The greater richness offered by the visual element, the more powerful it is.
Films are cultural artifacts that contain messages about class, ethnicity, and gender; sociological documents that record the look and mood of a period; and psychological texts that speak to social anxieties and tensions (Berger, 2002). Films are also power educators, that express political ideas and moral values, construct cultural myths, and shape our view of history (Mintz & McNeil, 2016).
In 1832, inventor Joseph Plateau created the spindle viewer. The spindle viewer was a device that simulated motion by rotating. This was the humble origins of film. By cranking a handle, a series of pictures would rotate as a spectator looked through a viewing slot. This invention was built on and improved in the 1880s when Etienne-Jules Marey developed what the masses called a, “photographic gun.” Etienne developed this camera to take multiple photographs per second, which paved the way for modern shutter speed (Sklar & Cook, 2016).
The film industry began to grow in the United States in 1891, when inventor William Dickson produced the first motion picture, Monkeyshines No. 1. A year later, Dickson collaborated with Thomas Edison to construct the first device that recorded movement on a film roll. Shortly thereafter, they invented a device to view film, the Kinetograph (Sklar & Cook, 2016).
It’s amazing to think that the major motion pictures shot in ultra 4k high definition began this way. Right now, I can get on the internet and pull up an HD movie. Or better yet, I can go to the movie theater and watch a film in 3D. The potential that film and video possess to elicit emotion is unparalleled in visual communication. Film and video provide viewers with the most authentic way to experience another culture. Through film and video, we can get lost in a fictitious world, or learn about a foreign corner of the world in a documentary.
A relatively new development in the realm of professional communications is the revelation of video calls. Through online applications such as Skype, FaceTime, and Google Hangouts, any two people with internet access, regardless of physical location, can communicate. This new type of mediated communication is richer than simple phone calls and instant messaging because it allows communicators to view and interpret non-verbal cues (Adler & Proctor, 2012).
References
Adler, R. B., & Proctor, R. F. (2012). LOOK: Looking out, looking in. Toronto: Nelson Education.
Berger, A. A. (2002). Seeing is believing: An introduction to visual communication. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Pub.
Mintz, S., & McNeil, S. (2016). Digital History: Overview of Film History. Retrieved March 25, 2016, from http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/topic_display.cfm?tcid=29
Sklar, R., & Cook, D. (2016). History of the motion picture. Retrieved March 25, 2016, from http://www.britannica.com/art/history-of-the-motion-picture
Hayden Coombs 