I’m really excited about this post mostly because it’s going to get you guys talking. Some of you are going to tell me to shut the fuck up, others are going to understand the true beauty of this story.
Something that stuck with me since film school was a short film from 1896. Yes, 1896.
The Lumiere Brothers directed “Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat” (“The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station”), considered the first ever silent documentary film.
The French short black-and-white silent documentary film directed and produced by Auguste and Louis Lumière shows a train pulling into La Ciotat Station.
To our 2014 eyes, the short basically looks like stock footage from the 1800’s, but what if you’re actually seeing is THE SCARIEST MOVIE EVER MADE.
Back to film school, that’s where I learned that this short film allegedly sent the entire theater running and screaming to the back of the theater in fear. The entire audience thought the train was going to come through the screen and hit them. This is a fabulous exercise in blocking and point-of-view. And – I dare to prove me wrong – I’m pretty sure no film has ever caused an entire audience to bolt from the theater…
*An interesting side story: this past weekend my 2-year-old nephew was playing with his iPad and has an app that literally just has footage of trains coming toward the screen. At first, he was freaking out, which is sort of crazy when you think about grown adults acting the same way. We’ve come a long way in 100+ years…