No one person invented cinema. However, in 1891 the Edison Company successfully demonstrated a prototype of the Kinetoscope, which enabled one person at a time to view moving pictures. By 1894 the Kinetoscope was a commercial success, with public parlors established around the world. The first to present projected moving pictures to a paying audience was the Lumière brothers in December 1895 in Paris, France. The earliest films were in black and white, under a minute long, without recorded sound, and consisted of a single shot from a steady camera.
It was October 6, 1894, when the first films to play in the Nation’s Capital flickered to life. The arrival of films made the news! “It is here! Edison’s kinetoscope!!! Marvelous! Realistic! True to life!” That is how the Washington Evening Star headlined the new epoch.” Movie theaters didn’t exist, so the first films came to life in phonograph parlors. These first films, or “living pictures” were viewed by one individual at a time through a peephole viewer at the top of a wooden box, called a Kinetoscope. The Kinetoscope introduced the basic approach that would become the standard for all cinematic projection before the advent of video.
The first to present projected moving pictures to a paying audience was the Lumière brothers in December 1895 in Paris, France. The earliest films were in black and white, under a minute long, without recorded sound, and consisted of a single shot from a steady camera, and could be seen at Vaudeville houses like Metropolitan Hall on 11th Street, NW.
As the movies were silent, the only way to communicate with the audience was to put up an occasional instructional slide. Since, in Vaudeville, it wasn’t unusual for patrons to smoke in their seats, talk, and even yell at performers on the stage, interstitials like these became commonplace.
Sources and Related Links
