Cinematic History Essay

Explain the role of the Kinetoscope during the period of cinema's invention. How did the Kinetoscope modify the capabilities of earlier camera and projection systems?

about. The 1940’s and 1950’s marked the era in which television really began to take hold in the

in the twenties when a man by the name of Charlie Chaplain who was known for his "tramp" look, dominated the silent movie business. He was considered one of the most talented actors of the 20’s. Also during the 20’s radio was the popular for of listening to music and listening to the news. In the later 1920’s the television was created which now aloud people to see a picture in their home for entertainment, but the television did not surpass the radio entertainment wise, because most people were unable to afford it.

The birth of film began in 1872, when Leland Stanford bet a friend that a horse lifts all four of its legs off the ground when running. To settle the disagreement, Stanford employed photographer Eadweard Muybridge to take pictures. After settling the debate, Muybridge developed the first primitive cinema that he called “zoöpraxiscope”. The first films lasted only about a minute long, were black and white, and had no entertainment

Previously, editing used to be a challenge for most filmmakers. Often, they relied on manual methods when filming to add effects to the films. Incorporating visual effects to the film was a demanding task that

1. Kevin Rio explains that the device was mostly used in bars and arcades up to 1930 when it was adopted in the media as an entertainment tool.

So the year was 1894 and the city was none other than New York City. It was then when the public caught the first glance of Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope at work. With this invention, pictures were projected in

From there in 1892 Emil Reynaud invented the Praxinoscope. This was a theatrical Zoetrope that had mirrors placed on the inside so that he sequenced drawings that are inside of the drum reflect of the mirrors like a projector. From there nothing really big happens until the 1900’s. In 1900, Stuart Blackton creates a prototype of animation, “The Enchanted Drawing”. This isn’t considered a proper animation because Blackton can be seen in the film altering the drawings, but Blackton then creates

One of the first electronic television broadcasting began in England in 1936. This was used for several years as BBC broadcasted 30 line mechanical television, by using the Baird system. As stated above the Baird system used a mechanical camera for filmed programming, and Farnsworth image dissector cameras for live programming. After testing out both system it was an obvious decision for BBC to use the all - electronic.

This chapter explained pre-cinema magic illusions, technological innovations, and cultural optics. I learned that entertainment magic plays with

During the mid to late years of the 19th century, a new form of entertainment emerged. Film entered the stage of innovation. New marketing and technological innovations developed for film to become the art it is today. In the 1830s, Joseph Plateau designed the Phenakistoscope. This device had a picture in the middle of a wheel made with mirrors and small openings. When spun, the Phenakistoscope made the picture appear to move. The name changed to Zoetrope in the 1860s and producers advertised the product as an accessory every home needed (Dixon & Foster, 2008). Later inventions that preceded the first motion picture camera include: Henry Du Mont’s Omiscope, Henry R. Heyl’s Phasmatrope, Eadweard Muybridge’s Zoöpraxiscope, Etienne-Jules Marey’s fusil photographique and Eastman Kodak’s chronophotographs (Parkinson, 1997). With a design by Thomas Edison, William Kennedy Laurie Dickson built the first modern movie camera, the Kinetograph, in 1890 (Dixon & Foster, 2008). In 1895, Auguste and Louis Lumiére patented the Cinématographe, a machine that combined the engineering of a camera and a projector (Bergan, 2006). Businessmen capitalized on the growing need for a place to witness these brand new films, thus they charged people to see them in their living rooms (Potter, 2014). These creations made movie-making a reality.

Knowing this, Edison set out to make a motion picture machine. Edison saw no commercial value in it, which is somewhat ironic, but still decided to make it anyway. In an interview in 1887 he said, "It is possible to devise an instrument, which should do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear." Edison assigned the aforementioned, William Kennedy Dickson to pursue the research and development of his idea. Dickson discovered is that they machine must use light. That may seem very obvious but light was fairly new and somebody had to come up with the idea it must be incorporated in Edison's idea. For film, Dickson used a 1 and ½ inch wide strip of celluloid. Celluloid was brittle and broke easily but it continued to be used. George Eastman discovered a better substance for film. It was called Eastman film. Eastman had developed the film for Edison's already invented kinetograph. So using that name, Dickson developed a machine he called the

* In Sorbonne, France1922, Edwin Belin, an Englishman, who held the patent for the transmission of photographs by wire as well as fiber optics and radar, demonstrated a mechanical scanning device that was an early precursor to modern television.

During this period was an exciting and flower time period for television. In the USA, B&W television exploded onto the scene at the beginning of the decade, mid-decade saw electronic color television and remote controls launched, and at the end of the decade the public witnessed some interesting styling changes and the introduction of transistorized television. The child was becoming an adolescent. (Television History - The First 75 Years)

First commercially available in very crude form on an experimental basis in the late 1920s, then popularized in greatly improved form shortly after World War II, the television set has become commonplace in homes, businesses, and institutions, particularly as a vehicle for entertainment, advertising, and news. During the 1950s, television became the primary medium for molding