Film as an art form has drawn on several earlier traditions in the fields such as (oral) storytelling, literature, theatre and visual arts. Forms of art and entertainment that had already featured moving and/or projected images include:
- shadowgraphy, probably used since prehistoric times
- shadow puppetry, possibly originated around 200 BCE in Central Asia, India, Indonesia or China
- camera obscura, a natural phenomenon that has possibly been used as an artistic aid since prehistoric times, and in the early 19th century led to the chemical capture of its images in still photography
- magic lantern, developed in the 1650s, preceded by some incidental and/or inferior projectors
- stroboscopic "persistence of vision" animation devices (phénakisticope since 1832, zoetrope since 1866, flip book since 1868)
Although the advent of film as an artistic medium is not clearly defined, the commercial, public screening of ten of Lumière brothers' short films in Paris on 28 December 1895 can be regarded as the breakthrough of projected cinematographic motion pictures. There had been earlier cinematographic results and screenings by others, but they lacked either the quality, financial backing, stamina or the luck to find the momentum that propelled the cinématographe Lumière into a worldwide success[citation needed].
Soon film production companies and studios were established all over the world. The first decade of motion picture saw film moving from a novelty to an established mass entertainment industry. The earliest films were in black and white, under a minute long, without recorded sound and consisted of a single shot from a steady camera.
Conventions toward a general cinematic language developed over the years with editing, camera movements and other cinematic techniques contributing specific roles in the narrative of films.
Special effects became a feature in movies since the late 1890s, popularized by Georges Méliès' fantasy films. Many effects were impossible or impractical to perform in theater plays and thus added more magic to the experience of movies.
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Technical improvements added length (reaching 60 minutes for a feature film in 1906), synchronized sound recording (mainstream since the end of the 1920s), color (mainstream since the 1930s) and 3D (mainstream in theaters in the early 1950s and since the 2000s). Sound ended the necessity of interruptions of title cards, revolutionized the narrative possibilities for filmmakers, and became an integral part of moviemaking.
Popular new media, including television (mainstream since the 1950s), home video (mainstream since the 1980s) and internet (mainstream since the 1990s) influenced the distribution and consumption of films. Film production usually responded with content to fit the new media, and with technical innovations (including widescreen (mainstream since the 1950s), 3D and 4D film) and more spectacular films to keep theatrical screenings attractive.
Systems that were cheaper and more easily handled (including 8mm film, video and smartphone cameras) allowed for an increasing number of people to create films of varying qualities, for any purpose (including home movies and video art). The technical quality was usually lower than that of professional movies, but improved with digital video and affordable high quality digital cameras.
Improving over time, digital production methods became more and more popular during the 1990s, resulting in increasingly realistic visual effects and popular feature-length computer animations.
Different film genres emerged and enjoyed variable degrees of success over time, with huge differences between for instance horror films (mainstream since the 1890s), newsreels (prevalent in U.S. cinemas between the 1910s and the late 1960s), musicals (mainstream since the late 1920s) and pornographic films (experiencing a Golden Age during the 1970s).
Film editing and continuous narrative
The first films to consist of more than one shot appeared toward the end of the 19th century. A notable example was the French film of the life of Jesus Christ, La vie du Christ (The Birth, the Life and the Death of Christ), by Alice Guy. These weren't represented as a continuous film, the separate scenes were interspersed with lantern slides, a lecture, and live choral numbers, to increase the running time of the spectacle to about 90 minutes. Another example of this is the reproductions of scenes from the Greco-Turkish war, made by Georges Méliès in 1897. Although each scene was sold separately, they were shown one after the other by the exhibitors. Even Méliès' Cendrillon (Cinderella) of 1898 contained no action moving from one shot to the next one. To understand what was going on in the film the audience had to know their stories beforehand, or be told them by a presenter.