Early film
Before Edison, before the camera and
before film for projectors was invented…

There were many attempts to
show moving images.
A Magic Lantern
It worked by candle
with glass slides
c.1890
A zoetrope
A praxinoscope
The Mutoscope worked on
the same principle as the "flip
book."
The cards were attached to a
circular core, rather like a
huge Rolodex.
A reel typically held about 850
cards, giving a viewing time of
about a minute.
The first films that used movie
cameras didn’t have a story.
Instead, they would show everyday
events such as a fire truck arriving at
a fire, or people walking on a city
street.
Early filmmakers like Edison and the
Lumiere brothers saw their work as
similar to science. They did
“experiments” with their cameras.
The next two slides show examples of
such early experiments with film.
Filmstrip of
Butterfly Dance
(ca. 1895), an
early
Kinetoscope film
produced by
Thomas Edison,
featuring
Annabelle
Whitford
Two frames of the June,1894 Leonard–
Cushing bout. Each of the six one-minute
rounds recorded by the Kinetograph was
made available to exhibitors for $22.50.
Customers who watched the final round saw
Leonard score a knockdown.
Charles Kayser of the Edison lab seated behind the
Kinetograph. Portability was not among the camera's virtues.
Edison’s
kinetoscope
(after some
sound was
developed)
Inside view of
Kinetoscope with
peephole viewer
at top of cabinet
A San Francisco Kinetoscope parlour,
ca. 1894–95.
1900–1910
newspaper ad
Lumiere brothers
Two French brothers who were developing a
camera for moving pictures around the
same time as Edison.
The
cinématographe
Lumière in
filming mode.
Movie poster (1896)
The cinematograph is a
film camera, which also
serves as a film projector
and developer. It was
invented in the 1890s.
There is much dispute as
to who invented it. Some
argue that it was first
invented and patented as
"Cinématographe Léon
Bouly" by French inventor
Léon Bouly in February 12,
1892.
It is said that, due to a lack
of money, Bouly was not
able to pay the rent for his
patent the following year,
and Auguste and Louis
Lumière's engineers
bought the license.
As moving pictures develop, they
start to develop stories.
A business develops when moving
pictures become more and more
popular with the public.


(silent) movies become very
popular at a time when North
America had a huge number of
new immigrants
The fact that movies were silent
meant that people did not have
to know English to enjoy the
show


Kinetoscope parlours of the 1890s
and the theatres of Vaudeville were
eventually replaced by the
nickelodeon by the early 1900s.
Early movie theatres were called
nickelodeons because it cost a
nickel (5 cents) to watch a movie.

By 1907, a million people a day
were going to nickelodeons, fivecent movie houses that showed prepackaged, half-hour programs.

And as they say in the movies, “the
rest is history!”