Ryan's Blog: Blog Post #4

Motion Pictures was not created overnight by any means. It went through many stages of inventions being created and perfected in order to make progress in what we see on the big screen today. The first invention on the path to motion pictures was the invention of the phenakistoscope in 1832 by Joseph Plateau. “The phenakistoscope was a twirling disk that shows images that are similar but with a slight movement, and as the disk spins you only see each picture for a fraction of a second, making it look like the image is moving.” (Cook) This was the first invention that made images move in a way never seen before to man. The next invention was the daguerreotype which was the first successful form of photography. It was invented in 1839 by Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre from France. “This creation led to the zoogyroscope which directly relates to the creation of the first motion picture projector. The zoogyroscope was created by Muybridge in 1879 and it helped him project his pictures to an audience in San Francisco just a year later.” (Pickford) This still hasn’t gotten us to the creation of Motion Pictures which was in 1888. The invention that helped us actually develop the first motion picture was the Kinetograph which was invented through the years of 1897, which was when Edison patented it, to 1891.

The Kinetoscope was invented by Thomas Edison. Edison patented his invention but after he created it he saw it as a meaningless invention, to be used by children as a toy. “The invention’s original purpose was to try and help him sell more of his record players and more of his phonographs but since he was unable to accurately match the sound with pictures he dismissed it.”(Chodos) He didn't realize its potential until it was used at the Brooklyn Institute of Art and Sciences in a presentation which was an instant hit by the audience in 1893. This started the demand for Kinetoscopes as they were being sold all over the world. This led to a massive change in our world. It impacted everyone, no matter how old you were, where you came from or what gender you were, movies had everyone's interest. Parents were able to send their children to the cinema with 25 cents and they would be entertained for the entire day, and would come home with various sorts of tableware, known as “dish night” as an incentive for parents to send their children to the movies for the day. The movies had the most significant impact during the great depression. During a time when everyone and everything was terrible the movie theater was a place you could go to unwind and forget about the terrible economic state the country was in. The invention of motion pictures had many great impacts on the human race as a whole but one are that it hurt greatly was the live theater industry. People would go to see a live play as entertainment but once motion pictures were created, a large part of the audience switched to motion pictures creating a big problem for the theatic industry.