The movie industry started developing at the beginning of the 20th century, and by the 1920s Hollywood was already a powerful machinery producing hundreds of films every year. In fact, this business was so productive that anyone could afford to go to the movies, and that was the whole idea from the beginning: to be able to give to the people affordable entertainment. The first movie theaters were called “nickelodeons” because the ticket to go in an see some movies was just a nickel. This was happening during the mute film era, but when the “talkies” appeared in 1927, a lot of things changed for a lot of people.
The careers of many incredibly famous Hollywood actors simply collapsed because they simply weren’t that good at speaking and delivering their lines with enough force. There was time for a new generation of actors; some managed to make the passage to speaking movies, like the great Charlie Chaplin for example, who was not only able to make his Tramp speak successfully, but he managed to make him even more loved by the public.
Ever since its inception, cinematography has amazed and astounded people around the world, and the magic of the screen still captivates us today. The movie theater represents a lot of things to each of us; it can mean afternoons going with the family to see a wholesome story develop, or taking our first date for a romantic movie. The next major innovation that movie theaters saw was the introduction of color image; the film seemed complete now and people probably couldn’t imagine more could be done to improve it.
Even when people were able to afford television sets in their homes or rent movies to see them at home, the movie theater still seemed to yield some force over us and draw us towards its big white screens. And when there might have been a chance for people getting tired of the ol’ projector, they came up with a new one: the 3D image. It must have been amazing for the first viewers, and it is still a great experience for those who see it the first time. But what is the future of the movie theater when now people have access to movies on the internet, and basically everywhere else?
Sure, there have been other innovations as well, but what can you do when people start affording their own home cinemas? The idea that every household will have a private movie room in the near future is far fetched, but still more and more people will have them. Besides, big screen TVs with High Definition get bigger and bigger, and they can be more than enough for a family. Movie theaters now have to offer something even more spectacular, and they’ve already begun by offering unique “experiences” to the viewers by introducing smell, by creating special settings according to the movie’s subject, by offering whole meals or other interactive things like that.
A great example can be seen with the recent cinema hit, “The Life of Pi”; in certain parts of the world, state-of-the-art movie theaters recreated the main scene of the film; thus, people were seated in boats floating on shallow water and they were given life vests. That way, the viewer was completely sympathetic with the character who, for the most part of the movie, struggles to keep alive on a boat in the middle of the ocean.
There’s no telling what the film industry will surprise us with next; special effects and CGI, brighter and better colors and other innovations like that seemed impossible before they happened. Now we just have to wait and see, because people still love going to the movies with other people and hearing a whole theater laugh their hearts out together or gasp in surprise.
