MoMI blog

The narrative of the visit was kind of like being in order of how media in history has evolved. We started off viewing still pictures as photography was one of the first major mediums of entertainment. We then moved onto using two images to help create patterns of movement. One example was the object that looked like a lamp, the inside of it had patterns of snakes and the outside had gaps to view the inside of it. When it was lit up and you spun the outer object it made the images of the snakes appear as if they were actually moving. The coolest thing I did see in the museum was the bigger version of this same type of object. It was a bigger scale model of what I just wrote about. Instead of having gaps it was given the same effect by having a strobe light. The first object was a faucet with a water drop, then underneath it was a missile, followed by a hand, and then it turned itself into a plate that ended up in a box. When it was in motion it was very a smooth effect. The other level was showing earlier forms of video games, they had an actual model of pong. The visit then started to focus on Hollywood and how film transitioned from New York to California. They had an entire section showing off how actors took head shots in order to get roles, these photographs often led them to get type cast for certain films. After was how makeup and special effects was incorporated into films. They had a few examples like Mrs. Doubtfires body suit and the torn sweater from A Nightmare on Elm Street movie. The evolution of movie cameras was pretty interesting; they have gotten a lot better and more advanced to help make films more realistic. Another cool aspect from the trip was when they had us do the voice over for the animal film Babe. In all the museum was set up very good in order to get its point across of teaching and informing us about how we began and how we got to the current state of film technology.