Film Technology

The first public screening of a movie in Germany took place on November 1, 1895 at the “Wintergarten” theater in Berlin. As the finale to a variety show, Max and Emil Skladanowsky, two brothers from Berlin, showed the movie Living Photographs using the Bioscop, a double projector of their own invention. The Bioscop was popularly referred to as the “crank box” (Kurbelkasten), whereas the Royal Patent Office described it as a “device for the intermittent forward motion of a filmstrip to show a series of photographs.” The exhibition highlights Berlin film pioneers like the Skladanowsky brothers and Oskar Messter. The history of film technology is illustrated with abundant historic film footage as well as cameras, spotlights, and other pieces of equipment for making and viewing movies.

Cinema enjoyed its great breakthrough in the early 20^th century, but “moving pictures” had been around for a long time. Projection artists in the 18^th century astounded audiences with the laterna magica, or magic lantern.  They told stories with colored glass slides that could be moved mechanically, projecting ghost stories or wonders of nature onto the wall. Small versions of the magic lantern were produced in the 19^th century as popular toys for children. Visitors to the exhibition can try out these and other optical toys like the praxinoscope, a so-called “magic drum,” the thaumatrope, a rotatable “wonder disk,” and the phenakistiscope, whose name literally means “eye deceiver” or “optical illusion.”