History of Film

Mechanisms for producing unnaturally created, two-dimensional images in movement were demonstrated as early as the 1860s, with devices such as the zoetrope and the praxinoscope. These machines were outgrowths of easy optical devices (such as magic lanterns) and would display sequences of still pictures at enough speed for the images on the pictures to show to be moving, a phenomenon called persistence of vision. Naturally, the images wanted to be carefully designed to achieve the desired effect — and the underlying principle became the basis for the development of film animation.

A framework from Roundhay Garden Scene, the world's first film to date, by Louis Le Prince, 1888With the development of celluloid film for still photography, it became likely to directly capture objects in motion in real time. Early versions of the technology sometimes necessary a person to look into a viewing machine to see the pictures which were divide paper prints attached to a drum turned by a handcrank.