Being able to capture motion has occupied the human psyche sine primitive times. This is evident through theLascaux cave paintings which depict buffalo with multiplelegs in a attempt to represent the animal running. Othersimple innovations also led to the motion picture, these‘optical toys’ demonstrated the eye’s persistence of vision.These ‘toys’ grew more advanced, but lifelike motion couldnot be achieved until the photographic process was nearlyperfected. In the 1870’s Eadweard Muybridge was successful incapturing the complete motion of a horse galloping. This wasthe first step in bringing pictures to life. The nextinvention came from a Rev. Hannibal Goodwin, who devised athin, flexible, plastic base he called celluloid, on whichcould be put photosensitive material. George Eastman was thefirst to market this celluloid film, and in 1890 ThomasEdison and William Dicksom successfully tested theKinescope. The first motion picture captured and copyrighted onthis Kinescope was titled “The Sneeze”, which is simply aman sneezing. Edison continued to make short films in hisstudio, nicknamed the Black Maria. His shorts usually werecomprised of people performing vaudeville acts as a form ofsideshow attraction. These films would be viewed inKinescope parlors, from large wooden boxes with a eyepieceon top. On the other side of the Atlantic, in France, theLumieres brothers improve on Edisons Kinescope, and createthe Cinematograph, a smaller more portable camera, that canfilm and view motion pictures. With this new Cinematograph,the Lumieres brothers were able to film and then project theproduct for an audience. They filmed what was around them,daily life for upper-middle class Europeans, their first wasa whole group of people leaving a factory at the end of awork day. Simple, but for its time it was amazing, seeing live people walking around and moving just as they normallywould, but on a big scree...
