2. The birth of cinema
• Cinema was invented in the 1880s-1890s at
the tail-end of the Industrial Revolution
alongside other inventions such as the
telephone (1876), phonograph (1877) and
automobile (1890s).
• Like them, film became an invention that
became the basis of a large industry.
• However, before film (as we know it) could be
invented, several other technological
discoveries had to occur.
3. Preconditions for motion pictures
• Before cinema could be invented, several conditions had to be in
place:
– persistence of vision
– Ability to photograph images (quickly) in order to create a line of
successive pictures
– Ability to photograph images on a clear, flexible material
– Ability to project images
4. Persistence of vision
• Persistence of Vision – the characteristic of the human eye that
allows it to continue to perceive an image for a fraction of a
second after it disappears.
• This property of vision was explored greatly during the 1800s.
• Several optical toys were marketed that gave an illusion of
movement by using a small number of drawings, each altered
somewhat, on a spinning device. When spun, persistence of
vision would cause the human eye to blend these still images,
creating the illusion of movement.
5. Optical Toys
The phenakistoscope (left) and zoetrope
(above).
6. Early Photography
First still photograph
taken (1827), using a
glass plate technique.
Claude Niepce's
photograph “The View
from a Window at Le
Gras” took nearly eight
hours to expose.
7. Early Projection
The forerunner to the modern
projector, a device called the Magic
Lantern was the only means by which
one could project an image in the
early 1800s. Magic Lanterns utilized
concave mirrors behind a light source
to gather light and project it through a
slide with an image painted onto it.
The light rays crossed an aperture
(which is an opening at the front of
the apparatus), and hit a lens. The
lens projected an enlarged picture of
the original image from the slide onto
a screen.
8. Development of new technologies
• As Magic Lantern shows, optical toys and the art of photography
gained popularity, inventors began to experiment by combining
these technologies to create new, more exciting ones.
• One such example is Emile Reynaud’s Projecting Praxinoscope.
• The Projecting Praxinoscope was a spinning drum, much like the
Zoetrope, but one in which viewers saw the moving images in a
series of mirrors rather than through slots. Around 1882,
Reynaud devised a way to use a lantern with additional mirrors
to project images on a screen, and then began to use long, broad
strips of hand-painted frames. These were the first public
exhibitions of moving images, though the effect on the screen
was jerky and slow.
10. Towards Moving Pictures . . .
• As photographic exposure times
became quicker (split-second
exposures were possible by 1878)
and photographs were no longer
recorded on glass or metal (George
Eastman devised a camera in 1888
that made photographs on rolls of
sensitized paper called the Kodak),
potential for creating moving
photographic images became
greater.
11. Muybridge and Motion
• In order to settle a bet as to whether
horses hooves left the ground when
they galloped, Edweard Muybridge
capitalized on new photographic
technologies.
• At a California race track, he set up a
bank of twelve cameras with trip- • Muybridge’s still photos of a
wires connected to their shutters. galloping horse. When exhibited in
Each camera took a picture when the rapid succession, these stills gave
horse tripped its wire, creating a the illusion of movement (due to
successive line of photos depicting persistence of vision) and
the horse galloping. therefore became one of the best
known precursors to motion
pictures.
12.
13. Kinetoscope
• Thomas Edison and his assistant W.K.L.
Dickson, already the inventors of the
phonograph and electric light bulb, decide to
design machines for making and showing
moving photographs.
• Called the Kinetograph camera and
Kinetoscope viewing box, their inventions
were ready for patenting and demonstration
in 1888.
• Using Eastman film cut into inch wide strips,
Dickson punched four holes in either side of
each frame allowing toothed gears to pull the
film through the Kinetoscope peepshow
device.
14. Mutoscope
• In late 1894, Herman Casler patented the
mutoscope, another peepshow device.
• This differed from the kinetoscope as the
mutoscope used flip-cards in its interior
(instead of a strip of film) to give the
illusion of movement.
• W.K.L. Dickson terminated his relationship
with Edison and partnered with
Casler, creating the American Mutoscope
Company, which became a dominant
force in early filmmaking.
15. Lumiere Brothers
• In 1894, two brothers from France, Louis
and Auguste Lumiere design a camera
which serves as both a recording device
and a projecting device. They call it the
Cinématographe.
• The Cinématographe used flexible film
cut into 35mm wide strips.
• The camera shot films at sixteen frames
per second (rather than the forty six
which Edison used), this became the
standard film rate for nearly 25 years.
16. Early Cinema
• Due to the inventions of Edison, Dickson, the Lumiere Brothers
and Casler, the invention of the cinema was largely completed by
1897.
• However, cinema in 1897 was a significantly different
entertainment medium than it is today.
• Most films were nonfiction and were referred to as actualities or
actuality films.
• These were films that simply captured reality – workers leaving a
factory, a baby eating lunch, a theatre performer dancing, a
travelogue or film of a distant land, a fire carriage racing to a fire.
17. Arrival of a Train
• Although it was not part of the Lumiere
Brothers’ first public film showing, Arrival
of a Train (L’arrivee d’un train en gare de La
Ciotat) is among their most famous films.
• It was first publicly projected in January
1896.
• Typical of films of the day, Arrival of a Train
is a single, unedited view illustrating an
aspect of everyday life – a train pulling into
a station.
• Less than 1 minute in length, the film is
composed in one continuous, unedited,
real-time shot.
18. Georges Melies
• A performing magician who owned his own theatre, Georges
Melies decided to add films to his program after seeing the
Lumiere Cinematographe in 1895.
• Accustomed to performing and thinking imaginatively, Melies did
not create actuality films, but creative movies that were replete
with camera tricks, elaborate scenery, theatrical sets and
fantastical stories.
• Melies often incorporated stop-motion and other special effects
to create more complex and magic and fantasy scenes.
19. A Trip to the Moon
• From the late 1890s to the early 1910s,
Melies films were widely successful.
• Among his most celebrated works is his
1903 film A Trip to the Moon (Voyage a la
lune), known for its elaborate mise en scene
and fantastical story.
• However, as filmmaking evolved, Melies
tended to preserve his theatrical
tendencies. By 1912, his small company was
in debt and he stopped producing films,
having made 510 films of which about 200
survive.
• He died in 1938, after decades of working in
his wife’s candy and toy shop.
20. Summary
• Several technological developments had to be in place in order for the
medium of film to be invented.
• There were many people who contributed to the invention and
development of early film – early photographers, inventors and
filmmakers such as Niepce, Muybridge, Edison, Lumiere Brothers all
made signficant contributions.
• As is the pattern with film development throughout the 20th and 21st
centuries, the innovations and discoveries of one filmmaker gave the
next something upon which he could build (cause and effect
relationship).
• The developments made in early cinema from the 1880s to the mid-
1900s laid the necessary foundations for the development of classical
Hollywood style as well as the industry’s business structure that would
emerge in the 1910s.
