abel gance

Abel Gance was a French writer, actor, and film director. Gance is most commonly recognized for his 6-hour film Napoleon, which was filmed with high knowledge and talent for period of time. Napolen was a highly anticipated film with an ending standing ovation which was nearly 15 minutes long. Napoleon’s biggest hit was exposing a technique he called "Polyvision". He used three screens side by side to make one big 40 feet wide screen. Gance also shot several scenes with three cameras to create a long continuous effect. 

Georges Méliès

 Georges Méliès was a French filmmaker who contributed many advancements to cinematography. He is most famously known for the stop trick, being the first to use multiple exposures, and adding color into the film by hand painting them himself.

Madame butterly video

I really liked this opera, the video was really cool with a lot of meaning behind it. The clay characters made it very interesting and the creators were able to make very cool transformations because of the medium that was chosen. I would enjoy opera so much more if there were more videos like this. It explained the story behind the words really well. It turned out to be very sad, and I love how I actually could feel her sadness. This goes to show that you do not need special effects to grasp the audiences attention. Through clay characters and great music, I was able to get into the storyline and feels the characters pain.

the 1929 stock market crash

The 1920's was a time of prosperity. The investment process during that time was going through the roof but was based on a unstable process. Investors would borrow money from brokers who borrowed money from the bank. This process was proven to be unreliable because when the stocks failed and investors needed to repay their loans back, the money was unavailable and permanently lost. Another causes of the crash was a slowly dwindling economy. The economy was booming years before with new forms of entertainment becoming available. Music, cars, television, and new toys set off a big uproar as mass media  started becoming apart of the household. But as the hype died down so did the economy, people were fine with what they had and weren't buying the newest types of entertainment. Broadway was another form of entertainment during the 1920's that went from such a high to such a low. The stock market crash hit broadway hard. It caused a number of productions to decline which put a large amount of people out of work.

Blackface performance

A blackface performance took place in the 19th century and was a big part of American theatre. Since African Americans didn’t have equal rights and were often segregated blackface performers were developed. White actors would apply theatrical makeup imitating the typical stereotypical image of a black man.

Origin of the word jazz

Jazz is a music genre that originated in the 20^th century. Jazz was influenced by African and European musical traditions. The word itself started to be heard around the 20^th century to describe “up beat & energetic music”.