Various cameras

A camera is a device that records and stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the word camera obscura (Latin for "dark chamber"), an early mechanism for projecting images. The modern camera evolved from the camera obscura.

Cameras may work with the light of the visible spectrum or with other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. A camera generally consists of an enclosed hollow with an opening (aperture) at one end for light to enter, and a recording or viewing surface for capturing the light at the other end. A majority of cameras have a lens positioned in front of the camera's opening to gather the incoming light and focus all or part of the image on the recording surface. The diameter of the aperture is often controlled by a diaphragm mechanism, but some cameras have a fixed-size aperture. Most cameras use an electronic image sensor to store photographs on Flash memory. Other cameras including the majority from the 20th century use photographic film.

The still camera takes one photo each time the user presses the shutter button. A typical movie camera continuously takes 24 film frames per second as long as the user holds down the shutter button, or until the shutter button is pressed a second time.

History[link]

Camera obscura

The forerunner to the photographic camera was the camera obscura.^[1] In the fifth century B.C., the Chinese philosopher Mo Ti noted that a pinhole can form an inverted and focused image, when light passes through the hole and into a dark area.^[2] Mo Ti is the first recorded person to have exploited this phenomenon to trace the inverted image to create a picture.^[3] Writing in the fourth century B.C., Aristotle also mentioned this principle.^[4] He described observing a partial solar eclipse in 330 B.C. by seeing the image of the Sun projected through the small spaces between the leaves of a tree.^[5] In the tenth century, the Arabic scholar Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) also wrote about observing a solar eclipse through a pinhole,^[6] and he described how a sharper image could be produced by making the opening of the pinhole smaller.^[5] English philosopher Roger Bacon wrote about these optical principles in his 1267 treatise Perspectiva.^[5] By the fifteenth century, artists and scientists were using this phenomenon to make observations. Originally, an observer had to enter an actual room, in a which a pinhole was made on one wall. On the opposite wall, the observer would view the inverted image of the outside.^[7] The name camera obscura, Latin for "dark room", derives from this early implementation of the optical phenomenon.^[8]

The actual name of camera obscura was applied by mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler in his Ad Vitellionem paralipomena of 1604. He later added a lens and made the apparatus transportable, in the form of a tent.^[9][10] British scientist Robert Boyle and his assistant Robert Hooke developed a portable camera obscura in the 1660s.^[11]

The first camera obscura that was small enough for practical use as a portable drawing aid was built by Johann Zahn in 1685.^[12] At that time there was no way to preserve the images produced by such cameras except by manually tracing them. However, it had long been known that various substances were bleached or darkened or otherwise changed by exposure to light. Seeing the magical miniature pictures that light temporarily "painted" on the screen of a small camera obscura inspired several experimenters to search for some way of automatically making highly detailed permanent copies of them by means of some such substance.

Early photographic cameras were usually in the form of a pair of nested boxes, the end of one carrying the lens and the end of the other carrying a removable ground glass focusing screen. By sliding them closer together or farther apart, objects at various distances could be brought to the sharpest focus as desired. After a satisfactory image had been focused on the screen, the lens was covered and the screen was replaced with the light-sensitive material. The lens was then uncovered and the exposure continued for the required time, which for early experimental materials could be several hours or even days. The first permanent photograph of a camera image was made in 1826 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce using a sliding wooden box camera made by Charles and Vincent Chevalier in Paris.^[13]

Similar cameras were used for exposing the silver-surfaced copper Daguerreotype plates, commercially introduced in 1839, which were the first practical photographic medium. The collodion wet plate process that gradually replaced the Daguerreotype during the 1850s required photographers to coat and sensitize thin glass or iron plates shortly before use and expose them in the camera while still wet. Early wet plate cameras were very simple and little different from Daguerreotype cameras, but more sophisticated designs eventually appeared. The Dubroni of 1864 allowed the sensitizing and developing of the plates to be carried out inside the camera itself rather than in a separate darkroom. Other cameras were fitted with multiple lenses for photographing several small portraits on a single larger plate, useful when making cartes de visite. It was during the wet plate era that the use of bellows for focusing became widespread, making the bulkier and less easily adjusted nested box design obsolete.

For many years, exposure times were long enough that the photographer simply removed the lens cap, counted off the number of seconds (or minutes) estimated to be required by the lighting conditions, then replaced the cap. As more sensitive photographic materials became available, cameras began to incorporate mechanical shutter mechanisms that allowed very short and accurately timed exposures to be made.

The electronic video camera tube was invented in the 1920s, starting a line of development that eventually resulted in digital cameras, which largely supplanted film cameras after the turn of the 21st century.

Mechanics[link]

Image capture[link]

19th century studio camera, with bellows for focusing

Traditional cameras capture light onto photographic film or photographic plate. Video and digital cameras use an electronic image sensor, usually a charge coupled device (CCD) or a CMOS sensor to capture images which can be transferred or stored in a memory card or other storage inside the camera for later playback or processing.

Cameras that capture many images in sequence are known as movie cameras or as ciné cameras in Europe; those designed for single images are still cameras. However these categories overlap as still cameras are often used to capture moving images in special effects work and many modern cameras can quickly switch between still and motion recording modes. A video camera is a category of movie camera that captures images electronically (either using analog or digital technology).

Lens[link]

The lens of a camera captures the light from the subject and brings it to a focus on the film or detector. The design and manufacture of the lens is critical to the quality of the photograph being taken. The technological revolution in camera design in the 19th century revolutionized optical glass manufacture and lens design with great benefits for modern lens manufacture in a wide range of optical instruments from reading glasses to microscopes. Pioneers included Zeiss and Leitz.

Camera lenses are made in a wide range of focal lengths. They range from extreme wide angle, wide angle, standard, medium telephoto and telephoto. Each lens is best suited a certain type of photography. The extreme wide angle may be preferred for architecture because it has the capacity to capture a wide view of a building. The normal lens, because it often has a wide aperture, is often used for street and documentary photography. The telephoto lens is useful for sports, and wildlife but it is more susceptible to camera shake.^[14]

Focus[link]

Auto-focus systems can capture a subject a variety of ways; here, the focus is on the person's image in the mirror.

Due to the optical properties of photographic lenses, only objects within a limited range of distances from the camera will be reproduced clearly. The process of adjusting this range is known as changing the camera's focus. There are various ways of focusing a camera accurately. The simplest cameras have fixed focus and use a small aperture and wide-angle lens to ensure that everything within a certain range of distance from the lens, usually around 3 metres (10 ft) to infinity, is in reasonable focus. Fixed focus cameras are usually inexpensive types, such as single-use cameras. The camera can also have a limited focusing range or scale-focus that is indicated on the camera body. The user will guess or calculate the distance to the subject and adjust the focus accordingly. On some cameras this is indicated by symbols (head-and-shoulders; two people standing upright; one tree; mountains).

Rangefinder cameras allow the distance to objects to be measured by means of a coupled parallax unit on top of the camera, allowing the focus to be set with accuracy. Single-lens reflex cameras allow the photographer to determine the focus and composition visually using the objective lens and a moving mirror to project the image onto a ground glass or plastic micro-prism screen. Twin-lens reflex cameras use an objective lens and a focusing lens unit (usually identical to the objective lens.) in a parallel body for composition and focusing. View cameras use a ground glass screen which is removed and replaced by either a photographic plate or a reusable holder containing sheet film before exposure. Modern cameras often offer autofocus systems to focus the camera automatically by a variety of methods.^[15]

Some experimental cameras, for example the planar Fourier capture array (PFCA), do not require focusing to allow them to take pictures. In conventional digital photography, lenses or mirrors map all of the light originating from a single point of an in-focus object to a single point at the sensor plane. Each pixel thus relates an independent piece of information about the far-away scene. In contrast, a PFCA does not have a lens or mirror, but each pixel has an idiosyncratic pair of diffraction gratings above it, allowing each pixel to likewise relate an independent piece of information (specifically, one component of the 2D Fourier transform) about the far-away scene. Together, complete scene information is captured and images can be reconstructed by computation.

Some cameras have post focusing. Post focusing means take the pictures first and then focusing later at the personal computer. The camera uses many tiny lenses on the sensor to capture light from every angle of a scene and is called plenoptics technology. The current Plenoptic camera can serve as has 40,000 lenses working together to grab the optimal picture.^[16][17]

Exposure control[link]

The size of the aperture and the brightness of the scene controls the amount of light that enters the camera during a period of time, and the shutter controls the length of time that the light hits the recording surface. Equivalent exposures can be made with a larger aperture and a faster shutter speed or a corresponding smaller aperture and with the shutter speed slowed down.

Shutters[link]

Although a range of different shutter devices have been used during the development of the camera only two types have been widely used and remain in use today.

The Leaf shutter or more precisely the in-lens shutter is a shutter contained within the lens structure, often close to the diaphragm consisting of a number of metal leaves which are maintained under spring tension and which are opened and then closed when the shutter is released. The exposure time is determined by the interval between opening and closing. In this shutter design, the whole film frame is exposed at one time. This makes flash synchronisation much simpler as the flash only needs to fire once the shutter is fully open. Disadvantages of such shutters are their inability to reliably produce very fast shutter speeds ( faster than 1/500th second or so) and the additional cost and weight of having to include a shutter mechanism for every lens.

The focal-plane shutter operates as close to the film plane as possible and consists of cloth curtains that are pulled across the film plane with a carefully determined gap between the two curtains (typically running horizontally) or consisting of a series of metal plates (typically moving vertically) just in front of the film plane. The focal-plane shutter is primarily associated with the single lens reflex type of cameras, since covering the film rather than blocking light passing through the lens allows the photographer to view through the lens at all times except during the exposure itself. Covering the film also facilitates removing the lens from a loaded camera (many SLRs have interchangeable lenses).

Complexities[link]

Professional medium format SLR cameras (typically using 120/220 roll film) use a hybrid solution, since such a large focal-plane shutter would be difficult to make and/or may run slowly. A manually inserted blade known as a dark slide allows the film to be covered when changing lenses or film backs. A blind inside the camera covers the film prior to and after the exposure (but is not designed to be able to give accurately controlled exposure times) and a leaf shutter that is normally open is installed in the lens. To take a picture, the leaf shutter closes, the blind opens, the leaf shutter opens then closes again, and finally the blind closes and the leaf shutter re-opens (the last step may only occur when the shutter is re-cocked).

Using a focal-plane shutter, exposing the whole film plane can take much longer than the exposure time. The exposure time does not depend on the time taken to make the exposure over all, only on the difference between the time a specific point on the film is uncovered and then covered up again. For example an exposure of 1/1000 second may be achieved by the shutter curtains moving across the film plane in 1/50th of a second but with the two curtains only separated by 1/20th of the frame width. In fact in practice the curtains do not run at a constant speed as they would in an ideal design, obtaining an even exposure time depends mainly on being able to make the two curtains accelerate in a similar manner.

When photographing rapidly moving objects, the use of a focal-plane shutter can produce some unexpected effects, since the film closest to the start position of the curtains is exposed earlier than the film closest to the end position. Typically this can result in a moving object leaving a slanting image. The direction of the slant depends on the direction the shutter curtains run in (noting also that as in all cameras the image is inverted and reversed by the lens, i.e. "top-left" is at the bottom right of the sensor as seen by a photographer behind the camera).

Focal-plane shutters are also difficult to synchronise with flash bulbs and electronic flash and it is often only possible to use flash at shutter speeds where the curtain that opens to reveal the film completes its run and the film is fully uncovered, before the second curtain starts to travel and cover it up again. Typically 35mm film SLRs could sync flash at only up to 1/60th second if the camera has horizontal run cloth curtains, and 1/125th if using a vertical run metal shutter.

Film formats[link]

A wide range of film and plate formats has been used by cameras. In the early history plate sizes were often specific for the make and model of camera although there quickly developed some standardisation for the more popular cameras. The introduction of roll film drove the standardisation process still further so that by the 1950s only a few standard roll films were in use. These included 120 film providing 8, 12 or 16 exposures, 220 film providing 16 or 24 exposures, 127 film providing 8 or 12 exposures (principally in Brownie cameras) and 35 mm film providing 12, 20 or 36 exposures – or up to 72 exposures in the half-frame format or in bulk cassettes for the Leica Camera range.

For cine cameras, film 35 mm wide and perforated with sprocket holes was established as the standard format in the 1890s. It is still used for nearly all film-based professional motion picture production. For amateur use, several smaller and therefore less expensive formats were introduced. 17.5 mm film, created by splitting 35 mm film, was one early amateur format, but 9.5 mm film, introduced in Europe in 1922, and 16 mm film, introduced in the US in 1923, soon became the standards for "home movies" in their respective hemispheres. In 1932, the even more economical 8 mm format was created by doubling the number of perforations in 16 mm film, then splitting it, usually after exposure and processing. The Super 8 format, still 8 mm wide but with smaller perforations to make room for substantially larger film frames, was introduced in 1965.

Camera accessories[link]

Accessories for cameras are mainly for care, protection, special effects and functions.

• Lens hood: used on the end of a lens to block the sun or other light source in order to prevent glare and lens flare.
• Lens cover: covers and protects the lens during storage
• Lens adapter: sometimes called a step-ring, adapts the lens to other size filters
• Lens extension tubes allow close focus in macro photography
• Flash equipment: including light diffuser, mount and stand, reflector, soft box, trigger and cord
• Care and protection: including camera case and cover, maintenance tools, and screen protector
• Large format cameras use special equipment which includes magnifier loupe, view finder, angle finder, focusing rail /truck.
• Battery and charger^[18][19]

Camera designs[link]

Plate camera[link]

The earliest cameras produced in significant numbers used sensitised glass plates and are now termed plate cameras. Light entered a lens mounted on a lens board which was separated from the plate by an extendible bellows. Many of these cameras, had controls to raise or lower the lens and to tilt it forwards or backwards to control perspective. Focussing of these plate cameras was by the use of a ground glass screen at the point of focus. Because lens design only allowed rather small aperture lenses, the image on the ground glass screen was faint and most photographers had a dark cloth to cover their heads to allow focussing and composition to be carried out more easily. When focus and composition were satisfactory, the ground glass screen was removed and a sensitised plate put in its place protected by a dark slide. To make the exposure, the dark slide was carefully slid out and the shutter opened and then closed and the dark slide replaced. In current designs the plate camera is best represented by the view camera.

Large-format camera[link]

The large format camera is a direct successor of the early plate cameras and remain in use for high quality photography and for technical, architectural and industrial photography. There are three common types, the monorail camera, the field camera and the press camera. All use large format sheets of film, although there are backs for medium format 120-film available for most systems, and have an extensible bellows with the lens and shutter mounted on a lens plate at the front. These cameras have a wide range of movements allowing very close control of focus and perspective.

Medium-format camera[link]

Medium-format cameras have a film size somewhere in between the large format cameras and the smaller 35mm cameras. Typically these systems use 120- or 220-film. The most common sizes being 6x4.5 cm, 6x6 cm and 6x7 cm. The designs of this kind of camera show greater variation than their larger brethren, ranging from monorail systems through the classic Hasselblad model with separate backs, to smaller rangefinder cameras. There are even compact amateur cameras available in this format.

Folding camera[link]

The introduction of films enabled the existing designs for plate cameras to be made much smaller and for the base-plate to be hinged so that it could be folded up compressing the bellows. These designs were very compact and small models were dubbed vest pocket cameras.

Box camera[link]

Box cameras were introduced as a budget level camera and had few if any controls. The original box Brownie models had a small reflex viewfinder mounted on the top of the camera and had no aperture or focusing controls and just a simple shutter. Later models such as the Brownie 127 had larger direct view optical viewfinders together with a curved film path to reduce the impact of deficiencies in the lens.

Rangefinder camera[link]

As camera and lens technology developed and wide aperture lenses became more common, range-finder cameras were introduced to make focussing more precise. The range finder has two separated viewfinder windows, one of which is linked to the focusing mechanisms and moved right or left as the focusing ring is turned. The two separate images are brought together on a ground glass viewing screen. When vertical lines in the object being photographed meet exactly in the combined image, the object is in focus. A normal composition viewfinder is also provided.

Single-lens reflex[link]

Olympus E-420 Four Thirds entry-level DSLR with a 25mm pancake lens.

In the single-lens reflex camera the photographer sees the scene through the camera lens. This avoids the problem of parallax which occurs when the viewfinder or viewing lens is separated from the taking lens. Single-lens reflex cameras have been made in several formats including 220/120 taking 8, 12 or 16 photographs on a 120 roll and twice that number of a 220 film. These correspond to 6x9, 6x6 and 6x4.5 respectively (all dimensions in cm). Notable manufacturers of large format SLR include Hasselblad, Mamiya, Bronica and Pentax. However the most common format of SLRs has been 35 mm and subsequently the migration to digital SLRs, using almost identical sized bodies and sometimes using the same lens systems.

Almost all SLR used a front surfaced mirror in the optical path to direct the light from the lens via a viewing screen and pentaprism to the eyepiece. At the time of exposure the mirror flipped up out of the light path before the shutter opened. Some early cameras experimented other methods of providing through the lens viewing including the use of a semi transparent pellicle as in the Canon Pellix^[20] and others with a small periscope such as in the Corfield Periflex series.^[21]

Twin-lens reflex[link]

Twin-lens reflex cameras used a pair of nearly identical lenses, one to form the image and one as a viewfinder. The lenses were arranged with the viewing lens immediately above the taking lens. The viewing lens projects an image onto a viewing screen which can be seen from above. Some manufacturers such as Mamiya also provided a reflex head to attach to the viewing screen to allow the camera to be held to the eye when in use. The advantage of a TLR was that it could be easily focussed using the viewing screen and that under most circumstances the view seen in the viewing screen was identical to that recorded on film. At close distances however, parallax errors were encountered and some cameras also included an indicator to show what part of the composition would be excluded.

Some TLR had interchangeable lenses but as these had to be paired lenses they were relatively heavy and did not provide the range of focal lengths that the SLR could support. Although most TLRs used 120 or 220 film some used 127 film.

Ciné camera[link]

A ciné camera or movie camera takes a rapid sequence of photographs on strips of film. In contrast to a still camera, which captures a single snapshot at a time, the ciné camera takes a series of images, each called a "frame" through the use of an intermittent mechanism. The frames are later played back in a ciné projector at a specific speed, called the "frame rate" (number of frames per second). While viewing, a person's eyes and brain merge the separate pictures to create the illusion of motion. The first ciné camera was built around 1888 and by 1890 several types were being manufactured. The standard film size for ciné cameras was quickly established as 35mm film and this remains in use to this day. Other professional standard formats include 70 mm film and 16mm film whilst amateurs film makers used 9.5 mm film, 8mm film or Standard 8 and Super 8 before the move into digital format.

The size and complexity of ciné cameras varies greatly depending on the uses required of the camera. Some professional equipment is very large and too heavy to be hand held whilst some amateur cameras were designed to be very small and light for single-handed operation. In the last quarter of the 20th century camcorders supplanted film motion cameras for amateurs. Professional video cameras did the same for professional users around the turn of the century.

Image gallery[link]

• 

  1922 Kodak

• 

  Opened up Cine Kodak, used 16mm movie film

• 

  Silvestri Flexicam

• 

  Voigtländer Brillant twin-lens reflex camera.

• 

  Contax S of 1949 — the world's first pentaprism SLR

• 

  1952 Voigtlander Vito II

• 

  Asahiflex IIa of 1955

• 

  Kodak Retina IIIC of 1957

• 

  Nikon F of 1959 — the first 35mm system camera

• 

  Voigtländer Vitoret of 1962

• 

  1988 A Soviet-era LOMO LC-A camera

• 

  2003 — Canon EOS 300D, a model that sparked the popularity of consumer-level DSLRs

• 

  Nikon Coolpix 5200 One in a line of small cameras by Nikon

• 

  A phone camera

See also[link]

Types[link]

Brands[link]

[edit] Radar Imaging

Other[link]

	Photography portal
	Film portal

• Flash (photography)
• Photographic filter
• Tripod (photography)
• Viewfinder
• Cameras in mobile phones

Bibliography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Camera

• How camera works at How stuff works.

James Franco
Franco in October 2011
Born	James Edward Franco (1978-04-19) April 19, 1978 (age 34) Palo Alto, California, U.S.
Alma mater	University of California, Los Angeles
Occupation	Actor, artist, and filmmaker
Years active	1997–present

James Edward Franco (born April 19, 1978) is an American actor. His first prominent role was a lead part on the short-lived cult hit television program Freaks and Geeks; he later achieved recognition for playing the titular character in the TV biographical film James Dean (2001), for which he was awarded a Golden Globe Award. He achieved international fame with his portrayals of Harry Osborn in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy.

Franco has won or been nominated for a number of awards. He has done both dramatic and comedic work in projects and has appeared in an eclectic range of films since the 2000s, ranging from period to contemporary pieces, and from major Hollywood productions to less publicized indie films, as well as fantasy films to biopics and soap operas. Other notable films include Pineapple Express, a 2008 stoner comedy that earned him his second Golden Globes nomination; the 2008 Harvey Milk-biopic Milk; and Danny Boyle's 2010 drama film 127 Hours, about real-life mountain climber Aron Ralston's struggle to free his hand from a boulder. His performance in 127 Hours earned him nominations for many high-profile awards, including the Academy Awards, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards. In 2011, he starred opposite Andy Serkis in Rupert Wyatt's successful science fiction film Rise of the Planet of the Apes, a reboot of the Planet of the Apes franchise. Since 2009, he has played a recurring role in the ABC daytime soap opera General Hospital.

Franco has hosted Saturday Night Live twice, as well as the 83rd Academy Awards with Anne Hathaway. He volunteers for the Art of Elysium charity. Franco currently teaches a class at New York University about transferring poetry to film.^[1]

Early life and family[link]

Nicknamed "Ted," James Edward Franco was born in Palo Alto, California. His mother, Betsy Lou (née Verne), is a poet, author, and editor, and his father, Douglas Eugene "Doug" Franco (1948–2011),^[2] ran a non-profit agency and a shipping container security company. The two met as students at Stanford University.^[3][4][5] Franco's father was of Portuguese (from the Madeira island) and Swedish descent;^[6] Franco's mother is Jewish, a descendant of immigrants from Russia (her family's surname had been changed from "Verovitz" to "Verne").^[7][8] His paternal grandmother, Marjorie (Peterson) Franco, is a published author of young adult books;^[5][9] his maternal grandmother, Mitzie (Levine) Verne, owns the Verne Art Gallery, a prominent art gallery in Cleveland, and was an active member in the National Council of Jewish Women.^[10][11][12]

Franco's family upbringing was "academic, liberal and largely secular."^[13] He grew up in California with his two younger brothers, Tom and Dave ("Davy"), the latter of whom is also an actor.^[14] Talented at mathematics, Franco interned at Lockheed Martin.^[3] Franco was often encouraged by his father to get good grades and did well on his SATs.^[13] He graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1996, where he acted in plays.^[3][15] In his high school years, Franco was arrested for underage drinking, graffiti, and for being a part of a group that stole designer fragrances from department stores and sold them to classmates.^[16] These arrests led to him briefly becoming a ward of the state. Facing the possibility of juvenile hall, Franco was given a second chance by the judge.^[6] "It was teen angst. I was uncomfortable in my own skin. I was shy. I changed my ways just in time to get good grades," he recalled of his troubles with the law.^[13]

Although the idea of becoming a marine zoologist interested him, Franco had always secretly wanted to become an actor but feared rejection.^[6] He enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as an English major,^[17] but dropped out after his freshman year against his parents' wishes^[3] to pursue a career as an actor, since he would have to have waited two years to audition for their acting program.^[6] Franco instead chose to take acting lessons with Robert Carnegie at the Playhouse West.^[15] Around this time, Franco took up a late-night job at McDonald's to support himself since his parents refused to do so. He was a vegetarian until working there.^[16] While working at the establishment, for his acting classes, he would practice accents on customers.^[6] Knowing that the aspiring actor was doing his best to follow his passion, Carnegie told Franco to pay him what he could and later on pay him back.^[6]

Acting career[link]

Early work[link]

After 15 months of training he began auditioning in Los Angeles, and started professionally acting in 1997 with guest roles on television shows. His first break came in 1999, after he was cast in a leading role on the short-lived but well-reviewed television series Freaks and Geeks.^[18] The program, which ran for 18 episodes and was canceled due to low viewership, later became a cult hit among audiences.^[19] He has since described the series as "one of the most fun" work experiences that he has had.^[20] In another interview, Franco said: "When we were doing Freaks and Geeks, I didn’t quite understand how movies and TV worked, and I would improvise even if the camera wasn’t on me ... So I was improvising a little bit back then, but not in a productive way."^[21] Franco made his film debut in a brief role in the 1999 Drew Barrymore-starring Never Been Kissed and his first major movie was the romantic teen comedy Whatever It Takes (2000), in which he played popular jock Chris. The latter is a modern day remake of the 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac.^[22][23]

He was subsequently cast as the title role in director Mark Rydell's 2001 TV biographical film James Dean.^[24][25] To immerse himself in the role, Franco went from being a non-smoker to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, dyed his dark brown hair blond, and learned to ride a motorcycle as well as play guitar and the bongos.^[24] To have a greater understanding of Dean, Franco spent hours with two of Dean's associates. Other research included reading books on Dean and studying his movies.^[24] While filming James Dean, the actor, to get into character, cut off communication with his family and friends, as well as his then-girlfriend. "It was a very lonely existence," he notes. "If I wasn't on a set, I was watching James Dean. That was my whole thinking. James Dean. James Dean."^[24] Despite already being a fan of Dean, Franco feared he might be typecast if he'd captured the actor too convincingly. Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly wrote: "Franco could have walked through the role and done a passable Dean, but instead gets under the skin of this insecure, rootless young man."^[26] He received a Golden Globe Award and nominations for an Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award (SAG).^[27][28][29]

2002–2007[link]

Franco achieved worldwide fame and attention in the 2002 superhero film Spider-Man, when he played Harry Osborn, the son of the villainous Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) and best friend of the title character (Tobey Maguire). Originally, Franco was considered for the lead role of Spider-Man/Peter Parker in the film,^[30] though the lead went to Maguire. Todd McCarthy of Variety noted that there are "good moments" between Maguire and Franco in the film.^[31] Spider-Man was a commercial and critical success.^[32] The movie grossed $114 million during its opening weekend in North America and went on to earn $822 million worldwide.^[33] He next starred in Sonny, a 2002 release in which he was directed by fellow actor Nicolas Cage. It was Cage's involvement that had attracted Franco to the film.^[34] Set in 1980s New Orleans, Sonny follows the titular character (Franco) returning home after just being discharged from the Army. To prepare for his role, he met with sex workers or people who had previously been prostitutes.^[34] The movie was panned by critics, with the New York Posts Lou Lumenick calling it an "instant candidate for worst movie of the year."^[35] Franco was cast as a homeless drug addict in the drama City by the Sea (2002) after co-star Robert De Niro saw a snippet of his work in James Dean.^[24] He lived on the streets for several days to better understand the subject of the matter^[36] as well as talk to former or still using drug addicts.^[34] Both projects were released in September.

Franco at the Spider-Man 3 premiere, April 2007

Following City by the Sea, he co-starred alongside Neve Campbell in Robert Altman's ballet movie The Company (2003).^[13] The success of the first Spider-Man film led Franco to reprise the role in the 2004 sequel, Spider-Man 2. The movie was well received by critics,^[32] and it proved to be a big financial success, setting a new opening weekend box office record for North America.^[37] With revenue of $783 million worldwide, it became the second highest grossing film in 2004.^[33] The following year he made and starred in the black comedy The Ape^[13] and the 2005 war film The Great Raid, in which he portrayed Robert Prince, a captain in the United States Army's elite Sixth Ranger Battalion. In 2006, Franco co-starred with Tyrese Gibson in Annapolis and played legendary hero Tristan in Tristan & Isolde, a period piece dramatization of the Tristan and Iseult story also starring British actress Sophia Myles. For the former, he did eight months of boxing training and for the latter, he practiced horseback riding and sword fighting.^[38] He then completed training for his Private Pilot Licence in preparation for his role in Flyboys,^[16] which was released in September 2006; the same month, Franco appeared briefly in The Wicker Man, the remake of the seminal horror film. Also in 2006, he made a cameo appearance in the romantic comedy The Holiday.^[25]

He again played Harry Osborn in Spider-Man 3 (2007). In contrast to the previous two films' positive reviews, Spider-Man 3 was met with a mixed reception by critics.^[32] Nonetheless, with a total worldwide gross of $891 million, it stands as the most successful film in the series, and Franco's highest grossing film to date.^[33] In this same year, Franco made a cameo appearance as himself in the Apatow-directed comedy Knocked Up, which starred Freaks and Geeks alumni Seth Rogen, Jason Segel and Martin Starr.^[16] Franco co-starred with Sienna Miller in the low-budget independent films Camille, a dark fantasy dramedy about a young newly wed couple and Interview, where he appears in a voice only role, both 2007 movies that were ignored by audiences and critics alike. Among his other 2007 projects were Good Time Max, which Franco wrote, directed and starred in. The movie premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival and centers around two talented brothers who take very diverse paths in life, one going on to become a doctor whilst the other sibling (Franco) experiences unemployment and uses drugs. The actor chose to cast himself in that role because, "It was really just a process of elimination. I was better suited for this role than the responsible surgeon."^[39]

2008–2010[link]

He next starred in Pineapple Express (2008), a stoner comedy co-starring and co-written by Rogen and produced by Apatow.^[20][40] Of Franco's character, Apatow said, "You tell him, 'Okay, you're going to play a pot dealer,' and he comes back with a three-dimensional character you totally believe exists. He takes it very seriously, even when it's comedy."^[41] In her New York Times review, critic Manohla Dargis wrote: "He’s delightful as Saul, loosey-goosey and goofy yet irrepressibly sexy, despite that greasy curtain of hair and a crash pad with a zero WAF (Woman Acceptance Factor). It’s an unshowy, generous performance and it greatly humanizes a movie that, as it shifts genre gears and cranks up the noise, becomes disappointingly sober and self-serious."^[42] His performance earned him a second Golden Globe nomination, for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy.^[27] He has stated in some interviews that he no longer uses cannabis (although he has occasionally alluded to his smoking marijuana, most notably during an extended segment on The Colbert Report.^[43]) He was awarded High Times magazine's Stoner of the Year Award for his work in Pineapple Express.^[44] In 2008 he also appeared in two films by American artist Carter, exhibited at the Yvon Lambert gallery in Paris.^[45] On September 20, 2008, he hosted the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL),^[46] and a second time on December 19, 2009.^[47]

Franco starred opposite Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, and Emile Hirsch in Gus Van Sant's Milk (2008).^[48] In the film, he played Scott Smith, the boyfriend of Harvey Milk (Penn). Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times, in review of the film, wrote: "Franco is a nice match for him [Penn] as the lover who finally has enough of political life."^[49] For his performance in the film, Franco won the Independent Spirit Award in the category for Best Supporting Actor.^[50] In late 2009, he joined the cast of the daytime soap opera General Hospital on a recurring basis. He plays Franco, a multimedia artist much like himself,^[3] who comes to Port Charles with unfinished business with mob enforcer Jason Morgan (Steve Burton).^[51] Franco has called his General Hospital role performance art. In March 2011, he will reprise his role in two episodes of General Hospital.^[52] In September 2011, Franco will reprise his role as Robert "Franco" Frank for an extended stay.^[53]

2010 was a prolific year for Franco. He kicked off the year by making an appearance on the sitcom 30 Rock where he played himself and carried on a fake romance with Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski) in a scheme concocted by their respective agents.^[54] After appearing in the commercial successes Date Night, an action comedy, and Eat Pray Love, an adaption of a novel, Franco played poet Allen Ginsberg in the drama Howl, released on September 24.^[8] The latter, about his most known poem and the trial about the work, premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and earned modest reviews.^[32]

His next project was 127 Hours, directed by Academy Award winner Danny Boyle, where Franco portrayed real-life mountain climber Aron Ralston. It was given a limited release starting on November 5, 2010.^[56] 127 Hours centered on Ralston trying to free his hand after it became trapped under a boulder in a ravine while canyoneering alone in Utah and resorting to desperate measures in order to survive, eventually amputating his arm. During the five-week, 12-hours-per-day shoot, Franco would only leave the gully set to use the lavatory and would read books such as academic textbooks to keep busy.^[57] Franco later called making 127 Hours a once in a life time experience.^[55] To date, 127 Hours is one of his most well-reviewed movies^[32] and was also a commercial success, commissioning $57.5 million against an $18 million budget.^[56] His performance earned him universal acclaim from critics. Subsequently, he was nominated for most of the high-profile awards, notably an Academy Award, Golden Globe and SAG as well as winning an Independent Spirit Award.

2011–present[link]

On February 23, Franco made a cameo appearance on NBC's Minute to Win It where the real-life Ralston was participating as a contestant playing for charity.^[58] After having an uncredited cameo in the opening scene of The Green Hornet (2011),^[59] he starred opposite Natalie Portman and Danny McBride in the Medieval fantasy comedy Your Highness^[60] on April 8. In it he plays Fabious, a prince who teams up with his brother (McBride) to rescue Fabious' soon to be bride (played by Zooey Deschanel). In May 2010, he was cast to star in Rupert Wyatt's $90 million budgeted Rise of the Planet of the Apes, a reboot of the Planet of the Apes series^[61] which was released on August 5. Franco has also announced that in the fall of 2011, he will appear on Broadway with Nicole Kidman in the upcoming revival of Sweet Bird of Youth by Tennessee Williams, which will be directed by David Cromer.^[62] Franco will star alongside Winona Ryder in a film entitled The Stare, which is to be directed by Jay Anania. Production began in New York on May 6, 2011. He was cast as a drug-addicted lawyer in Cherry, which will start shooting the following month in California and also star Heather Graham.^[63] He dropped out of the indie While We're Young^[64] to star in Oz: The Great and Powerful, a Disney prequel to L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), as the Wizard, superseding Johnny Depp. Filming began in July.

Franco at the "My Own Private River" Film Society Of Lincoln Center Screening & Q&A 2012

At the end of September 2010, the actor acquired the rights to Stephen Elliott's The Adderall Diaries, with the intentions to adapt, direct and star in it.^[65] It was announced in January 2011 that the actor has planned to not only star in but direct himself in The Night Stalker, a film version of author Philip Carlo's book about the 1980s serial killer, Richard Ramirez. Co-screenwriter to the screenplay, Nicholas Constantine, was initially unconvinced that Franco would be right for the movie, until he learned of Franco's desire to be a director and later watched three of his short films, one of which featured a serial killer, ultimately confirming to the writer that the actor had a darker side.^[66] One of his other upcoming projects, The Iceman, will reunite Franco with Michael Shannon, after the two worked together on the short film Herbert White. The movie is based upon real-life contract murderer Richard Kuklinski, who notoriously froze his victims.^[67] The actor also has plans to direct a film version of William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.^[68]

Franco is currently adapting a film version of Cormac McCarthy's 1973 novella Child of God, which chronicles the depraved and violent impulses of a young Tennessee backwoodsman after he is dispossessed of his ancestral land.

He will star as Oscar Biggs/the Wizard of Oz in the film Oz: The Great and Powerful, which is a prequel to the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. The movie will be released by Walt Disney Pictures on March 8, 2013 in theaters.

Franco is set to star alongside fellow Oscar nominee Jonah Hill and producer Brad Pitt in the upcoming film currently titled True Story. The film, which is actually based on a true story, will see Franco play Christian Longo, a man who was on the FBI's most wanted list, and had also been hiding under the identity of Michael Finkel, played by Hill, a journalist.^[69]

Other projects[link]

Franco in October 2010

Franco produced and directed a documentary titled Saturday Night documenting a week in the production of an episode of SNL.^[70] The film began as a short for an NYU class but grew due to his two episodes as host, while short stories he wrote for other classes appeared in Esquire and McSweeney's.^[3] In summer 2010, the fictional Franco from General Hospital held an exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, while the real Franco held an exhibit at the museum based on his experiences on the soap opera.^[3] One of his short movies, The Clerk's Tale, was screened in competition at the Hamptons Film Festival at the end of 2010.^[65]

On October 19, 2010 Scribner published a collection of short stories called Palo Alto: Stories by Franco.^[71] The book is named after the California city where Franco grew up and is dedicated to many of the writers he worked with at Brooklyn College. Inspired by some of Franco's own teenage memories,^[38] Palo Alto consists of life in Palo Alto as experienced by a series of teenagers who spend most of their time indulging in driving drunk, using drugs and taking part in unplanned acts of violence. Each passage is told by a young narrator.^[72] The book has received mixed reviews; Los Angeles Times called it "the work of an ambitious young man who clearly loves to read, who has a good eye for detail, but who has spent way too much time on style and virtually none on substance."^[71] The Guardian said that Franco's "foray into the literary world may be met with cynicism in some quarters, but this is a promising debut from a most unlikely source."^[73] Writing in the New York Times, reviewer and fellow author Joshua Mohr praised Franco for how, in the story "American History", he juxtaposed historical parts with a present-day social commentary that "makes the we wonder how much we’ve actually evolved in post-bellum America."^[74]

Publishers Weekly reviewed the collection, stating "The author fails to find anything remotely insightful to say in these 11 amazingly underwhelming stories."^[75]

In January, the actor screened his multimedia project entitled Three's Company The Drama, in which he merges video and art to update the former sitcom, at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.^[76] Franco reunited with Milk director Van Sant to make Unfinished, a project that features two movies: Endless Idaho and My Own Private River. Endless Idaho showcases edited outtakes, deleted scenes and behind-the-scenes footage from the 1991 movie My Own Private Idaho, while My Own Private River focuses on the late actor River Phoenix.^[77] The idea for the exhibition was conceived after Van Sant introduced unused footage from the 1991 film to Franco, inspiring him to turn it into something more. Unfinished opened from February 26 to April 9 at the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills.^[77]

On February 27, 2011, he and Anne Hathaway hosted the 83rd Academy Awards. The two were selected to help the awards show achieve its goal of attracting a younger audience.^[78] Franco had previously said that he accepted the job for the experience and because it was a once in a lifetime opportunity.^[79] Numerous media viewers criticized Franco for his discontent and lack of energy on stage and the show was widely panned, with some reviewers dubbing it the worst telecast in its history.^[80][81][82] The actor later spoke about his hosting in an interview on The Late Show with David Letterman. He explained that when accepting the job he never had high hopes, adding “It was never on my list of things to do. It doesn’t mean I didn’t care and it doesn’t mean I didn’t try, right?” Regarding allegations that he was under the influence of marijuana while hosting, Franco commented "I think the Tasmanian Devil would look stoned standing next to Anne Hathaway. She has a lot of energy!" He concluded that he tried his best and could have had "low energy" during the telecast.^[83]