In Living Color

[Xoria]

In the age of Avatar, old film may seem much less impressive. But think about photographic technology for a moment. For almost all of human history, images of the past vividly existed only in memory, and that didn't last beyond the death of the one who experienced it. Stories might carry on a narrative of events, but those stories were illustrated by the imaginations of the listeners, which were likely to be very different than what actually happened. Then along came painting and sculpture, and a relatively few events & people are immortalized for posterity, although in somewhat idealistic or otherwise unrealistic ways, and of course always limited by the skills of the artist. Still, I think it's rather eerie to be able to view a bust of Julius Caesar, or someone else who lived hundreds or thousands of years ago.

Then along came the photograph, and suddenly a moment in time could be captured and preserved. If you've ever seen photos of your great great great grandparents, you may have been struck like I was by how strange it is to be looking at people who are total strangers to you, and to whom you would be a total stranger, and yet you are linked by the same genetic bonds that exist with your living family.

Then there was the silent movie, followed by the "talkies". But even then, everything was black and white, and what we see in them now seems unreal, and somehow unrelated to the real world we live in and see in color every day.

We're used to color film, color television, and even color 3D at a theatre (and soon in our homes) is not a novelty anymore. So in some respects, seeing one of the earliest color films ever recorded is liable to just yield a "so what?" But at the same time, those earliest films represent a watershed in history. In fact, they are the earliest available color images of a time that almost no one still living has actually experienced. It's hard to put into words, but somehow it's mesmerizing to see things as they were (almost, film quality being what it was) 88 years ago, in color.

1922, Kodak Kodachrome Color Motion Picture Test III
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_RTnd3Smy8...player_embedded

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[Jayce]

This is truly interesting, and in a way, belittling. Being only 16, I grew up in the age of color TV's, but still when VCR's were going going strong. I remember watching "I Love Toy Trains" and other kids shows, and using my separate tape rewinder to watch them again. To know that the things I thought were so advanced, on the cutting edge, are now simply relics of the past is truly amazing.

+1

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[Blodo]

It's funny how the concept of beauty changed completely in some odd 90 years, so barely two generations. It's also brilliant how people today take television and film for granted, not realising what an absolutely society changing invention photography, and further down the line film was.

[Jihadjoe]

Film and photography are stunning mediums and only still very new and recent if you consider other artforms of music, poetry, painting etc. The 'language' of them is still being learnt and developed.

When you consider that people ducked and screamed in shock when the Lumière brothers showed L'Arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat in 1895, assuming the train on the screen was going to burst through from this strange paralel dimension into their laps...

It was only after the 1890s became the 1900s that people started to understand that this new medium could be used to tell storys, rather than being some novelty box from which moving pictures appeared. Film makers had to learn how to say "meanwhile" and "some time later". It wasn't until 1903 when Edwin Porter made Life of an American Fireman that film makers realised you could jump between locations and maintain some continuity in the minds of an audience.

People belived that doing so would be too jarring and confusing for people to watch. Without that development we wouldn't have cinema as we know it today. Storytelling would be stilted and difficult, having to be told following one protagonist in real time...

1903 may seem like a long time ago, but if you compare it to the development of another medium, say music, that's an astonishingly fast progression. Only 80 years after that we started to render completely imaginary landscapes and scenarios digitally, creating things people have never, and never will be able to see with their own eyes.

That in it's own right is astonishing, but the speed with which film has progressed from audiences panicing at an image of a train moving towards them, to people being unfussed by a liquid metal terminator walking out of a fire, and considering it to look a little dated is beyond remarkable.

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[Selena_Benitez]

In a similar vein, here's a collection of high-quality colour photographs from 1909. It's pretty cool.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/r...entury_ago.html

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[lw'nafh]

To think technology has grown so fast over the past century... and I've barely seen a fraction of it all...

I feel small.

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вellυм ѕe ιpѕυм aleт

[Colonel Z.e.r.o.]

You've seen all of it, just reapplied in the ways of the "new."

But yeah, I feel bad that the new hip generation is taking entertainment and "art" for granted. A lotta concepts a stories don't leave too much room for cleverness. Most of it is bland typical and too emphasized on archetypes rather than developing character. Anime is a consistent victim of archetypes and I love anime-style. I ain't too happy that 95% of all children's movies are 3d. Nothing wrong with it but it's been so over saturated in such little time it's become far less interesting than traditional animation. It's just when people decide on status quote is god everything that matters goes out the window.

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