2. The First Film
• In 1894, the Lumiere brothers, Auguste and Louis, filmed ‘Sortie de l'usine
Lumière de Lyon,’ which translates to ‘Workers leaving the Lumiere
factory.’ It is considered to be the first motion picture in history.
• In 1985, the Lumiere brothers released a film in the first private screening,
of a train coming towards the camera. However, due to the viewers never
seeing this before, it is said to have ‘cause a stampede’ because the
audience were so alarmed at the train coming towards them.
3. The first ‘Natural’ Colour Film
• In 2012, the first ever naturally
coloured film was found in the
National Media Museum. It
dates back to 1902, and consists
of children playing in a garden.
This is referred to as ‘natural’
colour, because although
coloured films were released
beforehand, this was done by
panting over the original film.
4. The First Sound Film
• “The Jazz Singer” was the
first film to be made with
sound. It was produced by
Darryl F Zanuck in 1927, and
Zanuck won the Special
Academy Award for the film.
6. Silent Films
• As comedy is one of the
oldest genres in film, it is not
surprising for the first comedy
films to be silent ones, and
also in black and white. An
example of one of these is the
film “Watering The Gardener”
by the Lumiere brothers, and
consists of a gardener being
soaked by the hose used to
water the gardens.
7. 1930s
• Silent films were replaced with dialogue from
film comedians, such as the Marx Brothers.
• Film adaptations of stage performances were
popular in the UK
8. 1970s
• Black comedy is a style of comedy that
revolves around taboo topics, and making
light of them, making the audience laugh but
feel unnerved at the same time. This became
more popular in the 70s. In the UK, spin offs,
or ‘spoofs’ of current television programmes
became more popular as well.
9. 1990s
• The 90’s saw a re-appearance of romantic
comedy films (rom-coms.) A romantic comedy
film is usually very light hearted, and tends to
follow the same plot of ‘boy gets girl,’ ‘boy
loses girl’ and then ‘boy gets girl back again.’
• In addition to this, ‘gross out humour,’ or
humour revolving heavily around vulgarity or
sexual humour, became more popular.
