Magic Shadows: The Story of the Origin of Motion PicturesQuigley, Martin
History
Magic Shadows: The Story of the Origin of Motion Pictures
Quigley, Martin
Lantern projection; Motion pictures -- History
1890 John Arthur Roebuck Rudge and William Friese Greene
and Mortimer Evans, in England, construct a simple, limited
motion projector.
1891 Edison’s Kinetograph camera and Kinetoscope viewing
apparatus completed and the patent application made. The
patent was not issued for two years.
1892 Reynaud runs the Théâtre Optique in Paris, the first film
theatre which uses hand-drawn and not photographed
pictures.
1893 Marey develops a motion picture projector which uses
the sun for its light source.
Greene patents a camera and projector system which is
limited in scope.
1894 Edison peep-show Kinetoscopes go on display on April
14th, at 1155 Broadway, New York, and later that year
on Oxford Street, London, and in Paris. These demonstrations
influence a number of scientists and photographers
who finally solved the problem of screen projection of
continuous motion pictures.
Anschütz patents an early projection model in France.
Demeny uses a camera and projector system somewhat
similar to that developed under Marey.
1895 Successful projection of motion pictures onto a screen
achieved by Louis and Auguste Lumière with the Cinématographe,
in France; by Robert W. Paul with films made
by Birt Acres in the Bioscope, in England; by Thomas
Armat, C. Francis Jenkins, the Lathams, and others in the
United States.
1896 Screen projection of motion pictures becomes a commercial
reality and the magic shadow art starts on the way
to becoming the greatest entertainment medium ever
known. In New York the premiere is held at Koster &
Bial’s Music Hall, Herald Square, New York City, on the
evening of April 23, 1896.
In addition to those named, the following, among many,
were also working on screen projection in the 1895–96–97
period of success: Georges Melies, who brought the spirit
of Phantasmagoria to the modern motion picture; Max
Skladanowski, who claimed a projection show at the Wintergarten
in Düsseldorf in the Fall of 1896; Owen A.
Eames, of Boston; Edwin Hill Amet, of Chicago; Henri
Joly, W. C. Hughes, Cecil M. Hopwood, Carpentier, Drumont,
Werner, Gossart, Auguste Baron, Grey, Proszynski,
Bets, Pierre Victor Continsouza, Raoul Grimoin-Sanson;
Perret & Lacroix; Ambrose Francis Parnaland, Sallé &
Mazo; Pipon; Zion, Avias & Hoffman, Brun, Gauthier,
Mendel, Messager, Cheri-Rousseau, Mortier, Wattson,
Maguire & Baucus, Phillip Wolff, F. Brown, F. Howard,
Ottway, Rowe, Dom-Martin, Appleton, Baxter & Wray,
Riley, Prestwich, Newman & Guardia, Rider de Bedts,
Noakes & Norman, Clement & Gilmer, etc., etc.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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