How Did Movies Start?

“Movies” is short for “motion pictures,” and the development of pictures that seems to move has taken place over many years, thanks to work of many people.

Way back in the 1800’s experiments were being made using photographs which creates the illusion of motion. For example, batteries of cameras were set up to take a series of pictures of a running horse.

In the late 1880’s roll films was invented. Then cameras were invented which photographed a series of separate photographs of an action on a strip of film then showed them back at the same rate of speed, thus reproducing the action. In fact these were “Movies.”

They became quite popular. At first they were only scenes of something that moved: waves on the beach horses running, children’s swinging train arriving at a station.

The first film which really told a story was produced in the laboratories of Thomas Edison in 1903. It was “The Great Train Robbery,” and it caused a nation wise sensation. It was exhibited in black lightproof tent.

The first permanent motion-picture theater in the United States opened in November, 1905, in Pittersburgh, Pennsylvania. The owners called it a nickelodeon. Soon nickelodeons were opened all over the country and everybody began to go to the movies.

Most of the first films were made in New York and New Jersey and it was not until 1913that films began to be made in Hollywood.