Thomas Edison- Invention of the Kinetoscope- The role it played in development of Cinema - Essay Example

Amongst the technologies that Edison invention was the Kinetoscope, which completely changed picture coverage in movies resulting into motion pictures. This paper explores Edison’s invention of the Kinetoscope and the role it played in development of Cinema before 1980. Prior to the invention of the Kinetoscope, the filming industry was devoid of motion pictures. Movie fanatics in the modern world greatly enjoy clear and perfect images of popular movie stars and blockbusters, which make movies more appealing to the eye than ever before, thanks to the invention by an iconic inventor, Thomas Edison.

The history of screen exhibition can be traced back to the invention of Kinetograph camera by Edison in his research laboratories between 1887 and 1891.1 The Kinetograph was a famous device for capturing of images up to the year 1896. The Kinetograph was unable to project films and the viewing of motion pictures. The Kinetoscope, a peeping-gadget, enabled the viewing of motion pictures in the Kinetograph, but the viewing was limited to one person for a specified duration.2 The compact design of the kinetoscope restricted the duration of the early films to 50 feet, which was a commercial limitation.

3 In 1883, Edison recruited an assistant, William K.L Dickson and later shifted to West Orange from Menlo Park in 1887 where Edison built a huge research and experiment laboratory from where he worked under the motivation of Marey and Muybridge. At West Orange laboratory, Dickson conducted most of the research work, which utilized the phonograph techniques developed earlier.4 Edison travelled to Europe on august 2, 1889 to see the outcomes Jules Marey’s roll-film Chronophotographe experiment.

In 1890, Sacco Albanese, an employee at one of Edison’s laboratories became the first person to use cylinder technology in filming. However, the method exhibited huge limitations in its displays and the quality of the images were poor leading to the rejection of the