1900s

Cinema's exponential technological advancement was demonstrated in 1900 by Raoul Gromoin-Sanson, who unveiled his Cineorama system. Cineorama featured an enormous panoramic screen, onto which were projected ten simultaneous images side by side. The result was certainly spectacular, though the flammability of nitrate film reels, coupled with the logistics of synchronising ten projectors, curtailed the system's commercial potential. It would later influence Abel Gance's Napoleon and Hollywood's Cinerama process.

Primitive cinema initially consisted of 'actualities' (from the Lumieres; known in Latin America as 'actualidades') and Photoscenes (simple recordings of popular entertainers, released by Gaumont), though French stage magician Georges Melies sought to fully explore the camera's potential for illusion. He used editing and trick photography to create films in which objects and people appear, disappear, multiply, explode, grow, and shrink. These stop-motion effects influenced early cartoon animators such as James Stuart Blackton (Humorous Phases Of Funny Faces, 1906) and Emile Cohl (Fantasmagorie, 1907). Melies's film screenings were accompanied by narration provided by 'bonimenteurs', similar to Japanese benshi.

Sustained Narratives

Melies's masterpiece was a science-fiction tale about a group of curious Victorians exploring the lunar surface, Le Voyage Dans La Lune (1902). It was based on a story by Jules Verne, who inspired many such narratives of fantastical journeys. Le Voyage was more than ten times longer than any previous film, a remarkable attempt at a sustained narrative which predates Edwin S Porter's early western The Great Train Robbery (1903). The first feature-length film was made in Australia, Charles Tait's The Story Of The Kelly Gang (1906).