📷 When does the history of cinema begin? It sounds like a simple question, but the answer is surprisingly slippery. We could start in December of 1895 when the Lumière brothers presented what was likely the first commercial film screening. Or we could start in late 1894 when W.K.L. Dickson shot The Dickson Experimental Sound Film, creating what was likely the first film with synchronized sound. But we could also start as early as 1888 when Louis Le Prince used a single-lens camera and paper film to create the Roundhay Garden Scene, or in 1878 when Eadweard Muybridge shot his first motion studies, or even in 1874 when Jules Janssen tested if his "photographic revolver" could capture the transit of Venus across the sun.

In reality, "new" technologies don't emerge fully formed in a singular historic moment; they are always the result of numerous previous developments. The process is iterative.

It's no different with cinema: centuries of technological innovation led, eventually, to the invention of moving pictures. These innovations can be grouped into three main categories:

• Optical toys that created the illusion of movement
• Advances in photography that allowed for capturing moments in time
• Sound recording technologies that developed in parallel

By the late 1880s, all of the major components necessary for the invention of moving pictures were in place, ready to be combined into what we now recognize as cinema.

This note is part of a series exploring the pre-history of cinema. Click the links above to explore specific technologies in more detail.