If we go to the cinema to relax without thinking too much about its inner workings, it remains the result of an incredible technological evolution marked by groundbreaking firsts.
Kinetograph: The First Camera
The camera is arguably the most iconic tool of the film industry, and it has undergone numerous transformations. The first was the Kinetograph, invented in 1891 by Thomas Edison and William Dickson, based on the work of Étienne-Jules Marey, who had designed an instrument to study the flight of birds. The Kinetograph used 35-millimeter celluloid film perforated on both sides—also invented by Edison—and the moving image had to be viewed inside a wooden box through a peephole called the Kinetoscope.
Invention of Film
A camera needs a recording medium—this is where film comes in, another major symbol of cinema. It was invented in 1888 by John Carbutt and commercialized the following year by George Eastman. He developed nitrate-based film coated with a gelatin emulsion containing silver halide crystals, which reacted to light to capture images. Initially 35 millimeters wide, film later became available in 16 and then 8 millimeters, making amateur filmmaking possible.
First Movie Screening: A Moment of Wonder
L’arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat (translated from French into English as The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station, Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat
The first paid film screening took place in 1895 in the Indian Salon of the Grand Café in Paris. It was organized by the Lumière brothers, who were inspired by their father, who had witnessed the marvels of the Kinetograph in 1894. To modern audiences, these films may not seem like “movies” in the artistic sense, as they had no scripts or creative direction. However, Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat left the well-to-do spectators in awe.
Where Was the First Movie Theater Built?
The Indian Salon of the Grand Café, where the Lumière brothers’ film was shown, could be considered the first movie theater. However, this was a repurposed space, not originally designed for cinema. The first buildings dedicated to film screenings appeared in the early 20th century: Le Petit Journal in 1904, Cinéma-Théâtre in 1906… The Pathé cinema chain, known for its comfortable theaters, was also founded in 1906.
First Sound Film
The Jazz Singer
Until this point, all films were silent. Music was played live by a musician or a phonograph to accompany the visuals.
However, in 1927, The Jazz Singer, produced by the Warner brothers, became the first sound film. It contained only 354 spoken words, but this was a revolution in cinema history. The arrival of sound created a clear divide between the silent era and the new age of “talkies.”
First Film Studio
The concept of the “first film studio” depends on how one defines a studio. If we consider a studio as a dedicated space for filming, the title likely goes to Thomas Edison’s Black Maria, built in 1893 in New Jersey, USA. This tar-paper-covered wooden structure was the world’s first film production facility, designed to shoot short clips for Edison’s Kinetoscope.
It featured a rotating base to follow sunlight, as artificial lighting was not yet advanced enough for indoor filming. The Black Maria primarily produced experimental clips, such as Fred Ott’s Sneeze (1894), as well as vaudeville acts and athletic demonstrations. However, it lacked narrative storytelling or special effects, focusing instead on technical novelty.
Around the same time, the Lumière brothers in Lyon, France, were pioneering cinema in a different way. While they did not build a traditional studio, their workshop became the birthplace of the Cinématographe, a device that could capture, project, and print films.
The Lumière brothers are best known for hosting the first public film screening on December 28, 1895, in Paris. Their films, such as Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory and The Arrival of a Train, were documentary-style “actualités” shot outdoors or in factory settings. Though groundbreaking, their work did not involve a controlled studio environment.
The first modern film studio, designed specifically for narrative filmmaking and special effects, was built by Georges Méliès in 1897 in Montreuil, France. Méliès, a master illusionist, transformed his family estate into a glass-roofed facility with artificial lighting, trapdoors, and painted backdrops. This studio allowed him to control lighting and weather conditions, enabling the creation of fantastical films like A Trip to the Moon (1902). Méliès pioneered techniques such as stop-motion, double exposure, and hand-painted color, establishing cinema as a storytelling medium and inspiring future filmmakers.
While Edison’s Black Maria and the Lumière brothers’ workshop laid the technical and commercial foundations of cinema, Méliès’ studio marked the transition of film into an art form. Other early studios, such as Robert Paul’s in London (1898) and Nordisk Film in Denmark (1906), further expanded the industry by experimenting with special effects and producing large-scale narrative films.
George Eastman and the legacy he left for the world. Only a few professionals and enthusiastic amateurs were interested in photography in its first fifty years. It was expensive, time-consuming, cumbersome, and demanding expertise. All these adversities changed in 1888 when the American inventor George Eastman introduced a machine that was both cheap and convenient.
Who was George Eastman?
George Eastman was born on a small farm in New York. When he was 5, his family moved to Rochester. George lost his father when he was 8 years old, and his family suffered a lot during that time. Eventually, George was forced to give up his education at the age of 13 and start to work. He was eager to learn and learned many things through his efforts.
Eastman’s interest in photography started when he was planning a trip abroad while working as a bank clerk at the age of 24. When a colleague told him to record his trip, Eastman bought a camera. The machine consisted of a large, coarse box and was attached to a heavy tripod. Inside the box were individual glass plates, which were placed in large plate slots and covered with photosensitive emulsion instead of film. The plates had to be prepared for outdoor shots in a portable tent that served as a darkroom.
In 1878, George Eastman learned about “dry plates,” invented in 1871 by British photographer Richard Leach Maddox. The emulsion was coated on the plates with gelatin. These plates could be stored and used at any time. Thus, the majority of the equipment Eastman purchased was unnecessarily large. While Eastman continued to work at the bank, he devoted all his free time to finding the most competent method of producing dry plates in series.
In 1880, he founded the Eastman Dry Plate Co. In 1881, he began to produce and sell dry plates and soon decided to use a lighter, more flexible material instead of glass. In 1884, he considered rolling the flexible plate. Accordingly, the machine would have a rolling slot instead of a plate slot. The first device, known as a “detective camera” using a film roll, appeared in 1885. The roll was made of paper, and this method did not produce the desired result because the fibers in the paper were visible in printing.
George Eastman: “You press the button, we do the rest”
In the meantime, other researchers were working on flexible and dry plates too. Some researchers have been experimenting with nitrocellulose, also known as celluloid. Eastman launched celluloid film in 1889.
Eastman’s genius move showed that he had to expand the photography market to succeed. The way to do this was to make photography, in his own words, “as convenient as the pencil.” He had to develop a new, smaller, and reasonably priced machine. In 1888, the first Kodak machine was introduced and soon achieved great success.
The camera is equipped with a roll that can store up to 100 photos. Once the camera owner took the photos, all he had to do was send the camera to Eastman’s company, wait for the photos to come out, and take it back with a new film. The main factor in Kodak’s success has been taking photography to a level that everyone can reach. Eastman’s short statement suited the situation: “You press the button, we do the rest.”
Later, George Eastman renamed the corporation Eastman Kodak and dominated the market by offering “cheap photography.” He was never married and never had children. He assisted universities, hospitals, and dentistry clinics as a significant benefactor. He had been suffering from a deteriorating bone ailment for the last two years. He took his own life in 1932 by shooting himself in the heart. “My work is done, why wait?” he said in his suicide note.
Brownie camera
Kodak’s first camera with widespread demand had a retail price of $25. That was half the amount Eastman paid for his first camera. But it was still a high price for amateur photographers. In 1900, Eastman Kodak introduced a new, very cheap camera solution: the Brownie. Between 1900 and 1980, Eastman Kodak produced and sold 99 different Brownie models.
The first Brownie Machine was a cardboard box with a roll holder, a roll of film, and a lens. Outside the box, there was a shutter and a winder. The world’s cheapest camera was sold for $1 (approximately $30 today). Thus, the “snapshot” era began. It was able to capture the moments without requiring any preparation.
Quotes
“Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.”
“What we do during our working hours determines what we have; what we do in our leisure hours determines what we are.”
“You push the button, we do the rest.”
“If a man has wealth, he has to make a choice, because there is the money heaping up. He can keep it together in a bunch, and then leave it for others to administer after he is dead. Or he can get it into action and have fun, while he is still alive. I prefer getting it into action and adapting it to human needs, and making the plan work.”
“I used to think that music was like lace upon a garment, nice to have but not necessary. I have come to believe that music is absolutely essential to our community life.”
“I don’t believe in men waiting until they are ready to die before using any of their money for helpful purposes.”
Sources:
Ackerman, Carl W. (1930). George Eastman: Founder of Kodak and the Photography Business. Beard Books. ISBN 1-893-12299-9.
Brayer, Elizabeth (1996). George Eastman: A Biography. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0801852633.
Let’s talk about the history of photography. About a thousand years ago, Arab scientist Ibn al-Haytham demonstrated how to create an image of the sun in a dark room. The light passed through the small hole in one wall, and the image was formed on the opposite wall. In the 1660s, portable “Camera Obscura” with lenses, paper screens, and even focusing mechanisms were designed. “Camera Obscura,” which means “Dark Room” in Latin, was a common phrase at that time used to see the Sun or to look at landscapes and streets. All the parts of modern cameras were presented in these tools, but there was no way to record the image they created yet. It had been more than 150 years since Joseph Niepce developed a method for capturing light; thus, real photography was born.
Capturing the light
William Fox Talbot
Practical photography was invented by William Fox Talbot and Loius Daguerre on almost the same dates. However, Daguerre’s method is not a method used today. Modern cameras use the method developed by Fox Talbot (1800-1877) in the 1830s. Talbot dipped the photographic paper in silver chloride, a chemical that darkened when exposed to light; he also had a negative image when he dropped the light on the paper. When he used the same method to duplicate the images from the negative, he obtained an unlimited number of positives.
Creating the image
During his first attempts at photography, William Fox Talbot made a camera out of a large box. This was an experimental version of what he did in 1835 and had an inverted lens. Talbot dropped the light on the photosensitive paper he placed on the back of the box for over an hour. However, the result was disappointing. The amount of light falling on the paper was not sufficient, and only little detail appeared in the image. The following time, Talbot attempted to use a much smaller, slightly larger than 6 cm2 camera and placed the lenses very close to the paper to increase the intensity of the light falling on the paper. William Fox Talbot achieved the famous negative seen above with one of these tiny machines. The image shows the window of Talbot’s house.
The first permanent photograph
Joseph Niepce’s first (mind-blowing) permanent photograph.
In 1822, Joseph Niepce (1765-1833) focused the image coming through his window on a tin-lead alloy sheet covered with photosensitive tar. Eight hours later, when he washed the sheet with oil, he saw that the tar was cleaned, except where the light fell. The remaining tarred area created a photograph.
Daguerreotype
The back of the camera slides forward or backward to focus on the image.
In the early 1830s, Loius Daguerre (1789-1851) worked with Joseph Niepce, who took the first photograph in history. Daguerre made experiments and tried to record the image on a copper plate. He covered the plates with silver and exposed them to iodine to make them sensitive to light. It didn’t work at first, but one day he discovered something by chance. The plate was able to create an image even when exposed to mercury vapor for as short as 15 minutes. Then he found out how to make the image permanent. For the image to be permanent, silver should no longer react to light. Thus the Daguerreotype was born, and it was the first camera to go on sale.
Mini cameras
Coronet Midget
These tiny cameras were made in 1934 from bakelite, the first form of plastic. These machines, using tiny, rolled films, had fixed-focus lenses and separate visors and were slightly larger than a matchbox. The first cameras needed a lot of light, such that they had to be exposed to light for several minutes or even hours. If anything moved during this time, blurry, vague images appeared. There are no such problems today because modern cameras have much shorter “exposure times”.
Camera Obscura
Camera Obscura is an important milestone in the history of photography. It is known as one of the first pinhole cameras. The ancient Greeks discovered that if the light is allowed to enter a very small hole in a dark room, the upside-down view of the outside landscape is reflected on the white wall in the room. In the 9th century BC, Arab astronomers used this system to measure the position of the sun and to observe the solar system without damaging their eyes.
Later, the device was named “dark room,” or “camera obscura” in Latin, and depicted by Leonardo da Vinci in the 15th century. Da Vinci used the image he projected on the paper he stretched on the wall of a dark room to paint objects outside and said, “The shape is as if it had been drawn.” In the 16th century, the Italian Giambattista della Porta clarified the image by replacing the hole on the wall with a lens and turning the image right-side-up with a mirror.
The painters started to use portable dark rooms and reflected the image on the icy glass to start painting their subjects. In the 18th century, Canaletto used camera obscura for a dozen paintings he made in Venice. Many varieties of dark rooms are produced; some occupied the entire working room on the top floor of a tower, and some were small enough to be carried around. The first camera was born, but the most important part was still missing: a sensitive plate (photographic plate).
How did the camera become widespread?
The photography technique has had a deep influence on people’s hopes and dreams since its discovery. Scientists have considered photography as a very necessary tool to make precise observations. Social reformers said that the photographs will help strengthen family ties, which have been at risk of loosening because of the freedom of movement that steam transport has provided to people. From 1854, portraits placed on cardboard were offered for purchase.
The painters who became unemployed with the invention of the camera started working on retouching and coloring the photographs by hand. By 1860, approximately 30,000 people were working in the photography industry only in Paris, the capital of France. As innovations in technology make photography easier, it is still limited to those with a better income due to its cost but has been adopted as a hobby by an increasing number of amateurs. Photography could not go public until the cheap portable camera and roll film were developed. American George Eastman found both in the late 1880s.
The Kodak Brownie Box camera was the first public camera. Cheap and easy to use.
With his famous slogan, “You press the button. We do the rest,” Eastman helped to redefine photography. In 1888, he developed the first Kodak machine. He chose this name because he liked the sound of the letter K and wanted a word with K on both ends. The machine was the size of a cigar box. It could be held with one hand, and the price was $25. It came along with three instructions: “1. Pull the rope. 2. Turn the key. 3. Press the shutter button.” The diaphragm stretches with the spring and opens with the shutter. The key was turning the film. The reels of each film took 100 pictures and were bathed at the Kodak factory in Rochester, New York. George Eastman released the first “Brownie Box” camera in 1900. This machine was much cheaper than the first Kodak, and in its first year, 100,000 were already sold, more than half of them in Europe. Photography was made easier and cheaper for everyone.
How did the painters react?
Some painters believed that the camera posed a serious threat to their profession. Sir Edwin Landseer wrote “The enemy of graphic arts” next to a photo with giant live or dead animal pictures. Although only a few painters confessed that they were taking advantage of photography, most of them benefited from it to support their work. In the mid-19th century, painters started to create scenes with more people in them because it was easier to draw each person when the artist took a photograph of them in the studio.
Edgar Degas used the photo of Princess Metternich (left) to portray her (right).
French painter Eugene Delacroix immediately understood the possibilities of this new invention and took photos of people in various poses. Edgar Degas did his ballerina paintings with the help of photographs. William Powell Frith used his camera for the crowds in the station or the hippodrome and did several paintings during the Victorian era in England. However, many people despised artists who were making paintings by looking at photographs.
When was the cinema invented?
The human eye holds an object’s image for a tenth of a second, and then it gets erased. This is called “resistance” in optics. Thus, static pictures sequenced at a speed of about 16 times per second can be used to create a sense of motion. This principle was used in 1826 in a toy named “Thaumatrope,” invented by a British doctor. A canary was drawn on one side of a cardboard disc, and a cage was drawn on the other side. When the disc rotated, the images blended and it appeared as if the bird was inside the cage. British photographer Eadweard Muybridge developed this concept in the 1870s and 1880s. He was asked to find out if a racehorse at full gallop was in midair at any moment in time. He took several pictures of the animal in a row, using 36 cameras.
Muybridge invented the zoopraxiscope to refute the claims that the moving horse pictures he took were not true.
Eadweard Muybridge invented the zoopraxiscope in the late 1870s. It was a lamp that reflected a series of images onto a screen to give the impression of motion. Successive photographs of a figure in motion were drawn on a glass disc. When the disc was turned quickly, the reflected figure seemed to move. Muybridge’s invention was a pioneering initiative for cinema, but the story of actual cinema would begin with the development of movie cameras and projectors made by Thomas Edison, the Lumiere brothers, and others.
Firsts in Photography
We talked about the invention of photography. Now we can list the firsts in photography:
1838: Priest Joseph Reade photographed a person for the first time.
1839: Alphonse Giroux sold a camera in Paris for the first time.
1840: The first photography studio was opened in New York by Alexander Wolcott and John Johnson.
1844: The first photography book written by W.H. Fox Talbot was published under the name The Pencil of Nature.
1858: French photographer Gaspard Felix Tournachon, known under the name Nadar, took the first aerial photograph of Paris from a balloon above the suburbs.
1861: British Physicist James Maxwell took the first color photograph.
