Blog Post #5

For this post I am going to discuss some of my favorite movies of all time and how they fall in the era of the Blockbuster. As of 1977 the seventh era of movies began. This era marked the era of blockbuster movies, and also one of the greatest blockbusters of all time, Star Wars. The Star Wars Trilogy are some of my favorite movies of all time and they surely fit the roll of blockbuster.

The first Star Wars movies had truly amazing VFX for the time they came out. Im still amazed even when watching them today. Some of my other favorite movies are comic book movies. I love all the Marvel movies that have come out and I am always eager to see the new ones that come out. I deeply enjoyed Man of Steel and look forward to Batman vs Superman and the Justice League movie.

Marvel intends all of their movies to be blockbusters and have succeeded wonderfully. Especially with The Avengers and Iron Man 3. And certainly the next Age of Ultron movie will do just the same. All of these movies and the entire Blockbuster all have one ultimate goal, and that is to make money. That goal proves that just as we have learned all semester that the movie industry is a business first.

Blog Post #4

All of the movies today and most movies since The Jazz Singer in 1927 is all thanks to the ability to record sound and dialogue. That thanks can go to Thomas Edison and his invention of the phonograph, which was the very first successful recording of a voice.

This video is what Thomas Edison said in his first recording with the phonograph. This next video is an example of how the phonograph is used and works.



Jazz Singer was the very first movie to feature synchronized dialogue.

This movie as well as many other great musicals like Singing in the Rain and Sound of Music have made wonderful movies thanks to Edison's invention and the constant advancement of that technology. The use of multiple kinds of microphones and audio editing software has all branched from the phonograph and shows how people can greatly improve and advance inventions that were originally a milestone.

Blog Post#3

"The Golden Era" of Motion pictures was one of the most important years in motion pictures. The Golden Era of movies was so critical because the films produced during that time are some of the most popular movies ever produced. As mentioned in our class the movies of this era endured critically, popular, commercially, and they were an inspiration for that era. Some of the movies from this era, as also mentioned on Dr. Martin's safe movie list, were:

These are some of the most popular movies of all time and they were all produced during the Golden Era, while Gone With The Wind, Stagecoach, and Wizard of Oz were all released in 1939. Also like how the class notes mentioned that a good portion of the greatest movies of all time were produced during this era. I don't know what about this era made it such a popular movie making era, but I do know that these movies have been a true inspiration to all movies made after them. As well as a target mark for movies to try and match today. Like I also said in my previous post, it will be truly interesting to see if any movie can match the popularity and profitably of these movies. 

Blog Post #2

In this post I am going to talk about the highest grossing movie and most viewed TV series finales of all time. I really enjoyed talking in class about the highest grossing movies adjusted for inflation and not adjusted for inflation. Those two movies were Gone With The Wind (adjusted) and Avatar (not adjusted).

Avatar may be the highest grossing movie of all time domestically w/o adjusting for inflation with a total of 760.5 million dollars and Gone With The Wind making 198.6 million, but after adjusting for inflation Avatar only made 812 million while Gone With The Wind made around 1.68 billion dollars. Its truly amazing how much inflation has changed prices and how much a movie actually makes. It will be very interesting to see if there will ever be a movie that will truly gross more money than Gone With The Wind.

Next I want to talk about which TV series finale was the most watched of all time. Today a lot of people may think the answer to this question is shows like Breaking Bad, Friends, or maybe How I Met Your Mother. But the truth is that none of these are the correct answer, in fact only Friends made it into the top 15 list at #5 with 52.46 million viewers. The correct answer to this question is the hit series M*A*S*H, with 105.9 million viewers (over 60% of households). 

In fact M*A*S*H is considered one of the most popular TV series of all time. Yes Friends, How I Met Your Mother, and Breaking Bad were all wonderful finales, except maybe HIMYM, M*A*S*H towered above every other series finale and will likely stay that way for awhile if not all time. 

Sources:

Highest Grossing Movies

Most Viewed Finales

*images taken from Google Images*

Blog Post #1

I have always loved the use of special effects in movies. They are definitely key in making a successful movie when you have a movie like the avengers or avatar. I loved the avengers movie, not just because Im a big fan of the comic book characters and how Marvel has brought them to life on the big screen, but because of the exceptional special effects in it. 

I was very interested in the lecture where we discussed George Melies. Him being the "father of special effects" made him very instrumental in the advancement of special effects into what they are today as seen in the avengers. And the amazing thing to me is that he discovered it all by accident. His infamous carriage into a hearse shot started it all.

The above video displays Melies' skills and techniques he developed over the years like dissolve, multiple exposure, and time-lapse. Many movies today still use these techniques even with the advancement of CGI and VFX. It just goes to show how influential Melies was on the movie industry.