The Science and Technology of the Birth of Motion Pictures

The birth of cinema is often thought of as a technological advancement, but by re-evaluating the work of Louis Le Prince, we are invited to consider how much it was, from the very beginning, an artistic and creative endeavor. Film is the only art form whose birth we can pinpoint to an exact day, and less than 150 years from that day, the things that used to define it as a medium - a big screen, projection, 35mm film, perforations - are no longer in use. How do we separate technology and artistic medium, and more importantly, should we?
 
The Speaker
Paul Fischer
Author and Film Producer
 
Paul Fischer is an author and film producer based in the United Kingdom. His first book, A Kim Jong-Il Production, was published by Penguin in the UK and Flatiron Books in the US in 2015. It went on to be nominated for the Crime Writers’ Associations Non-Fiction Dagger, and was chosen as one of the Best Books of 2015 by NPR, Amazon, and the Library Journal. Paul’s writing has also appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, the Independent, Bright Wall / Dark Room, The Narwhal, and others. His new book, The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures, is available now.