The Impact of Cinematography on Our Life

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Recommended: Brief history of the film industry

In today’s society, film is seen as a major form of entertainment that can also be used to convey certain messages and themes. An aspect of film that is often missed or taken for granted is the impact of cinematography. Cinematography is the art of motion picture photography. Over the years, cinematography has proven itself to be a major contribution to film, furthering its artistic value and evolving as time changes.
In the beginning, when film was still an emerging form of technology, expression of artistic ideas was not a main concern for filmmakers. In the 1890’s, Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas and Louis Jean Lumière, famously known as the Lumière Brothers, invented the Cinematograph. This invention was the first film camera. It also doubled as a projector. The Brothers immediately began recording short films of everyday life. One of their first films was titled “Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory”. With a storyline as simple as its title, the 46-second film only showed various men and women leaving their work place. In 1895 though, the Lumières presented eight short films to an audience in Paris (The History of Cinematography). This marked the first time in history an audience paid to see a film. While the Lumière Brothers worked to push film in Europe, Thomas Armat and C. Francis Jenkins had their first film screening in Manhattan. Audiences thought that the occurrences in the film were incredibly realistic. So much so that a reporter wrote, “The second film represented the breaking of waves on the seashore. Wave after wave came tumbling on the sand, and as they struck, broke into tiny floods just like the real thing. Some people in the front row seemed to be afraid they were going to get wet, and looked to see where th...

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... a major influence on the visual storytelling of film. From the days of the Lumière brothers where the art form was virtually nonexistent, film has come a long way. With various techniques with lighting and camera angles, the form is incredibly intricate. During the “golden age of film” movies and cinematography blossomed. This period saw experimentation and a growth in both audience size and appreciation. Finally, film and cinematography were able to evolve to what it is today. Newer, modern day techniques developed along with digital filming for an even wider array of options for effects that cinematography can apply to a movie. Although film did not begin as a platform to put out ideas and express emotional themes, with the help of cinematography, it has changed and evolved to a point where many consider it to be amongst the greatest of art forms seen today.

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