Knowra Early cinema Early cinema Early cinema comprises filmmaking and exhibition before feature-length narrative films became dominant. It includes short films, varied programs, and attractions shaped by technological experimentation and changing viewing venues.
Cinematograph : A motion-picture camera, printer, and projector devised by the Lumière brothers. Its portability supported both filmmaking and projected exhibition in early cinema.
Eadweard Muybridge : A photographer known for sequential images that analyzed animal and human movement. His motion studies demonstrated how successive photographs could reveal and reconstruct movement.
Actuality film : A nonfiction motion picture depicting real people, places, or events. Actualities made everyday scenes and distant locations into brief cinematic attractions.
Cinema of attractions : A mode of early filmmaking that foregrounds display, spectacle, and direct address to the audience. The concept names a defining tendency in early films that presented attractions rather than sustained stories.
Nickelodeon : An inexpensive American storefront theater devoted primarily to motion pictures in the early twentieth century. Nickelodeons expanded regular filmgoing and encouraged longer, more varied programs.
Kinetoscope : A peep-show motion-picture device that displayed films to one viewer at a time. It shows that early moving pictures circulated through individual viewing as well as projection.
Thomas Edison : An American inventor whose laboratory developed early motion-picture cameras and viewing devices. Edison’s laboratory helped establish the Kinetograph and Kinetoscope in the 1890s.
Phantom ride : A film shot from a moving vehicle, creating the impression of traveling through a landscape. These films turned cameras mounted on trains or boats into a spectacle of virtual travel.
Continuity editing : An editing system that maintains clear spatial and temporal relations across shots. Its later conventions differ from the discontinuous, presentational styles common in early films.
Picture palace : A large, ornate movie theater built to present films as a prestigious public spectacle. Picture palaces reflect cinema’s shift from makeshift venues toward dedicated, grand theaters.
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