Film Historypresented by

Helen Stephenson

Thomas Edison

The beginnings of film . . . • Mechanical• Similar to still photography• Patents on film-making

mechanisms• Started as business

Showmen and magic

Muybridge’s Horse in Motion, 1872

Zoopraxiscope

Nickelodeon

Late that Night in the Bedroom

First films – 1800s• Thomas Edison’s Monkeyshines 1 and 2,

1890?• Kinetograph – first motor-driven cameraWilliam Kennedy Laurie Dickson, Assistant• Kinescope - projector

Kinescope

Parlor Kinescope

First films – 1800s• Louis Le Prince• Single-lense camera patented

in 1886• Roundhay Garden Scene, 1888

Four years before Edison.

First public showing • Paris, Dec 28, 1895• Auguste & Louis Lumiere • “Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory”• 46 seconds

First narrative film• Edison’s studio• The Great Train Robbery, 1903

• Georges Melees• Documentaries and

narrative shorts, 1896

Seven years before Edison.

Meanwhile in France

Georges Melees • “The creator of the art of cinema”

538 films

Georges Melies Life