Phantasmagoria

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Phantasmagoria

We start my project of looking at everything in film history with the things that inspired the creation of film in 1895. The first thing we will look at is the phenomenon of Phantasmagoria that swept through Europe in the 17th century and stayed popular until the end of the 19th century.

The Phantasmagoria was a form of theatre where people would go sit in a chamber hall and be scared of the images that would appear. People would draw horrific images for them to be projected onto a screen using a light source. The projectionist would be able to put images together or change them out quickly. Sometimes trick mirrors and smoke would be used to make it even more scary and to create even more of an illusion.

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The “camera obscura” made the Phantasmagoria possible, which comes from Latin to mean “darkened room”, and it was basically an early camera and pretty much the same way images are made on them today. It was also called “a pinhole image” and “a magic lantern”.

Phantasmagoria shows are still performed on Halloween in some places. They are also used in many amusement park rides and shows at Disneyland and Disney World.

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