class of 9/16

Today in class we continued our exploration of early film. We watched excerpts from several high profile silent films; including the Golden Beetle, Nosferatu, Trip to the Moon, etc.
The Golden Beetle was made in 1907 and it was very interesting to me to see the style of special effects of that era. Throughout the entire film, the camera was stationary and the only color came from hand-painting the individual frames (which I'm sure was a tedious endeavor). Most of the effects came from stop-camera editing. Simple but exciting for that time. Its amazing to see how far the film industry has come in 100 years. In 2007, Transformers was released. The special effects in that movie would have seemed like witchcraft to 1907. In TF, cars completely shapeshift and transform into futuristic alien robots, with the camera following the intricate process the entire time. If weren't for the audience already knowing its CGI, they might think its real. 100 years makes a big difference.
Winsor Mccay's self made animationwas also pretty breathtaking for its time. He pioneered the art for making 2D images come to life. Its something that I enjoy doing and hopefully will make a career out of, so its nice to see the origins.
We also viewed a scene from Phantom of the Opera. It featured certain objects colored via the same hand painted means. I believe this was done to add a special eery and extravagant effect to the Phantom. The coloring makes the Phantom more unique and mysterious.
The powerful scenes in the Joan of Arc movie and the Battleship Potyomkin makes revisiting these classics very much worth it.