Early Cinema Gateway
Other Themes
- David Crawford - Stop Motion Studies
Artist's site, with stop motion photographic sequences, mostly taken on tube trains, animated with Flash, bringing together artistry with the spirit of chronophotography to create a unique visual experience. - Grand Illusions
Though not on cinema as such, this excellent, eye-opening site illuminatingly covers "optical illusions, scientific toys, visual effects, and even a little magic". Plenty to delight, intrigue and amaze, and includes an essay by Stephen Herbert on the persistence of vision fallacy. - Inuit Entertainers in the United States
Companion site to Jim Zwick's book, Inuit Entertainers in the United States: From the Chicago World's Fair through the Birth of Hollywood. The book documents 30 years of Inuit involvement in American entertainment before the 1922 release of Nanook of the North. Includes information on Inuit performers and film. - Philosophical Toy World
A fascinating site created by 'The Society for Etheric Research' (essentially multimedia artist Zoe Beloff) which examines optical toys and other pre-cinema devices from a theoretical basis, combining through-provoking analyses with ingeniously-imagined web design, QuickTime movies and Shockwave animations. - www.tinfoil.com
The best source for learning all about the Edison phonograph and other early systems for recorded sound, with a delightful range of recordings available on-line.