Saturday, August 08, 2009

Very Early Movie

Last night I was watching the first movie ever made, Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory, which was first shown on 22 March 1895. The film was made by brothers Auguste and Louis Lumiere (interestingly, "lumiere" means "light" in French). The film runs less than a minute and just shows workers leaving a factory, but that is where films started. I also saw an 1895 film of a train arriving at a railway station, which became famous because audiences were sent into a panic at the image of a train coming towards them. Apparently, while the film was a sensation it didn't cause anyone to panic, the reason for the story was that the train was also shown in 3D, which the Lumiere brothers experimented with but decided it was less profitable than conventional 2D films. The 3D screening did cause a panic due to the illusion of the train coming out of the screen.

Later on I watched a Doctor Who story from 1966 on DVD called "The War Machines". In the story the First Doctor (played by William Hartnell) arrives in 1966 London and has to confront a powerful computer based in the Post Office Tower which wants to take over the world with the help of it's army of robot "War Machines". It was a pretty entertaining story.

I was out sharp today to get my groceries and then I went along to meet my Mum. We went down to the Jam House, for their Blues Festival. The program lasted nearly four hours and consisted of four acts, the headliner being Lightnin' Willie and the Poor Boys. It was a good show, and we had a couple of beers, because it was like a cabaret setting. After the show I went along to the sales and bought another couple of Doctor Who DVDs and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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