Hi everyone! If you’ve been following along, you know that we have had an incredible first week here in Los Angeles. If you haven’t, well, you have some reading to do… 🙂

We finished up the week heading to the stacks of the Margaret Herrick Library, which is under the administration of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. They have a huge collection of books, photographs, posters, drawings, scripts, newspaper clippings- honestly, it’s kind of overwhelming. But it’s an incredible resource for anyone involved in the film industry. We were there to work on our research papers, but it’s crazy to think that maybe the woman sitting three tables away was researching for her screenplay, which could become the next blockbuster hit, or the man reading in the back room was studying for his next television appearance. The film industry is just made up of a conglomerate of creative people and Los Angeles is the heart of it.

Learning all about the beginning of the film industry has made me realize just how far we’ve come. The earliest films were created in 1895. Here is an example of some of those films that were created by the Lumiere Brothers, French inventors among the founding fathers of filmmaking.

You must be thinking: “Oh geez, that looks terrible. Such bad quality and there’s no storyline!” And you’d be right. But at that time, this was monumental! It was magical. Moving pictures had never been seen before. It’s hard for me to imagine how groundbreaking this was, but then I think about how we have trouble processing and differentiating 3D and Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality from actual reality now.  When we visited the IMAX headquarters on Wednesday, we were able to watch an advanced screening of their new documentary Pandas. It was in IMAX 3D and at one point there was a fly buzzing around the shot. It took everything I had not to swat at it, although I knew that it was simply an image. I still want to try to reach out and touch the opening titles of every 3D movie I see.

In the past two decades alone, we have seen an incredible amount of technological innovation. My generation grew up with VHS tapes and portable CD players. Landlines were still actually a thing. I remember having to borrow my dad’s Razer on a trip in 6th grade because I didn’t have a phone. But now toddlers can work the App Store, 8-year-olds are getting iPhones for Christmas and we can go see the next Avengers film in IMAX 3D. The early pioneers of technology triggered a snowball effect that is now going full speed and I don’t think it’s slowing down anytime soon. I can’t wait to see what’s next.

-Addie