DW Griffith - Summary

"David Wark Griffith was born in rural Kentucky to Jacob "Roaring Jake" Griffith, a ex-Confederate Army colonel and Civil War hero. Young Griffith grew up with his father's romantic war stories and melodramatic 19th-century literature that were to eventually mold his black-and-white view of human existence and history. In 1897 Griffith set out to pursue a career both acting and writing for the theater, but for the most part was unsuccessful. Reluctantly, he agreed to act in the new motion picture medium for Edwin S. Porter at the Edison Company. Griffith was eventually offered a job at the financially struggling American Mutoscope & Biograph Co., where he directed over 450 short films, experimenting with the storytelling techniques he would later perfect in his epic The Birth of a Nation (1915)." (Wikipedia)

"Griffith and his personal cinematographer G.W. Bitzer collaborated to create and perfect such cinematic devices as the flashback, the iris shot, the mask and crosscutting. In the years following "Birth", Griffith never again saw the same monumental success as his signature film and, in 1931, his increasing failures forced his retirement. Though hailed for his vision in narrative film making  he was similarly criticized for his blatant racism. Griffith died in Los Angeles in 1948, one of the most dichotomous figures in film history." (Wikipedia)

David Wark Griffith -"He has been called "the father of film technique", "the man who invented Hollywood" and "the Shakespeare of the screen"."(Wikipedia)


Griffith is often credited for either inventing or being the first systematic user of the following cinematic devices:

• the close up
• the flashback
• the fade in and fade out
• the full shot, i.e. a shot whose subject completely fulls the screen
• the use of the iris lens to pick out details of action
• use of lighting that was realistic, expressive and dramatic
• the concept of editing for parallel action and editing within a scene
• the encouragement of restraint in expression in screen acting
• colour tinting
• widescreen cinema
• giving the cinema frame perspective by using the foreground and background
• commissioning original music scores (although this was the silent era, scores could be written for an orchestra to accompany the film)
• night photography
• moving camera shots

However many of these things had already been invented and or often used by other directors. (COM123, Resources, Topic 2,  DW Griffith)

Historical Overview of the development of the Film Industry.

In the beginning, Film was viewed as being no more than an unsophisticated form of entertainment for the lower classes. However over a Period of ten years the industry blossomed into a sophisticated art form. Along side the movie houses, there were glamorous theaters that were now showing movies this invited a higher class and a higher cost. these new customers brought sophistication to the early move theaters.

The changing the movie viewing experience  from a lower class to a higher class pastime was looked upon as a great advancement as the higher class became spokesmen, "Art of the People" was used to describe this new and innovating form of social media.

On the 31st of October 1910, "there were 9480 picture theaters in the United States" (pg52) thus showing the high demand of this medium. In 1912 the theaters had grown to 12,969 the compassion of these two dates shows that the industry was growing and it was growing fast.

The creation of the Star System was only to follow this boom of  film viewing. The creation of the Star System formed a new way of categorizing the films that were being seen and was a tool for the audience to make judgement on the films.

The Feature Film, "This Particular innovation was resisted by many Producers to the point where they found themselves unable to compete with the suppliers of the more demanded longer films." (pg57)
The audiences were enhancing their visual and audio scope and were beginning to tell the difference between a good film and a bad film and were craving the long films with more sophisticated story lines. By 1914, the public and the industry had accepted the feature film as the normal.

In Four Years film had evolved from the back ally movie houses to being demanded by audiences who were sophisticated and educated on with a thirst for longer movies with complex story lines and high end Movie theaters.

In the years 1914-1917 film was used as a propaganda device for the war to persuade peoples opinions on the War. In the following years controversial topics And taboo topics such as divorce  birth control and even "educational" sex dramas were on the screen for viewing. The film industry face a "gradual shift in content toward  more mature themes"(p69)



Jowett, G 1976, ‘The development of an industry, 1909-1918’, in Film-The democratic art, Focal Press, Boston, London, pp. 51-73.

Visions of Light 1 
I love this clip, Woven together with pieces of early film. This clip is of a documentary style and Talks about the use of cinematography.  A photographer has to know the story and how it is meant to read and what is the objective of the film.  This small clip captures the essence of what a cinematographic is as a member of crew. "if you turned off the sound track, anybody who would stick around and figure out what is going on " This how film should be that the image is as important as the audio.

Extract From Premier Program
How innovative, Film. 1895 June Lumiere Brothers. These are clips from the first film by Lumiere  Scenes such as walking and playing cards, horse riding and eating,  walls collapsing and  trains arriving at stations these are the first experimental shots that were taken with motion cameras. At the time this technology would have been amazing and awesome(in the sense of being in awe). Bewildering Audiences. These shadow ghosts of light walking on the wall may have scared people in the 1890's

A Trip to the Moon
Another early film by Melies in 1902. This film used Big sets and detailed the landing on the moon, This movie uses jump cuts and arrange of medium and long angles. This movie also has special effects such as smoke for disappearing and snow. There is clever use of a frame cut to indicate the solderer disappearing. Very innovating for its time.

The Great Train Robbery
Love seeing the evolution of film and how the use of more common elements were born.This movie demonstrates the elements of film such as the story could have two things happening at once eg. Train robbery and man tied up. I happened to notice that they image projection on to a screen for a special effect and I respect this as it is a method still used today and was used in the movie terminator in the helicopter scene and car chase screen.  The great methods don't die. This film also used medium and long shots and special effects such as smoke for an explosion.

COM123

This shall be my journal entry for my subject COM123. I shall be adding to this blog for my assignment that is due at the end of the semester. This blog will be consisting of thoughts and ideas of what I learn through COM123 as well as my movie reviews.