Today is the birthday of cinématograph

Officially, the birthday of cinema is celebrated all over the world, except for the USA, on December 28 - on this day in 1895, the Lumière brothers staged the first commercial film screening in history at the Grand Café in Paris. However, in the USA, they believe that cinematography (the "cinemagraph" according to the Lumières) was born seven years earlier, in 1888, when Thomas Alva Edison invented the kinetoscope - an optical device for showing moving pictures. True, it was designed for only one viewer, watching the "movie" through a special eyepiece, which can hardly be called a movie show. Although, if you want, you can - after all, many people watch home movies alone today.

Another date directly related to the birth of the "cinemagraph" is February 13, 1895, when the Lumières received a patent for the invention of the "cinemagraph", that is, "an apparatus used to obtain and view images." The device was a universal projection, filming and copying apparatus for making movies on perforated celluloid 35-mm film.

Підписуйтеcь на наш Telegram-канал Lenta.UA - ЄДИНІ незалежні новини про події в Україні та світі

It is considered obvious that the Lumieres used in their "cinema" both the achievements of Edison and many other inventors, but numerous technical details of how it was done are too professional. Let us only note that the Lumieres also showed themselves to be excellent businessmen - unlike Edison, who pursued his competitors (Hollywood was born in its place precisely because of this, so that it could quickly escape from Edison's agents across the Mexican border), the Lumieres provided their invention to other distributors from different countries.

However, they did it wisely - in local movie theaters, which also began to be called "cinemagraphs", "Lumiere" machines, together with "Lumiere" projectionists who showed "Lumiere" films, were only available for rent for 50% of the box office revenue. Having skimmed off the "cream", in 1905 the Lumieres sold the rights to the "cinemagraph" to the French company "Pathé".

Photo: Wikipedia