American movies weren’t always made in Hollywood, California—and they certainly weren’t born there. Before movie theaters and awards shows, the burgeoning film industry was quite different from the billion-dollar behemoth we know today.
Join Professor Marsha Gordon of North Carolina State University to explore the origins of moviemaking in The Birth of the American Film Industry. In this lecture, you’ll discover when and where motion pictures were first made, who invented them and why, what the first movies were like, and where people watched them. And you’ll meet three fascinating figures that made major contributions to the creation of the place—and an idea—known as Hollywood.
Pilot Lecture: The Birth of the American Film Industry
Uncover the origins of the American film industry, long before it found a home in Hollywood.
01: The Birth of the American Film Industry
What do an experimental photographer, a technological innovator, and an ambitious storyteller have to do with the origins of movies in America? Join Professor Marsha Gordon to meet three fascinating early innovators of filmmaking in The Birth of the American Film Industry.
30 min
Overview Course No. 90194
