Cinema

Cinema commonly refers both to moving-image filmmaking and to the cultural and commercial systems through which films are produced, distributed and exhibited. Cinematography records a succession of still photographic images that, when projected rapidly, creates the impression of movement. Films combine images with choices about framing, editing, performance, sound and duration; the medium can serve artistic, documentary, educational and entertainment purposes.

Early screenings were social events rather than silent viewing in the modern sense. Films were often short and could be accompanied by live music, lectures or audience participation. Although they lacked synchronized dialogue, screenings were not necessarily quiet. The settings ranged from fairgrounds and music halls to dedicated venues as film exhibition expanded.

Cinema developed from a cluster of inventions and experiments in the late nineteenth century, so its history does not have one uncontested inventor or starting date. The Edison Company's Kinetoscope made moving pictures commercially viewable by one person at a time. Other inventors worked on cameras and projection systems. The Lumière brothers' Cinématographe, a compact device that combined a camera, projector and film printer, became an influential part of the early public-screening era.

The Lumières' Paris screenings in December 1895 are often treated as a landmark, but they were not the only early public film exhibitions. The British Film Institute's account describes a paid public projection using the Eidoloscope in New York earlier in 1895, illustrating why the story is better understood as a period of competing technologies and experiments than as a single moment of invention.

During cinema's early decades, films became longer and narrative storytelling increasingly shaped production. By 1914, several national film industries were established, and growing audiences encouraged investment in studios, distribution and purpose-built cinemas. The First World War disrupted European production and contributed to a shift in the relative importance of the American film industry.

Sound and colour arrived through gradual technical changes rather than a single overnight transformation. Screenings in the silent era often had live accompaniment; experiments with recorded sound preceded the development of systems that synchronized sound with film. Sound technologies including Vitaphone and later sound-on-film systems helped change production and exhibition in the 1920s and after. Colour, meanwhile, was initially introduced in forms such as hand colouring, tinting, toning and stencilling before more elaborate colour processes developed. These changes expanded filmmakers' expressive possibilities while requiring cinemas and production companies to adapt.