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Centuries of advances in chemistry and optics, including the invention of the camera obscura, set the stage for the world's first photograph. In 1826, French scientist Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, took that photograph, titled View from the Window at Le Gras, at his family's country home. https://i.natgeofe.com/n/e5fc8844-e8ae-4ed7-8567-8cbfc798aec6/1459_4x3.jpg -
Plateau in 1832, was the phenakistoscope, a spinning cardboard disk that created the illusion of movement when viewed in a mirror. In 1834 William George Horner invented the zoetrope, a rotating drum lined by a band of pictures that could be changed. https://www.britannica.com/science/phenakistoscope#:~:text=description&text=%E2%80%A6,pictures%20that%20could%20be%20changed. -
celluloid, the first synthetic plastic material, developed in the 1860s and 1870s from a homogeneous colloidal dispersion of nitrocellulose and camphor. https://www.britannica.com/technology/celluloid
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In 1888 in New York City, the great inventor Thomas Edison and his British assistant William Dickson worried that others were gaining ground in camera development. The pair set out to create a device that could record moving pictures. In 1890 Dickson unveiled the Kinetograph, a primitive motion picture camera. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pickford-early-history-motion-pictures/#:~:text=In%201888%20in%20New%20York,a%20primitive%20motion%20picture%20camera. -
Humorous Phases of Funny Faces is a 1906 short silent animated cartoon directed by James Stuart Blackton and generally regarded by film historians as the first animated film recorded on standard picture film. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorous_Phases_of_Funny_Faces#:~:text=Humorous%20Phases%20of%20Funny%20Faces%20is%20a%201906%20short%20silent,recorded%20on%20standard%20picture%20film. -
On Boxing Day 1906 The Story of the Kelly Gang opened at the Athenaeum Theatre in Melbourne. It was the first multi-reel, feature-length film ever produced in the world. https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/world-first-film#:~:text=On%20Boxing%20Day%201906%20The,ever%20produced%20in%20the%20world. -
By the 1920s, the United States reached what is still its era of greatest-ever output, producing an average of 800 feature films annually or 82% of the global total. The desire for wartime propaganda created a renaissance in the film industry in Britain, with realistic war dramas. https://sites.google.com/site/historyoffilm1hl/history -
In 1904, the Warners founded the Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Amusement & Supply Company, to distribute films. In 1912, Harry Warner hired an auditor named Paul Ashley Chase. By the time of World War I they had begun producing films. In 1918 they opened the first Warner Brothers Studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. -
The term "silent film" is something of a misnomer, as these films were almost always accompanied by live sounds. During the silent era that existed from the mid-1890s to the late 1920s, a pianist, theater organist—or even, in large cities, a small orchestra—would often play music to accompany the films. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_film#:~:text=The%20term%20%22silent%20film%22%20is,music%20to%20accompany%20the%20films.
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Ginsberg, an researcher at Ampex Corporation, invented the videotape recorder in 1951. The contraption worked by taking live images from cameras and converting them into electrical impulses stored on magnetic tape. Ampex sold the first video tape recorder for $50,000 in 1956. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-inventor-of-videotape-recorders-didnt-live-to-see-blockbusters-fall-180947594/#:~:text=Ginsberg%2C%20an%20researcher%20at%20Ampex,recorder%20for%20%2450%2C000%20in%201956. -
1960s. In 1961, a 49-second vector animation of a car traveling up a planned highway at 110 km/h was created at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology on the BESK computer. ... The algorithms were programmed on the BESM-4 computer. The computer then printed hundreds of frames to be later converted to film. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_computer_animation_in_film_and_television -
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In 2002, Star Wars: Episode II-Attack of the Clones became the first major movie to be shot entirely on digital video, even though, back then, it had to be transferred on to 35mm film for most cinemas to show it. https://newrepublic.com/article/119431/how-digital-cinema-took-over-35mm-film#:~:text=In%202002%2C%20Star%20Wars%3A%20Episode,most%20cinemas%20to%20show%20it.
