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Background

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Main article: Precursors of film

The use of film as an art form traces it origins to several earlier traditions in the arts such as (oral) storytelling, literature, theatre and visual arts. Film was born out of the scientific study of optics and experiments with an optical illusion known as "persistence of vision," a phenomenon of human perception where the brain retains rays of light for a short period after leaving the field of view.[1] Predecessors to the medium that had already utilized light and shadows to create art before the advent of modern film technology include shadowgraphy, shadow puppetry, camera obscura, the magic lantern, and various animation devices using persistence of vision illusions.

Shadowgraphy and shadow puppetry represent an early example of the intent to recreate stories in motion.[2] Thought to have originated in the Far East, the art form used shadows cast by hands or objects to create narratives. Shadow puppetry enjoyed popularity for centuries around Asia, notably in Java, and eventually spread to Europe during the Age of Enlightenment.[3]

Around 340 BC, the Greek philospher Aristotle,

By the 16th century, entertainers conjured images of ghostly apparitions utilizing techniques such as camera obscura and other forms of projection, [4] Magic lantern shows developed in the latter half of the 17th century seem to have continued this tradition with images of death, monsters and other scary figures.[5] Around 1790, this practice was developed into a type of multimedia ghost show known as phantasmagoria. These popular shows entertained audiences using mechanical slides, rear projection, mobile projectors, superimposition, dissolves, live actors, smoke (on which projections may have been cast), odors, sounds and even electric shocks.[6][7] While the first magic lantern shows were mainly intended to frighten viewers, advances by projectionists allowed for creative and even educational storytelling that could appeal to wider family audiences.[8] Newly pioneered techniques such as the use of dissolving views and the chromatrope allowed for smoother transitions between two projected images and aided in providing stronger narratives.[9]

1878–1887 Chronophotography and early animated recordings

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"Abe Edgington," owned by Leland Stanford; driven by C. Marvin, trotting at a 2-24 gait over the Palo Alto track, 15 June 1878

Most early photographic sequences, known as chronophotography, were not initially intended to be viewed in motion and were typically presented as a serious, even scientific, method of studying locomotion. The sequences almost exclusively involved humans or animals performing a simple movement in front of the camera.[10] Starting in 1878 with the publication of The Horse in Motion cabinet cards, photographer Eadweard Muybridge began making hundreds of chronophotographic studies of the motion of animals and humans in real-time. He was soon followed by other chronophotographers like Étienne-Jules Marey, Georges Demenÿ, Albert Londe and Ottomar Anschütz. In 1879, Muybridge started lecturing on animal locomotion and used his Zoopraxiscope to project animations of the contours of his recordings, traced onto glass discs. Long after the introduction of cinema, Muybridge's recordings would occasionally be animated into very short films with fluent motion (relatively often the footage can be presented as a loop that repeats the motion seamlessly).[11]

In 1887, the German inventor and photographer Ottomar Anschütz began presentations of his chronophotographic recordings in motion using a device he called the Elektrischen Schnellseher (also known as the Electrotachyscope), which displayed the images using a small milk glass screen. By 1891, he had developed and started mass production on a more portable and economical peep-box viewing device of the same name. For public presentations of the short loops, he started recording and adding topics that were more amusing than the usual motion studies, such as wrestlers, dancers, acrobats, and scenes of everyday life. Though little evidence remains for most of these recordings, some scenes probably depicted staged comical scenes and extant records suggest they may have directly influenced later works by the Edison Company, such as the 1894 film, Fred Ott's Sneeze.[12]

1888–1895: First motion pictures and early film projection

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Limited in part by technologies of the era, films in the late 19th century were usually brief and unsophisticated in narrative form. Instead, filmmakers largely focused on displaying the objective role of the camera as an "unblinking human eye" with which to record reality through the production of actuality films.[13]

On 10 January 1888, the French artist and inventor Louis Le Prince registered the first British patent for a camera that was capable of filming motion.[14] He recorded the earliest known motion picture in extant on 14 October 1888. The film, later known as Roundhay Garden Scene, was an actuality film that lasted 1.66 seconds and briefly depicted Le Prince's family in motion.[15] The following year, Le Prince filmed a short sequence of traffic on Leeds Bridge in England and successfully created a device that could project images in rapid succession using a Geneva drive. Le Prince mysteriously disappeared on 16 September 1890 en route to Paris to present his invention.[16]

In June 1889, American inventor Thomas Edison assigned a lab assistant, William Kennedy Dickson, to help develop a device that could produce visuals to accompany the sounds produced from the phonograph. Building upon contributions by Muybridge, Marey, and other predecessors, Dickson and his team created the Kinetoscope.[17] The device allowed a singular watcher to look through a peep-hole to view a motion picture loop that could be presented for about half a minute before starting over. On 20 May 1891, Edison introduced the device to an audience for the first time.[18] Many of the movies presented on the Kinetoscope showcased well-known vaudeville acts performing simple movements in Edison's Black Maria studio.[19] The Kinetoscope quickly became a global sensation with multiple viewing parlors across major cities by 1895.[20] As the initial novelty of the images wore off and the Edison Company failed to diversify their repertoire of films, a lack of public interest caused business to slow by Spring 1895. To remedy declining profits, experiments, such as The Dickson Experimental Sound Film, were conducted in an attempt to achieve the device's original goal of providing visual accompaniment for sound recordings. Limitations in syncing the sound to the visuals, however, prevented widespread application.[21] During that same period, inventors (building upon the success of earlier magic lantern shows) began advancing technologies towards film projection that would eventually overtake Edison's peep-box format.[22]

  1. ^ Cook, David A. (2004). A history of narrative film. Internet Archive. New York : W.W. Norton. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-393-97868-1.
  2. ^ Bohn, Thomas W. (1987). Light and shadows : a history of motion pictures. Internet Archive. Palo Alto, Calif. : Mayfield Pub. Co. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-87484-702-4.
  3. ^ Parkinson, David (2012). History of film (2 ed.). New York: Thames & Hudson Ltd. p. 16. ISBN 978-0-500-20410-8. OCLC 794136291.
  4. ^ Ruffles, Tom (27 September 2004). Ghost Images: Cinema of the Afterlife. pp. 15–17. ISBN 9780786420056.
  5. ^ Meier, Allison C. (12 May 2018). "The Magic Lantern Shows that Influenced Modern Horror". JSTOR Daily. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  6. ^ Castle, Terry (1988). "Phantasmagoria: Spectral Technology and the Metaphorics of Modern Reverie". Critical Inquiry. 15 (1): 26–61. doi:10.1086/448473. ISSN 0093-1896. JSTOR 1343603. S2CID 162264583.
  7. ^ Mannoni, Laurent; Brewster, Ben (1996). "The Phantasmagoria". Film History. 8 (4): 390–415. ISSN 0892-2160. JSTOR 3815390.
  8. ^ Eisenhauer, Jennifer F. (2006). "Next Slide Please: The Magical, Scientific, and Corporate Discourses of Visual Projection Technologies". Studies in Art Education. 47 (3): 198–214. doi:10.2307/25475781. ISSN 0039-3541. JSTOR 25475781.
  9. ^ Marsh, Joss (2013). "Dickensian 'Dissolving Views': The Magic Lantern, Visual Story-telling and the Victorian Technological Imagination". In Geiger, Jeffrey; Littau, Karin (eds.). Cinematicity in Media History. Edinburgh University Press. p. 23. ISBN 9780748676118. JSTOR 10.3366/j.ctt9qdrrf.7.
  10. ^ Latsis (2015). "Landscape in Motion: Muybridge and the Origins of Chronophotography". Film History. 27 (3): 2. doi:10.2979/filmhistory.27.3.1. JSTOR 10.2979/filmhistory.27.3.1. S2CID 194973091.
  11. ^ Lawrence, Amy (2003). "Counterfeit Motion: The Animated Films of Eadweard Muybridge". Film Quarterly. 57 (2): 15–25. doi:10.1525/fq.2004.57.2.15. ISSN 0015-1386. JSTOR 10.1525/fq.2004.57.2.15.
  12. ^ Rossell, Deac. "Copycats: Anschütz Chronophotographs as Direct Source Materials for Early Edison Kinetoscope Films". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  13. ^ Cook, David A. (1990). A history of narrative film (2nd ed.). New York: Norton. p. 8. ISBN 0-393-95553-2. OCLC 18834152.
  14. ^ Rossell, Deac (1995). "A Chronology of Cinema, 1889-1896". Film History. 7 (2): 121. ISSN 0892-2160. JSTOR 3815166.
  15. ^ "Louis Le Prince, who shot the world's first film in Leeds". BBC News. 22 June 2015. Retrieved 28 October 2021.
  16. ^ Dixon, Wheeler W. (2018). A short history of film. Gwendolyn Audrey Foster (3 ed.). New Brunswick. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-8135-9514-6. OCLC 1029759754.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  17. ^ Cook, David A. (1990). A history of narrative film (2nd ed.). New York: Norton. pp. 5–6. ISBN 0-393-95553-2. OCLC 18834152.
  18. ^ Rossell, Deac (1995). "A Chronology of Cinema, 1889-1896". Film History. 7 (2): 122. ISSN 0892-2160. JSTOR 3815166.
  19. ^ Grainge, Paul; Jancovich, Mark; Monteith, Sharon (2007). Film Histories. ISBN 9780748619061. JSTOR 10.3366/j.ctt1r28dt. Retrieved 14 September 2021. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
  20. ^ Rossell, Deac (1995). "A Chronology of Cinema, 1889-1896". Film History. 7 (2): 115–236. ISSN 0892-2160. JSTOR 3815166.
  21. ^ Musser, Charles (1991). Before the Nickelodeon : Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company. pp. 53–56. ISBN 978-0-520-32372-8. OCLC 1224278788.
  22. ^ Sklar, Robert (2002). A world history of film (2 ed.). New York: Harry N. Abrams. p. 26. ISBN 0-8109-0606-6. OCLC 46713129.
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