneeze" - a few seconds of footage with a stream of pictures depicting his worker, Fred Ott (Cohen 33). After the development of the phonograph, Edison wanted to merge both sound and film. He thought that combining the motion picture with sound “would provide delightful entertainment for millions of people" (Manchel 2). William Dickson, also an inventor, collaborated with Edison to work on combining film and sound. Dickson created one of the first sound films using Edison’s phonograph. He presented his project to Edison in his laboratory in New Jersey and asked him to use listening tubes from a phonograph while watching a small screen. The screen showed Dickson tipping his hat and waving to Edison, while the phonograph played a greeting wishing Edison good morning and expressing Dickson’s hope that he would enjoy the “kinetophone.” In 1913, after two decades of work on the combination of sound and film, Edison gave a public display of one of his features. The movie was met with disdain and was rejected by the audience. After two more years Edison quit his efforts.
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Thomas Edison was an influential figure within both the silent and sound film industries. In 1893, he opened a “motion picture studio,” in the most literal sense of the phrase, in the back of his laboratory in New Jersey. There, he produced "Fred Ott’s Sneeze" - a few seconds of footage with a stream of pictures depicting his worker, Fred Ott (Cohen 33). After the development of the phonograph, Edison wanted to merge both sound and film. He thought that combining the motion picture with sound “would provide delightful entertainment for millions of people" (Manchel 2). William Dickson, also an inventor, collaborated with Edison to work on combining film and sound. Dickson created one of the first sound films using Edison’s phonograph. He presented his project to Edison in his laboratory in New Jersey and asked him to use listening tubes from a phonograph while watching a small screen. The screen showed Dickson tipping his hat and waving to Edison, while the phonograph played a greeting wishing Edison good morning and expressing Dickson’s hope that he would enjoy the “kinetophone.” In 1913, after two decades of work on the combination of sound and film, Edison gave a public display of one of his features. The movie was met with disdain and was rejected by the audience. After two more years Edison quit his efforts.
  
 
===A New Approach===
 
===A New Approach===

Revision as of 22:07, 26 September 2010

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The outside of a nickelodeon.

The Nickelodeon theatre was an early motion-picture theatre named after the fact that admission generally cost one nickel. Developed during the early twentieth century, Nickelodeons provided spaces for longer, story films to be shown in lieu of the short films that were popular during that time. As a result, longer films became increasingly popular. This transition enhanced the movie-going experience because the longer a film's duration, the more emotionally involved an audience can become. Though originally associated with working-class audiences, the appeal of Nickelodeons extended into the upper classes as the years progressed. Nickelodeons also proved helpful in connecting members of immigrant communities, specifically in New York City.

The Rise of the Nickelodeon

The first Nickelodeon theatre was opened in Pittsburgh in 1905 by John P. Harris and Harry Davis. Within the year, a boom of Nickelodeons occurred, and they spread to various other places including Manhattan. By 1908, between 8,000 and 10,000 Nickelodeon theatres existed in the United States and by 1910, approximately 26 million Americans attended Nickelodeons each week. This expansion marked a pivotal transition in the film industry and revolutionized American mass entertainment. For the first time, movies had permanent homes and were able to be distributed nation-wide. A large part of the Nickelodeons' appeal included the fact that their films could be enjoyed by both the illiterate as well as non-English speakers. Thus, they were incredibly popular among immigrant populations. Intellectuals at that time perceived the medium as a storytelling device for “naïve customers whose emotions were easily stimulated and whose pocketbooks were congenial to the 5-cent price” (Crowther). This rather critical portrayal reflects the tension that existed between different social classes at that time, as well as the idea that films were not considered “art.” In addition to traditional films, "scenic tours” were also of popular interest. Theatres would play rolls of travel pictures and present them as if the audience were passing by the scene on a railroad car.

The Nickelodeon Theatre

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Nickelodeon theatres were typically all the same design: rectangular and approximately twenty feet wide by eighty feet long. One scholar described the Nickelodeon as a "small, uncomfortable, makeshift theatre, usually a converted dance hall, restaurant, pawn shop, or cigar store, made over to look like a vaudeville emporium" (Schatz). In the theatre itself, a hand-cranked projector displayed the movie on a painted, white square on the furthest wall. Permanent seating, if there was any, existed on either side of the center aisle in the form of wooden benches or plywood chairs. The floor of the theatre was slanted and at the front, a small area housed a piano player, who provided musical accompaniment to the silent film being presented. The entrance to the Nickelodeon theatre was almost always an arch, with a ticket booth at the front. Above the box office, there was often a small window through which the projectionist might escape in the event of a fire. Because of the highly flammable properties of nitrate film, fires were a very real danger. Particularly fine Nickelodeon theatres might have evoked a grandiose feeling, especially those that were designed in a Gothic style (Morrison).

Longer Films & Storytelling

Prior to the Nickelodeon theatre, films were comprised of single shots and displayed either short fiction or non-fiction scenes. The Pathé Freres Company, a French film company, was the first to experiment with longer story films. When they opened offices in New York City in 1903, American film producers took notice - especially The Edison Manufacturing Company. Such American companies began to imitate the new, longer style and consequently, Nickelodeons began to show longer films (i.e. Edison’s "The Great Train Robbery").

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Poster for the Great Train Robbery, which was the first movie played by Harris & Davis at their nick.

Generally, producers were in favor of longer films because they allowed the producers to raise prices when selling film to exhibitors. Longer films also allowed for deeper, more complex story lines and stronger bonds between audiences and films. Long films were excellent at “drawing spectators into the story and engaging them in the unfolding events, thus combining a form of entertainment which powerfully combined attractions with the pleasure of narrative” (Grieveson 78).

New York City and the Nickelodeon

In the early 20th century, the Lower East Side of Manhattan was a large immigrant area - and also the location of the majority of New York City Nickelodeons, which were strewn along the Bowery (Allen 4). In New York City in 1910, "between 1.2 and 1.6 million people (or more than 25 percent of the city's population) attended movies weekly" (Schatz). Because of the universal nature of silent films and the specific area in which they became prevalent in New York City, one can deduce that Nickelodeon theatres provided a sense of community within immigrant populations, due to similar emotions being experienced through a film at the same time. For new immigrants, the ability to gather with others to enjoy a common interest likely created a sense of comfort in a foreign country. In the theatre, a person's background and differences faded in light of the fact that they, and everyone else around them, were enjoying the same exact thing: the film.


The Death of Silent Film

Thomas Edison and Film

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Fred Ott's Sneeze.

Thomas Edison was an influential figure within both the silent and sound film industries. In 1893, he opened a “motion picture studio,” in the most literal sense of the phrase, in the back of his laboratory in New Jersey. There, he produced "Fred Ott’s Sneeze" - a few seconds of footage with a stream of pictures depicting his worker, Fred Ott (Cohen 33). After the development of the phonograph, Edison wanted to merge both sound and film. He thought that combining the motion picture with sound “would provide delightful entertainment for millions of people" (Manchel 2). William Dickson, also an inventor, collaborated with Edison to work on combining film and sound. Dickson created one of the first sound films using Edison’s phonograph. He presented his project to Edison in his laboratory in New Jersey and asked him to use listening tubes from a phonograph while watching a small screen. The screen showed Dickson tipping his hat and waving to Edison, while the phonograph played a greeting wishing Edison good morning and expressing Dickson’s hope that he would enjoy the “kinetophone.” In 1913, after two decades of work on the combination of sound and film, Edison gave a public display of one of his features. The movie was met with disdain and was rejected by the audience. After two more years Edison quit his efforts.

A New Approach

The problem with Edison’s sound films was due partially to the phonograph itself. Because the recording quality of the machines was poor, actors had to stand extremely close to the phonograph in order for any sound to be recorded at all. This limited things greatly. Either the microphones had to be shown in the shot or the audio had to be recorded separately and then synchronized to the picture. The second approach was taken but failed still. Sound quality in the theatres was still poor and synchronization was difficult.

Other attempts at sound film were taken still. Actors sometimes hid behind screens to recite lines, sound machines created special effects sounds but, neither these nor Edison’s efforts were successful. Finally, with the invention of Lee De Forest’s audio amplifier, sound films were on their way. De Forest had invented a vacuum tube that converted sound into rhythmic light. However, it wasn’t until the end of World War I that the effort to convert the light back into sound was made. In 1925, Western Electric Company, who had taken over the execution of De Forest’s idea, teamed up with Warner Brothers to work on sound film (Manchel 4).



References

Allen, Robert C. "Motion Picture Exhibition in Manhattan 1906-1912: Beyond the Nickelodeon." Cinema Journal (1979): 2-15.

Cohen, Paula Marantz. Silent Film & the Triumph of the American Myth. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Crowther, Bosley. When Movies Were Young. New York: New York Times, 1955.

Grieveson, Lee and Peter Kramer. The Silent Cinema Reader. New York: Routledge, 2004.

"history of the motion picture." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 25 Sep. 2010.

    <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/394161/history-of-the-motion-picture>.

Manchel, Frank. When Movies Began to Speak. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1969.

Morrison, Craig. "From Nickelodeon to Picture Palace and Back." Design Quarterly (1974): 6-17.

Schatz, Thomas. Hollywood: Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies. London: Routledge, 2004.