Safety Last

Once upon a time when i was a senior in high school i decided to take a class called filmmaking. It was a full year course and for the first time in my high school career i could choose whichever class i wanted to take. Considering my chosen career path this choice was a no brainer. The way the class worked is the first half of the year was dedicated to film history and the second half was dedicated to actually making films. I thought the first half of the year was going to be awesome until we started watching really old movies. When i say old i mean it took us two months to finish watching the first moving images ever recorded. Then we moved on to silent films. I thought it was boring and i was not really that excited but then we watched Safety Last. Watching one of Harold Lloyds most well known works changed my feelings towards old movies forever. The entire film is great. What really did it for me though is the infamous clock tower scene. During that scene i was losing my mind. Watching him climb up the entire thing was extremely scary. The entire time i was watching that scene i was just thinking about how the hell did they actually film this? Harold Lloyd literally climbs the entire tower by himself and you can actually see how high up he is. I learned later the way that they accomplished this incredible shot. The way they did it was building different sections of the building and then having him climb up each individual section, never having to be more than 15-20 feet off the ground. The entire movie was incredible but this scene is what really did it for me. After watching that, i had a newfound appreciation for silent films. Anything that could evoke that kind of emotion in me while also not saying anything is incredible as far as im concerned. This isn't what started my love for movies but this started my new found love and appreciation for older/silent film era.