As the seventh art after literature, drama, dance, music, art and architecture, film has had unusual particularities since its birth, and every leap in the film industry is inseparable from the innovation of science and technology.
If the early animatable "Landhay Garden Scene" and the 1895 Lumiere brothers marked the birth of the film "The Train Enters the Station" (Figure 1), these films as silent black and white films can not challenge the status of traditional mass entertainment arts such as drama, then after more than a century of development, the film perfectly interprets the advantages of its modern technology and artistic complex, one after another moving images are widely circulated, and film art has become one of the indispensable spiritual food for people.
Picture 1: On December 28, 1895, the French brothers Lumiere screened the film "The Train Enters the Station" for the first time in Paris, marking the official birth of the film.
From silent to audible
In the first 20 years of its birth, the film has been in the silent film era (Figure 2), the lack of hearing makes the visual style of the silent film with a strong era brand, in addition to the occasional subtitles, the actor needs to rely on a lot of body movements and exaggerated facial expressions to convey the inner activities of the characters, in order to attract the audience's attention for a long time.
Figure 2: Modern Times, a classic comedy film directed and starring Charlie Chaplin, was released on February 25, 1936.
The world's first sound feature film was Warner's Jazz Singers in 1927, which turned Warner, which turned Warner, which was on the verge of bankruptcy. Subsequently, Warner Bros. adopted film-carrying sound technology developed by Western Electric, which required the projection of movies at a speed of 24 frames per second, which is the industry's standard projection speed today. At this point, the film has truly shifted from visual art to audiovisual art that attaches equal importance to visual and auditory.
From black and white to color
In fact, when filmmakers first tried color films, color film technology was not yet mature, and could only be produced by hand coloring frame by frame on film, which was done in this way by Georges Mériès's 1902 "Journey to the Moon" (Figure 3). This urgent desire of filmmakers for the pursuit of color pictures prompted technical staff to continuously improve color film technology, after the advent of the first true color film in film history, "Flashy World", Hollywood directors in the 1940s have joined the ranks of creating color films, and then Kodak has concentrated three layers of dyeing on a roll of film single-band Eastman color film processing technology was invented, and the performance of color film was gradually improved, until color film became the mainstream of the film industry in the 60s.
Figure 3: A Journey to the Moon, based on the novels of Verne and Welles by Georges Mériès, has been called "the first science fiction film of all time" to be made.
Compared with the black and white photography style, color films can have more room to play at the art level, red represents enthusiasm, green symbolizes life, and blue is usually used to set off a quiet atmosphere... The addition of color in the image makes the character more three-dimensional (Figure 4).
Figure 4: Zhang Yimou uses red characters to contrast with green sorghum in the heavy scene of "Red Sorghum", reflecting the exuberance and enthusiasm of life.
Of course, black-and-white films have shaped a large number of excellent models in their heyday, such as "Citizen Kane" (Figure 5), which is known as the first textbook of film history, which made a pioneering exploration of the richness of film's audiovisual language in the era of black-and-white films, and laid the foundation for film as an audiovisual art.
Figure 5: The layered lighting, skillful actor scheduling, and classic wide-angle depth-of-field lens use hint at the fate of children in the distance.
Even in the era of color films, black and white films are still often used as a special style of expression because of their unique stylistic charm, and Spielberg's 1995 film "Schindler's List" (Figure 6) adopts a black and white tone, and the only blood red color of the film is given to the persecuted little girl, visually forming a strong contrast, highlighting the heaviness of the history of the concentration camp.
Figure 6: Directed by Steven Spielberg, based on true events, it tells the story of German Schindler helping more than a thousand Jews escape concentration camps.
From film to digital
Digital cinema is known as the ontological revolution of cinematic images, and digital cinema pays more attention to creating the visual spectacle of the picture than traditional imaging. On June 18, 1999, George Lucas's Star Wars Episode I began to be released in six theaters in the United States, and the film was screened using a projector with digital optical processor (DLP) chip technology developed by semiconductor company Texas Instruments (TI), marking the beginning of the digital film era.
Although it has had a certain impact on film films, the invention of digital cinema has fully released the human imagination at the audiovisual level, and with the advantages of computer processing graphics, digital cinema has greatly promoted the development of science fiction films, horror films, action films and other types of films.
Figure 7: A Space Odyssey 2001, directed by Stanley Kubrick, is the first film to be made using computer technology.
With the development of information technology in the millennium and the popularization of home theater equipment and home DV, the threshold for creation is gradually becoming lower, and people are beginning to change from a simple image audience to an image "author" who can directly participate in the production. It is precisely because the direct participation of ordinary consumers has to a certain extent reversed the scientific and technological progress of digital imaging, old-fashioned home DV, digital cameras that can record video, etc. have become a thing of the past, and in the 5G era, mobile phone images with significant social attributes are bringing a new round of personal image revolution.
Different from the traditional image production method, the production and dissemination of personal images in the era of self-media are often closer to life, which is also complementary to the development of new technologies. For example, Huawei's just released nova 9 Pro, equipped with a front-facing dual 32 million pixel Vlog selfie lens, with a binocular stereoscopic vision engine system, the picture taken is clearer and more stereoscopic, in the era of national Vlog video social, help you easily record the real moments in life anytime, anywhere.
Plus, if you happen to be a travel Vlog blogger, the nova 9 Pro's ultra-wide-angle 4K video feature is sure to suit you. During the trip, you can share each beautiful scenery with others in real time through live broadcasting, and even wireless radio for video recording through Huawei Freebods Pro wireless headphones, pack light, shoot your travel Vlog video as you want, and never have any recording troubles.
In order to obtain a more realistic and stable image performance, nova 9 Pro has a powerful front-facing AIS + 3D portrait stabilization dual technology, which can achieve image stabilization through artificial intelligence algorithms, even if the whole handheld shooting, even while walking and recording, there will be no violent shaking, making people unconsciously fall in love with recording wonderful lives with Vlog videos anytime and anywhere, helping you become a professional Vlog master.
It can be seen that every technological revolution will bring certain changes to the production, expression and communication media of images, but what remains unchanged is people's emotional sustenance for image media and the spiritual needs for image socialization, but the traditional cinema focuses on offline movie-watching social, while the Vlog era focuses on the image socialization of online public venues.
From the very beginning of its birth, images are destined to be inseparable from our lives, as Yang Dechang once said in "Yiyi" that "after the invention of cinema, human life has been extended at least three times." "It is true that the film brings us to experience the beautiful feelings of other people's lives, and the Vlog image can keep the memory of each of our lives in the world forever."