In 1891, Thomas Edison with an assistant named William Dickson created the kinetoscope.  The kinetoscope is a cabinet with a window through which individuals would experience the illusion of a moving image. The celluloid film strip is a sequence of images that are one a rapidly spined between a light bulb and a lens that created the illusion of motion. Edison Company began installing machines in hotel lobbies, parks, and penny arcades. Customers paid 25 cents for the admission.  In 1895, the brothers patented the cinematographe which is a lightweight film projector that could function as a camera and a printer, which was easy for outdoor filming. In December of 1895, was the first worlds commercial film screening, the sequence was about 10 short scene long.  Edison’s company also, purchased the right to improve projector that they call Vitascope.  

Nickelodeon was named because the admission casted 5 cents. Between the years of 1904 to 1908 about 9,000 nickelodeons appeared in the United States. The popularity of nickelodeon established film as a mass entertainment medium.  The peak of nickelodeon was 1910, there were about 20 companies in the United States. In the 1908, The leading 10 companies are Edison, Biograph, vitagraph, and other formed MPPC. Which stands for Motion Picture Patents Company. The MPPC’s goal is the standardize the industry and shut down the competition through monopolistic control.

One filmmaker transforms the silent film into an art and to unlock its potential as a medium of serious expression and persuasion. D.W. Griffith entered the film industry as an actor in 1907, he practiced parallel editing. Which is a film that alternates between two or more scenes of action, this could create an illusion of simultaneity. By 1915, most of the major film’s studios had moved to Hollywood. During the Golden Age of Hollywood, the major studios controlled every aspect the movie industry.

The products of mass culture, movies reflect cultural attitudes, trends and concerns, D.W. Griffith’s film The Birth of a Nation  presenting a racist perspective on the U.S. Civil War and it’s the aftermath, reflected racist concerns of the era in which it was produced. During the World War II, films reflected the patriotic sentiments of this time.  During the 1960’s to the 1970’s was the rise of the youth culture, movies adopted more liberal stances towards sexuality and violence. In the late 1970’s was the introduction of the VCR. The VCR was replaced by the DVD technology, which ends up being replaced by the Blu-ray Disc technology. DVD sales and rentals account for about a third of film revenues.

There are two types of television systems, the mechanical television developed out of Nipkow’s disc system.  In 1926, was the world’s first public demonstration of a television system in London. The mechanical rotating disks to scan moving images into electrical impulses. These images were always slightly fuzzy, the use of a spinning disk limited the number of new pictures that could be seen per second. Electronic television system was based on the CRT, the electronic bean could scan a picture in horizontal lines.