Let's Go to the Movies:
The Mechanics of Moving Images

February 8 - May 27, 2001

The film industry, more than a hundred years old, has an amazing story. It features a cast of thousands, boasts an intricate plot, and is set in many locations around the globe. Our exhibit, Let's Go to the Movies, explores the history and technology of this universally loved entertainment medium. Enter our "set", and join the director as the action begins…

FADE IN: Long shot of a photographer setting up a series of cameras to capture the motion of a horse trotting.
DISSOLVE TO: A revolving zoetrope that shows the resulting horse photographs, giving the effect of a moving picture.
VOICE OVER: Photographer Eadweard Muybridge experimented with photographing horses, other animals and people in motion, beginning in 1880…
DISSOLVE TO: Thomas Edison's studio, where two men are shown bending over a primitive movie camera.
VOICE OVER: Thomas Edison perfected a movie camera, called a Kinetoscope, in 1888…
DISSOLVE TO: Another studio, where a movie projector is throwing a jerky series of images on a wall.
VOICE OVER: ..followed closely by the French Lumiere brothers' invention of a projector.
CUT TO: A long shot of an audience watching a movie in a modern theater. The movie is in vivid color, with amazing special effects, and sound.
VOICE OVER: Today, of course, films are turned out by the dozen, in an attempt to satisfy the public's hunger for them. Continue on to the next set for the rest of the scenario…

Next Topics:

Technology and Development
Movie Theatres
Movie Pioneers
Early Locations
Home Movies
Personalities
Movie quote Quiz

Organization for "Let's Go to the Movies" Web Archive

Introduction
Technology and development
Origins
Prerequisites
Muybridge
Cameras and projectors
Mutoscope
Captions
Sound
Color
Cartoons
3D Movies

Movie Theatres

In the Theatre
Ushers
Staff
Ladies loungs
Children
Giveaways
The palaces
Art Deco
Theatre artists

The great theatres
Oriental
Paramount
Gateway
Whatever became?

Movie Pioneers

Muybridge
Edison
Leon Forest Douglass
Lee De Forest

Early locations

Niles
Lone Pine

Home Movies

Movies go home
Optics
Film transport

Personalities

Broncho Billy
Women Directors

Movie quote Quiz

Quiz answers

Let's Go to the Movies: The Mechanics of Moving Images