The first successful full-length feature film was "The Birth of a Nation", directed in 1915 by David Wark Griffith, also known as the "inventor of Hollywood". The movie cost $100,000, which was a very large amount at the time.
Source: TIME
The budgets for today's movies usually range from $100 million to $400 million. The most expensive movie ever made was "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End". It cost $341 million and came out in 2007.
Source: Business Insider, iMDB
Film cameras such as the Super Parvo and the Mitchell Standard used to be the go-to for movie production. These film cameras needed to be reloaded frequently when the film would run out. Film is very delicate, so even the smallest scratch could ruin an entire scene.
Now, digital single-lens reflex cameras (DSLR) have taken over. They allow movies to be filmed in high-definition, which results in an incredible picture display.
In the old days, every detail about film sets — fires, buildings, roads — had to be built by hand by the film crew. While many film sets are still required to be built by hand, there's a new way to create realistic backgrounds.
Today, green screens are a popular way for filmmaker's visions to come to life. After filming with a green screen, images are applied to the background during the editing process. While some movies, like "The Jungle Book", may look like they were filmed outside, they were actually filmed inside a studio in front of a green screen.
Technology has had a huge role in the way animation has changed over the years as well. It used to be hand-drawn by artists, who relied on non-stop animation to create the realistic effects. The first full-length animated film was "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", which came out in 1937. It was also the first full-length animated film in color.
Over the years, technology like 3D animation techniques and CGI have allowed animated movies to be as lifelike as possible. Now, almost everything animated is created digitally through computers, digital pens, tablets, and digital sculpting tools.
With film cameras, conducting multiple takes of a scene was more costly, as large amounts of film had to be used.
Now multiple digital cameras can run on the same shoot, getting various angles of a scene at once. Capturing multiple takes is always possible.
Before the digital age, actors would get feedback from their directors with no visual aid to see what they were doing and how they could improve.
