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Kinetoscope
The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture device. The Kinetoscope was designed for films to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole. Created by inventor Thomas Edison in 1888. -
Early Cameras
Early cameras were fastened to the head of their tripod with only simple devices provided. These cameras were effectively fixed during the course of the shot, making the first camera movements the result of mounting a camera on a moving vehicle. The Lumière brothers shot a scene from the back of a train in 1896. -
Panning Camera
The first rotating camera for taking panning shots was built by Robert W. Paul in 1897, on the occasion of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. He used his camera to shoot the procession in one shot. Paul put it on general sale the next year. -
Animation
The first use of animation in movies was in 1899, with the production of the short film Matches. This film is the earliest known example of stop-motion animation. Little puppets, constructed of matchsticks, are writing the appeal on a black wall. Their movements are filmed frame by frame, movement by movement. -
The Great Train Robbery
The Great Train Robbery is a 1903 American silent short Western film written, produced, and directed by Edwin S. Porter. At ten minutes long, it is considered a milestone in film making. The Great Train Robbery was directed and photographed by Edwin S. Porter, a former Edison Studios cameraman. -
Nicklodeon
The first successful permanent theatre showing only films was "The Nickelodeon", which was opened in Pittsburgh in 1905. Other exhibitors in the United States quickly followed suit, and within a couple of years there were thousands of these nickelodeons in operation. -
The Story of Kelly Gang
The first feature length multi-reel film in the world was the 1906 Australian production called The Story of the Kelly Gang. The film ran for more than an hour. It was shown in Australia on 26 December 1906 and in the UK in January 1908. -
Sound Era
During late 1927, Warners released The Jazz Singer, which was mostly silent but contained what is generally regarded as the first synchronized dialogue and singing in a feature film. The early sound-on-disc processes such as Vitaphone were soon superseded by sound-on-film methods like Fox Movietone, DeForest Phonofilm, and RCA Photophone. -
Asian Cinema
Following the end of World War II in the 1940s, the following decade, the 1950s, marked a 'Golden Age' for non-English world cinema. Especially Asian Cinema. Many of the most critically acclaimed Asian films of all time were produced during this decade, including Yasujirō Ozu's Tokyo Story. -
Family Oriented
During the 1960s, the studio system in Hollywood declined, because many films were now being made on location in other countries, or using studio facilities abroad, such as Pinewood in the UK and Cinecittà in Rome. "Hollywood" films were still largely aimed at family audiences, and it was often the more old-fashioned films that produced the studios' biggest successes. Productions like Mary Poppins -
Explicit Nature
The New Hollywood was the period following the decline of the studio system during the 1950s and 1960s and the end of the production code, (which was replaced in 1968 by the MPAA film rating system). During the 1970s, filmmakers increasingly depicted explicit sexual content and showed gunfight and battle scenes that included graphic images of bloody deaths - a good example of this is Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left (1972). -
VCR popularity
During the 1980s, audiences began increasingly watching films on their home VCRs. In the early part of that decade, the film studios tried legal action to ban home ownership of VCRs as a violation of copyright, which proved unsuccessful. Eventually, the sale and rental of films on home video became a significant "second venue" for exhibition of films, and an additional source of revenue for the film industries.
