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After 1900, multiple-shot productions started to appear, and film-language began to take shape. This gave more scope for narrative development, and story films became more common and more sophisticated. The Great Train Robbery (Edison 1903) included the famous shot of a robber firing at the audience - an unusual device, as the shot was not specifically a part of the narrative, and could be spliced in either at the beginning or end of the film, as the exhibitor wished.

Quite impressive studios were built during the early years of the century, glass-roofed and still dependent on sunlight. By 1906 a typical film was one reel - approximately 15 minutes - in length. Though the names of regular actors were largely unadvertised their faces became familiar to the viewing public, the first stage in the 'star' system. Documentary subjects were still widely shown.

Multiple-reel films had appeared in the United States as early as 1907, when Adolph Zukor distributed Pathé's three-reel Passion Play; but when Vitagraph produced the five-reel The Life of Moses in 1909, the Patents Company forced it to be released in serial fashion at the rate of one reel a week.

Coming Next... FILMS: 1910

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