History of Film

First "film" ever made

Jun 15, 1878

The first film ever created was of a horse galloping. Created by photographer Eadweard Muybridge, this film was made to settle a $25,000 bet. This 5-second film was created by taking many pictures in rapid succession of a running horse.

Kinetoscope parlors start appearing

Oct 17, 1889

After realizing that "motion" could be created from a series of many images, the kinetoscope was invented by Thomas Edison so that anyone to watch these moving images. Kind of like a mini movie theatre, these kinetoscopes were set up around cities for public viewing. One drawback of these devices were that fact that all of them could only allow one viewer at a time.

First multi-person viewing of film

Mar 23, 1895

The Lumière brothers revolutionized the way we viewed films. They invented a projector that would allow multiple people to view a film at the same time. They created 30 to 60 second films to show during these viewings.

First film with special effects

Mar 27, 1902

Georges Méliès was the first to create a film with special effects. It was called A Trip to the Moon (or in French: Le Voyage dans la Lune). It features things like pyrotechnics and cutting.

First film with story released

Dec 1, 1903

A former employee of Edison, Edwin Porter, developed the first narrative film called The Great Train Robbery. The film was about a band of bandits who rob a train. The film had 14 scenes and was 12 minutes long, considered very long back then.

First animated cartoon created

Mar 23, 1906

The cartoon was created by James Blackton. The cartoon was called Humorous Phases of Funny Faces. It was created using stop-motion and cutout animation.

Universal Pictures established

Mar 23, 1912

Universal Pictures was established by Carl Laemmle. This marked the beginning of the first major film company. In time, the company would grow to become one of the biggest and create many classics like Jaws and Back to the Future.

First color film

Mar 27, 1912

"With Our King and Queen Through India" was the first film to be "naturally" colored. Some films had been in color before, but all of them had been hand-colored. To record in color, they crew recorded used the Kinemacolor.

First appearance of audio in films

Mar 27, 1927

Warner Bros.'s The Jazz Singer was the first film to have audio that synched to the film. They used a new Vitaphone system to do so. The first words spoken were " Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet."

First Academy Awards

Mar 27, 1929

The Academy Awards were first held at the Roosevelt Hotel in California. It honored the best films of 1927 and 1928. The most notable awards was Best Picture to "Wings".

First full-length feature film

Mar 27, 1937

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first full-length film to be animated. Every scene was hand drawn. This marked the beginning of many more animated films.

First appearance of CGI in films

Mar 27, 1973

"Westworld" was the first film ever to have computer-generated imagery. The film used the computer to make scenes such as "The Gunslinger's Vision" scene. CGI back then was primitive and could only work in 2-D, but is has now grown and now almost all films feature CGI.