Filmmaker

 

The history of cinema must be studied according to three pillars: its technological evolution, its artistic evolution but also the evolution of its distribution.

The camera obscura

Let’s talk first about image projection, a key feature of what cinema will be like in the future. It was 

during Antiquity that man discovered the camera obscura, the ancestor of cinema. Thanks to a darkened room, the sunlight projects an image on a wall.

The projection of these images becomes a spectacle, an entertaining attraction.

The beginning of the reproduction of the movement

At the beginning of the 18th century, the magic lantern made its appearance. By a light projection process on a painted glass plate, an image animated by successions of plates is projected in front of an audience. Although rudimentary, the movement of the image is starting to catch on.

the same time, the concept of persistence, which is essential to the perception of movement, is born. The thaumatope, the zoospore make their appearances.

The invention of photography

In 1816, nearly 80 years before the first film screening, researcher Nicéphore Niepce managed to capture and reproduce a photograph on a plate covered with silver salt. The capture of reality by reproduction becomes possible. However, his invention seems difficult to date since the first photographs have disappeared.

The dates seem however to tend towards 1816 for its creation and 1827 for its real application.