This wonderful museum of the history of technology and media takes visitors into the magic world of art, film, television, and all moving pictures. The building where the Museum of the Moving Image is currently located, the Kaufman Astoria Studios, has a very interesting history. It was known as Astoria Studio and Paramount Studio and the first two Marx Brothers films were shot here before Paramount Pictures moved all studio operations to California in 1932. The museum is very educational and offers wide variety of activities to explore and keep people of all ages content: art projects, educational programs, multimedia exhibitions, video games, movie equipment, designs and costumes and movie screenings in the movie theater. It is a place where you can easily spend an entire day without even noticing it.
The Behind the Screen exhibition that gives a great lesson on the history of the moving image, producing movies, television shows, and digital programs I found the most interesting and educational. It was exciting to see how the quality of motion pictures has improved and how different music, sound, lighting, camera and computer effects were discovered and further developed to boost the emotion and message of the film and communicate it to the audience. This exhibition introduces viewers to audio-visual materials, tools for film editing and post-production. It also educates visitors on how sound and light effects are put together into the movie creating a more real, true-to-life scenes. If you ever wondered what happens behind the scenes on the background when movies are made you will definitely learn after visiting this exhibition. Since yearly childhood I have been interested in lighting effects and techniques. I practically grew up in a theater. My grandparents worked in Metropolitan Opera - as a makeup artist and a light man. The museum provides a great retrospective on a history of lighting for cinema and television and a big variety of advanced lighting equipment and machines available nowadays. The lighting demonstration is one of the most impressive.
I also enjoyed a lot the new temporary installation by Caroline Martel, INDUSTRY/CINEMA, about the short documentary films that were shown in schools, at corporate events, and at commercial theaters before features. This installation is a mixture of industrial images and images from famous films made between 1903 and 1991 by Thomas Edison, Charles Chaplin, François Truffaut, and Stanley Kubrick.
The Museum of the Moving Image designed to show how movies are made and marketed where you can try your talent at hands-on exhibits is definitely a must to visit New York’s hidden gem.
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