Precursors of film

optical device that projects an image of its surroundings on a screen

ancient form of entertainment using flat articulated figures

thumb|right|Interior view of Kinetoscope with peephole viewer at top of cabinet

early type of image projector

thumb|Animated GIF of ''Prof. Stampfer's Stroboscopische Scheibe No. X (Trentsensky & Vieweg 1833) thumb|A family viewing animations in a mirror through the slits of stroboscopic discs (detail of an illustration by E. Schule on the box label for Magic Disk - Disques Magiques'', )

thumb|300px|Old Zeiss (company)|Zeiss pocket stereoscope with original test image right|thumb|A common Underwood & Underwood Stereoscope

thumb|A replica of a Victorian zoetrope

optical toy

thumb|upright=1.7|Interpretation of Robertson's Fantasmagorie from F. Marion's ''L'Optique'' (1867)

A thaumatrope is an optical toy that was introduced in 1825. When the strings attached to the small illustrated disk are twirled quickly between the fingers, the depicted elements on either side of the disk appear to blend into one image. It was explained as the result of visual impressions lingering in the mind for about one-eighth of a second after the image has been removed.

thumb|right|An 1879 illustration of a praxinoscope thumb|250px|A projecting praxinoscope, 1882 right|300px|thumb|The Théâtre Optique, 1892. This ultimate elaboration of the device used long strips with hundreds of narrative images.

thumb|200px|right|Black-and-white picture of a coloured zoopraxiscope disc, circa 1893 by Eadweard Muybridge and Erwin F. Faber thumb|200px|right|Black-and-white animation of a colored zoopraxiscope (without distortion, hence the elongated form)

thumb|An 1899 trade advertisement thumb|Mutoscope at Herne Bay Museum and Gallery|Herne Bay Museum thumb|Mutoscope in San Francisco antique arcade thumb|thumbtime=1.4|Mutoscope: "Mechanical Maniacs" video. The Mutoscope is an early motion picture device, invented by W. K. L. Dickson and Herman Casler and granted to Herman Casler on November 5, 1895. Like Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope, it does not project on a screen and provides viewing to only one person at a time. Cheaper and simpler than the Kinetoscope, the system, marketed by the American Mutoscope Company (later the American Mutoscope and

1887 film by Louis Le Prince

exhibition of pictures, objects or people viewed through a small hole or magnifying glass

thumb|The Horse in Motion, a motion study photographed by Eadweard Muybridge using chronophotography, 1878 thumb|Animated gif from frame 1 to 11 of The Horse in Motion. "Sallie Gardner", owned by Leland Stanford, running at a 1:40 pace over the Palo Alto track, 19 June 1878.

animated moving picture system

thumb|A drawing of a Kaiserpanorama with 25 viewing stations. The Kaiserpanorama (or Kaiser-Panorama) is a form of stereoscopic entertainment medium used chiefly in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and is considered a precursor to film. It was invented by August Fuhrmann (1844–1925), and patented by him in 1890. It consisted of a number of viewing stations from which people would peer through a pair of lenses to view a number of rotating stereoscopic glass slides. By 1910 Fuhrmann is said to have controlled exhibitions in over 250 branches across Europe, and to have held up to 100,000 slides

thumb|An electrotachyscope, Scientific American, 16 November 1889, p. 303

thumb|upright|Large table-top viewer for vue d'optique prints. Late 18th century thumb|right|An example of a picture designed for viewing under a zograscope equipped with a mirror, its text mirror writing|written right-to-left.

figure in wayang performance of Indonesia

A cosmorama is an exhibition of perspective pictures of different places in the world, usually world landmarks. Careful use of illumination and lenses gives the images greater realism.

methods and tools preceeding true cinematographic technology

thumb|Carlo Ponti's Megalethoscope The megalethoscope is a larger version (mega-) of the alethoscope, (Italian: alethoscopio, from the Greek “true”, “exact” and “vision”) which it largely superseded, and both are instruments for viewing single photographs with a lens to enlarge and to create some illusion of three-dimensionality. They were used to view photographic albumen prints that were coloured, perforated and mounted on a curved frame. Night effects were achieved when viewing pictures in transmitted light from a fitted oil or kerosine lamp and a daytime version of the same scene was seen

form of visual entertainment

An anorthoscope is a device that demonstrates an optical illusion that turns an anamorphic picture on a disc into a normal image by rotating it behind a counter-rotating disk with four radial slits. It was invented in 1829 by Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau, whose further studies of the principle led him to the 1832 invention of a stroboscopic animation that would become known as the phénakisticope (commonly regarded as a pinnacle in the development of cinematography, and thus as an important step in the history of modern media).

thumb|Kinematoscope, United States patent law|United States Pa­tent 31357, Coleman Sellers, p. 1 The Kinematoscope (a.k.a. Motoscope) was patented in 1861 (United States Patent 31357), a protean development in the history of cinema. The invention aimed to present the illusion of motion.