2014
Episode One of the educational series Cinema-N-Focus: The Origins of Cinema is exactly as it sounds: an extensive look at the beginning years of movie making, yet it is so much more. Before Thomas Edison and the Lumière Brothers, there were a slew of innovative objects that acted as precursors to the first cinematic inventions, including the phenakistoscope, the zoetrope, Eadweard Muybridges horse photography and the Eastman Kodak film stock. These were all important road maps for Edison as he began to devise his Kinetoscope with W.K.L. Dickson in 1894. It was this same ingenuity that gave Auguste and Louis Lumire the idea to make a cumbersome projector system into one that was portable called the Cinématographe. With new equipment and techniques growing each year, a small group of artists began to emerge. Led by French magician, George Méliès, cinema was quickly becoming an avenue for creativity. Méliès' 1902 film A Trip to the Moon employed techniques like superimposition and dissolves that were not seen in the Kinetoscope parlors. Edwin S. Porter, an employee of the Edison Company, took the reins and helped set the foundation for a style of transitional editing that became the standard in America in the early 1900s. His 1903 film The Great Train Robbery was evidence of not only this, but was also America's first western. This episode of Nuray Pictures' educational series features interviews with writer/director Peter Bogdanovich (Last Picture Show, Paper Moon), University of Miami professors Dr. Christina Lane, Dr. William Rothman and Tom Musca, film historian and Wesleyan professor Jeanine Basinger, former studio executive and current University of North Carolina School of the Arts professor Dale M. Pollock, and film producer and current Savannah College of Art and Design professor Michael Nolin (Mr. Holland's Opus).
2014
Episode Two of the educational series Cinema-N-Focus: The Development of Continuity & Narrative Form, follows the first decade of cinema's existence. Job titles like director, cinematographer and editor were still years away, but pioneers such as George Méliès and Edwin S. Porter made them viable. Nipping at the heels of these individuals were burgeoning filmmakers from across the globe that were ready to keep cinema from being a passing fad. The development and ubiquity of nickelodeon theaters helped not only bring the cinema to a mass audience, but with regularity, as well. This episode uses these occurrences as a starting point for the next pivotal twelve years. Amid Thomas Edison's increasing attempts to run a full-scale monopoly over the film industry, certain names continued to crop up seemingly out of nowhere. In the late 1800s, it was Alice Guy Blaché in France. By the early 1910s, there were people from Italy, such as Giovanni Pastrone, who were changing the mobility of the camera. Then, there was D.W. Griffith at the forefront of visual narrative. His early short films, including A Corner in Wheat, was indicative of someone who was willing to take risks in order to tell a functional visual story for more than five minutes. Griffith, of course, changed the industry in 1915 with his film The Birth of a Nation. Building off what Pastrone did in his 1914 film Cabiria, Griffith created the United States' first epic. The fallout from some of the movie's racist themes, though, would haunt Griffith for the rest of his career. This episode of Nuray Pictures' education series features interviews with writer/director Peter Bogdanovich (Last Picture Show, Paper Moon), film producer and current Savannah College of Art and Design professor Michael Nolin (Mr. Holland's Opus) and University of Miami professors Dr. Christina Lane and Dr. William Rothman.
2014
Episode Three of the educational series Cinema-N-Focus: Hollywood Studio System covers the period from the early 1900s into the heyday of Hollywood's classical era, where a handful of Eastern European immigrants came to America with the hopes of making it big and, in turn, created one of the most powerful institutions known the world over. The movies have always been harbingers of dreams, and these men, from Carl Laemmle to Darryl F. Zanuck, birthed a place where these flickers of light would touch audiences in even the darkest of times. Having to navigate the rocky terrain left by Thomas Edison and the Motion Pictures Patent Corporation, these entrepreneurs decided to take their aspirations out west to California, where they could expand upon their crafts. Soon, the mammoth studios such as Warner Brothers, Fox, Paramount and many others would come to fruition, and the success of their output would forever change the way we look at entertainment. Exploring not only the business side of these entities, we take a look at the men who formed them, getting to know them as the dreamers they were and earning a deeper appreciation of the work they did. This episode of Nuray Picture's educational series features interviews with writer/director Peter Bogdanovich (Last Picture Show, Paper Moon), University of Miami professor Dr. Christina Lane, University of North Carolina School of the Arts professor Dale M. Pollock and the Savannah College of Art and Design professor and producer Andrew Meyer (Fried Green Tomatoes, The Breakfast Club).
2014
Episode Four of the educational series Cinema-N-Focus: The Coming of Sound is an in-depth and entertaining look at the technology and inspiration behind the audible revolution of the cinema. Prior to the innovations that would bring the talkies to life, cinemas relied largely on in-house sound effects and musical accompaniments to live-score films. The mighty Wurlitzer was as common as cowboys and melodramas on the silver screen. But the early inventions of Thomas Edison, W.K.L. Dickson and many others would prove the world over that the promise of galloping horses, fully formed musicals and laser-paced dialogue was not far from reality. Tracking these early developments into the 1920 and 1930s, we delve deeper into the artistic, commercial and cultural aspirations of the talking picture. 1927s The Jazz Singer blew the doors off of Hollywood and completely changed the model of film-making for years to come. Studios not only had to invest in new technology to capture effective sound, but theaters had to update entire chains in order to keep up with the demands of its audience. Overall, though, the conversion to sound would prove fruitful for those willing to capitalize off of its endless possibilities. This episode of Nuray Pictures' educational series features interviews with writer/director Peter Bogdanovich (Last Picture Show, Paper Moon), University of Miami professor and sound editor Jeffrey Stern (Boardwalk Empire), Savannah College of Art and Design professor and Academy Award winner David Stone (Bram Stoker's Dracula) and University of Miami professor Dr. William Rothman.