PART 2

DOCUMENTARIES AND FILM LANGUAGE

 

 

Your film heritage is a language no less evolved and subtle than the mother tongue you use to communicate verbally. Knowing its evolution through film history prepares you to make films that audiences find striking.

CHAPTER 3

DOCUMENTARY HISTORY

 

 

TECHNOLOGY AND SCREEN LANGUAGE

A good general information website for technology and film history is Greatest Film Milestones in Film History at AMC’s Filmsite, www.filmsite.org/milestones.html. The roots of documentary film lie in two nineteenth-century inventions: photography and sound recording. First came still photography, developing steadily from the 1830s onward (Figure 3-1). It was the first instance of preserving moments in time, and people thought ...

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