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Period: to
The Early Years of Cinema
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Phenakistiscope
A Phenakistiscope is a cardboard disc with slots around the edge, and drawings between the slots, was spun on an axle in front of a mirror. -
Zoetrope
The zoetrope is based on the same principle as the phenakistiscope, but is cylindrical in shape. This enabled several people at the same time to view the moving pictures - an advance over the single spectator of the earlier toy. -
Leland Stanford’s Bet
In 1878 Leland Stanford made a $25,000 bet to his friends that all four hooves of his horse can level the ground simultaneously. He used 12 cameras along a race track
cameras trigged by the horse breaking the string attached to the camera shutter. With the help of Edward Muybridge toke the pictures of the horse; winning the bet -
Zoopraxiscope
Edward Maybridge invented zoopraxiscope, a machine for projecting slides onto a distant surface. The silhouette images, derived from his sequence photographs, were painted around the edge of a large glass disc -
Kinetoscope invented
Kinetoscope is a forerunner of the projector.
A customer could drop a penny into the kinetoscope, turn the crank, look through the viewfinder. The films lasted only 20 seconds.The film was in a continuous loopand it would run over rollers. -
First hand-held box camera
In 1888 George Eastman introduced the simple hand-held box camera that made popular photography possible. The Kodak camera with a roll of transparent film. -
First motion picture studio
In1893, Edison built the first motion picture studio, The Black Maria, near his lab in New Jersey. -
Kinetoscope Parlor
In 1894 the first Kinetoscope parlor opened in New York.
For about two years the Kinetoscope was highly profitable, but it was eclipsed when other inventors, inspired by Edison’s new device, found ways to project films on a screen. -
Fred Ott’s Sneeze
fred ott's sneezeIn 1893, Edison built the first motion picture studio near his lab in New Jersey. There one of the earliest films made was Fred Ott's Sneeze: a short film of a guy called Fred Ott, sneezing for the camera -
W.K.L Dickson
W.K.L Dickson cut film into 1-inch wide strips (roughly 35 millimeters) and punched four holes on either side of each frame so that toothed gears could pull the film through the camera and Kinetoscope.This influenced the entire history of the cinema. 35 mm film stock with four perforations per frame has remained the norm -
The Lumiere brothers
Auguste and Louis Lumiere are credited with the world's first public film screening on December 28, 1895. The showing of approximately ten short films lasting only twenty minutes in total was held in the basement lounge of the Grand Cafe in Paris. -
The Great Train Robbery
Edwin S. Porter known for making the first story film: The Great Train Robbery.It was a narrative story with multiple plot lines it had two separate lines of action happening continuously at the same time but in different places and with
minor camera movement. -
A Trip to The Moon
A trip to the moonGeorges Melies was a magician who owned the theatre where he showed his magic tricks and decided to add films to his program. Melies used stop-motion and other special effects.
The tricks had to be accomplished in camera, while filming. -
Five cent movie theaters
People didn’t have either money or time for expensive amusements. They first started in Pittsburgh and Chicago, and spread all over America. They were magnets for young people, families, mothers with babies. -
Nickelodeons
Admission in nickelodeons ware a nickel.Nickelodeons were
cheaper and they opened films to a mass audience.By 1908 nickelodeons had become the main form of exhibition