Upon visiting the museum of Moving Image in Astoria NYC, people can see the insightful glimpse of the history of how we develop our vision to see the world through the camera. In the museum, there are many different types of cameras on display. They vary from very early types of camera such as wooden boxes with lenses, a techno color, video and digital as well as huge Panavision cameras which are popular in feature film making in the present time. Arguably, cameras are the most primary tools to transfer various image to the film negatives. Then the images can be projected on screen. However, early moving pictures had to be viewed through the peep hole machine called kinetoscope, an early motion picture exhibition device which was invented by William Kennedy Laurie Dickson and Thomas Edison between 1889 and 1892. There were two kinetoscopes in the museum which allow people can use to view two early films by Georges Méliès called Le Voyage dans la lune and Eating a Soup which features Charlie Chaplin. Also, people can go into a sound editing room where they can record their own voices and play it over a scene from Wizard of Oz. There is sound track editing room for people to choose one of several kind of music to play over some scenes from different movies. These experiments of the post production aspect of film making helps the people have more specific understanding of what movie making really is. And all these significant technical discoveries of motion pictures started from a toy called a Zoetrope (wheel of life). It is a device that produces an illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures, invented in 180 AD. The toy needs three basic elements to make its illusion possible: light, frame and speed, which are very important in modern day film making.
