Cine 20A The Invention and Early Years of the Cinema (1880s-1904)

The Invention and Early Years of the Cinema (1880s-1904)

 Cine 20A Course Introduction

The Great Train Robbery (Edwin S. Porter, 1903)

Learning Objectives

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

Examine the technology that led to the development of cinema such as the phenakistoscope, zoetrope, and praxinoscope.

Compare the early photographic experiments of Eadweard Muybridge and Étienne-Jules Marey.

Examine the early films of European pioneers such as the Lumière Brothers, George Méliès, and R. W. Paul.

Assess the contributions of Thomas Edison and William K. L. Dickson on the evolution of American Cinema.

Identify the elements of early actualities and fiction (narrative) films.

Evaluate the establishment of narrative conventions in films by British filmmakers such as Cecil Hepworth, James Williamson, and G. A. Smith.

Examine the contributions of Edwin S. Porter on the development of narrative cinema.

To - Do list

Reading: Thompson & Bordwell, Chapter 1 "The Invention and Early Years of the Cinema (1880s-1904)" (pp. 3-21) in Film History: An Introduction

Read/Watch "The Invention and Early Years of the Cinema (1880s-1904)" Pages/Clips

Complete Discussion: The Invention and Early Years of the Cinema (1880s-1904)

Complete Quiz: The Invention and Early Years of the Cinema (1880s-1904)

Preconditions for Motion Pictures

During the nineteenth century,
scientists explored how the human eye perceives motion
if a series of slightly different images is placed before it in rapid succession.

Several optical toys were marketed that gave an illusion of movement by using a small number of drawings, each altered somewhat. In 1832, Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau and Austrian geometry professor Simon Stampfer independently created an optical device called the Phenakistoscope. 

The Zoetrope, invented in 1833, contained a series of drawings on a narrow strip of paper inside a revolving drum. The Zoetrope was widely sold after 1867, along with other optical toys. In these toys, the same action was repeated over and over.

The phenakistoscope is a plate-like slotted disc spun to simulate moving images.

The zoetrope is a bowl-like apparatus with slots for viewers to peer through.

A technological requirement for the cinema was the capacity to project a rapid series of images on a surface. 

Since the seventeenth century, entertainers and educators had been using “magic lanterns” to project glass lantern slides, and some could rapidly flash two or three changes of a figure’s position. But there had been no way to show large number of images fast enough to create a sustained illusion of movement.

If it had been easy to make a long series of drawings on some support, cinema would not have needed photography.
Photography, however, was the simplest way to produce many lifelike images.
The problem was that the illusion of movement needed at least sixteen photographs exposed per second.
It took inventors several years to achieve such a short exposure time.
The first still photograph was made on a glass plate in 1826 by Claude Niépce, but it required an exposure time of eight hours.

The cinema also required:
1) That photographs be printed on a base flexible enough to be passed through a camera rapidly.
2)Strips or discs of glass could be used, but only a short series of images could be registered on them. 

Film Invented

In 1888,
George Eastman devised a still camera that made photographs on rolls of sensitized paper.
This camera, which he named the Kodak,
simplified photography so that unskilled amateurs could take pictures.

1889
The next year Eastman introduced transparent celluloid roll film,
creating a breakthrough in the move toward cinema.
The film was intended for still cameras,
but inventors soon used the same flexible material in designing machines to take and project motion pictures.

Mechanism Needed for Cameras and Projectors

Finally, experimenters needed to find a suitable intermittent mechanism for cameras and projectors.
In the camera,
1) the strip of film had to stop briefly while light entered through the lens and exposed each frame;
2)a shutter then covered the film as another frame moved into place.
3)Similarly, in the projector, each frame stopped for an instant in the aperture while a beam of light projected it onto a screen;
4)again a shutter passed behind the lens while the filmstrip moved.
5)At least sixteen frames had to slide into place, stop, and move away each second.
(A strip of film sliding continuously past the gate would create a blur.)

Film Before Film: Phenakistoscope, Zoetrope, Praxinoscope
Film Clip