Early Motion Picture Devices
October 9th, 2009
The Endless Pockets. A short film created in the style of the early Edison Kinetoscope films.
My two 7th grade film history classes have been learning about the earliest moving picture devices and the inventors who created them. Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb and the phonograph, also invented the kinetoscope.
The kinetoscope was not a movie projector. It was a box-like device that viewers had to peer into in order to see the films. Many of his earliest films, like The Sneeze, made in 1894, appear like they’re in slow motion because they were still figuring out how many frames per second it took to make the films look realistic.
Untitled. A short film created in the style of the early Lumiere Brothers.
On the other hand, films made by the Lumiere Brothers, who invented one of the earliest movie projectors, appear much faster. Like Edison, they were also experimenting with the number of frames per second.
After learning some of the history of these early filmmakers and watching some of their work, students created short films in the style of both the early Edison kinetoscope films and the early Lumiere Brothers films. Students faced the same limitations as early filmmakers: one camera angle, one take of film, and no sound. They added aged film and black and white video effects during post-production.
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