Precursors of film

Precursors of film are concepts and devices that have much in common with the later art and techniques of cinema.

Precursors of film are often referred to as precinema, or 'pre-cinema'. Terms like these are disliked by several historians, partly because they seem to devalue the individual qualities of these media by presenting them as a small step in the development of a later invention.^[1] For instance: the flip book, zoetrope and phenakistiscope are very tactile devices that allow study and play by manipulating the motion by hand, while the projected image in cinema is intangible.^[2] Such devices as the zoetrope were not replaced by cinema: they were still used after the breakthrough of film.^[3] Furthermore, many early media examples are also part of a tradition that not only shaped cinema, but also home video, video games, computer-generated imagery, virtual reality and much more.^[4] The study of early media devices is also part of a wider and less teleological approach called media archaeology.

Many of the devices that can be interpreted as precursors of film are also referred to as "philosophical toys", or "optical toys". Unlike film and cinema, viewing these moving images always involves brevity and repetition.