Pre-cinema audio-visual resources

On this page you will find various audio-visual resources that explain devices, procedures, inventors or experiments related to the technology of the image from pre-cinema and the early days of cinema..

Other resources:

• Cinématographe Lumière

  Virtual recreation of how the cinematograph run, invented by the Lumière brothers in 1895.

• Edison's Kinetoscope

  Virtual recreation of Edison's Kinetoscope, the first individual viewer films marketed in 1894

• La Toupie Fantoches. Émile Reynaud

  La Toupie Fantoches is a extremely rare toy invented by Émile Reynaud in 1879, derived from his invention Le Praxinoscope.

• Théâtre Optique / Optical Theatre - Émile Reynaud

  Virtual reconstruction of how the Théâtre Optique run. It was invented by Emile Reynaud. He worked in Paris between 1892 and 1900.

• Muybridge's Chronophotography

  Virtual and schematic recreation of the experiment E. Muybridge in Palo Alto (California 1879) to obtain a photographic sequence of an animal in motion

• Daguerreotype. L.J.M. Daguerre and N. Niépce

  Virtual recreation of how made a daguerreotype (procedure invented by LJM Daguerre and N. Niépce). The daguerreotype was introduced to the world in 1839.

• Polyorama panoptique. P.H.A. Lefort

  Optical box for a translucend optical views made by P.H.A. Lefort (France, ca. 1850). Image of Rivoli Street (Paris)

• Flick-book "The Filoscope".

  Folioscope "The Filoscope" (Great Britain, 1898) with a short film entitled "Andalusian dance".

• Magic lantern slide. Moving image

  Magic lantern slide with a moving image (1840-1890)

• "La sirena i el mariner" Cine NIC. Toy projector

  Film for a toy projector Cine NIC. It was produced between 1936-1938, during the Spanish Civil War, when the factory Proyectores NIC SA was seized by their workers. During these years t…

• 'Les trifulques d'en Catúfol' Cine NIC. Toy projector

  Film for a toy projector Cine NIC. It was produced between 1936-1938, during the Spanish Civil War, when the factory Proyectores NIC SA was seized by their workers. During these years t…

• Mutoscope. International Mutoscope Reel Co

  International Mutoscope Reel Co (USA, 1905-15). Device patented by H. Casler in 1894. Emerges as a device to watch the first short films individually. Emerges as a competition of Ediso…

• Albumen: photo process (s. XIX)

• Baird Mechanical television

  Description of the basic functioning of the mechanical television invented by JL Baird in 1925-1926.

• Kinora Bond's Ltd

  Kinora Bond Ltd's (Britain, 1912). Apparatus invented by the Lumiere brothers in 1896 for home use. It consisted a combination of a folioscope and mutoscope. Each frame of film correspo…

• Praxinoscope theatre. Émile Reynaud

  The Praxinoscope theater was invented by Emile Reynaud in 1879. This device uses the same system that Praxinoscope to animate images, a sort of zoetrope, replacing the drum slots for th…

• Praxinoscope with music box

  Praxinoscope music box with built between 1885 and 1895 by Company E. Hartmann-Bahon (Sainte Croix, Switzerland), based on Praxinoscope created by Emile Reynaud in 1877 in France.

• Beale's Choreutoscope

  Invented by Beale in 1866, this was a mechanism for the animated projection of drawings with a magic lantern based on the theory of persistence of vision. It included a glass plate wit…

• The Magic Lantern images

  The magic lantern was the most popular audiovisual show before the movies, especially eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe

• Phantasmagoria Magic Lantern

  Phantasmagoria was a form of audiovisual show which used a modified magic lantern to project frightening images such as skeletons, demons, and ghosts onto walls, smoke, or semi-transpar…

• The Projection Praxinoscope. Émile Reynaud

  The Projection Praxinoscope is an optical toy invented by Émile Reynaud in 1880. This apparatus allows to project on a screen moving pictures. The praxinosocope projection that appears …

• Japanese photo album. Aldolfo Farsari Studio (Yokohama, 1885-1890…

  Photo Album with 100 albumen photo hand-colored, made by photo studio Adolfo Farsari (Yokohama) between 1885-1890.

• Beale's Choreutoscope

  Beale's Choreutoscope. Great Britain, 1866-1880. This was a mechanism for the animated projection of drawings with a magic lantern based on the theory of persistence of vision. It inc…

• Optical Box (c.1750-1790)

  This instrument had three functions: it was a camera obscura used for drawing; it could be used to see optical views; and theatrical dioramas could be viewed with it. Besides this, it c…

• Wheel of Life Magic Lantern Slide (T. Ross)

  Wheel of life Lantern. T. Ross. great Britain, c. 1871

• Camera Lucida

  The camera lucida performs an optical superimposition of the subject being viewed upon the surface upon which the artist is drawing. The artist sees both scene and drawing surface simul…

• Magic lantern slides. Astronomy

  Set of five astronomical magic lantern slides with moving imatge (1850-1890). They come from the old Secondary School in Girona (1841-1968).

• Description of the assembling and functioning of a tent camera obscura (1800-1850). This was a device used by artists and painters, before the invention of photography, to capture laten…