The amazing evolution of motion pictures did not grow how it did with the help of just one person or one mind. As I said in my presentation, many inventors helped lead to the discovery of finally getting it right after decades of people trying to figure out how to make motion happen through pictures. During the late 1800s, some of the first tries to make movies occurred.
Well-known American inventor Thomas Edison played a huge role in the process of making movies. In the 1880s, Edison had the genius idea to make the kinetoscope. It was built so that one single person could watch short pictures through a viewer that looked like a peephole,somewhat like a telescope. Edison built the first movie theater, but he didn't come up with the idea.
Two important men would come into the picture and change the world. The Lumière brothers were famous French scientists and engineers who had brilliant ideas. When Auguste went to an exhibit to see Thomas Edison's kinoscope, he knew he and his brother could make something even better. Remember when I said Edison’s invention was made to be seen by only one person at a time? Well, the Lumiere brothers set the idea that they wanted their invention to be able to be seen by a multitude of people at once because it was more convenient. This led to the Cinématographe being invented in 1895. This machine was the first of its kind at the time. It was a machine that not only recorded but also showed motion pictures. The Lumière brothers showed their motion pictures for the first time in public on December 28, 1895, in Paris after multiple private screenings before then. This was the first “movie” that was ever made.
Because of the Lumière brothers important work, moving pictures could be seen on a screen for the very first time. A lot of things changed when movies came out. The movie business has changed the way art and stories were expressed forever. I could imagine, after such a long time of just reading stories without visuals, how exciting this must have been for people. This means that a huge number of people could share visual experiences at the same time. This genius idea brought people from all over the world together; it helped spread culture and information as well.
However, like mostly everything, there were some problems caused by these excellent concoctions. As movies got more popular, they eventually had the power to make issues like racism, sexism, violence, and negative ideas worse or better. A lot of different people started to worry that movies could be bad for kids or just in general. People thought it caused worries about how they would change society and the spread of bad ideas, and I can understand why they would think that. They also have spread good ideas and changed society in a good way.
Movies esentially changed the way people had fun and talked to each other all together. They helped to break down barriers while bringing people together in different ways through humor, fiction, and non-fiction films. For me, this is on my list of the top 10 inventions I couldn’t live without, and I appreciate all the geniuses who participated in its discovery.
Sources
- https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/very-short-history-of-cinema#:~:text=The%20first%20to%20present%20projected,film%20printer%20all%20in%20one.
