Throughout my life I rarely took the time to watch movies until this past year. It was partly because I rarely had/have free time and when I do I am doing other things than watching a movie. My girlfriend however loves movies so I have probably watched more movies this year than in the past 4 years combined. My parents have also always been very big movie fans and are watching a movie weekly. Although I haven’t seen very many movies at all, I have seen some pretty great movies from all decades.

I am from a town called Newcomb in the Adirondacks. I am located about 45 minutes north of Lake George and an hour south from the closest place to view a movie. Compared to most people I know today, going to see a movie was a slightly bigger deal than it should be because we had to leave the mountain. It was always a fun and special occasion with my family and friends because we had to make a day of it every time. It all felt different back then. It was a time before any type of streaming service and before any kind of cable recording was possible. I feel that we often take going to see a movie for granted and the traditions behind it but I don’t necessarily see a problem in it as well. Technology has advanced to the point where we can experience the same things from the comfort of homes or any place we choose to watch a movie.

Since the early 1900s movies have morphed into a form of entertainment and escapism. If the movie is well made, they can really pull at your emotions in a way that text could not. The combination of the visual effects, the atmosphere, suspense, and anything else prominent in movies all play very important roles in tailoring a specific experience for the viewer. Cinema viewing originally began in 1891 with Edison’s kinetoscope after celluloid roll film was introduced in 1885, and have rapidly evolved to what we have today. Early cinematography began with stop motion pictures, live action films, and 2D animations. Silent films set the foreground for all movies to follow after and sparked the creativity and exploration into cinematography, creating what we see today. These films forced you to pay attention and used music and sounds to influence how you watched and felt during the movie. One of the most interesting things about film for me is how music and sounds are created and used to stimulate certain feelings or emotions in movies. Music is able to create suspense, anxiety, fear, sadness, love, etc. for a wide array of movies. Without music or sounds scary movies would not be scary at all and basically any movie would be extremely bland and uninteresting. Now we have some of the most mind blowing technological capabilities when it comes to CGI and other visual effects like 3D animation stimulated by a computer.

At what point will the film industry reach its technological peak and how close are we to achieving this right now? Will we ever surpass 4K 3D cameras and cloud based technologies?