Museum of Moving Images

My visit to the Museum of Moving Images left me quite impressed. The exhibit currently being featured is "Behind the Screen" a tribute to film production; the processes, techniques and equipment that have contributed to past productions and the technological advances in the film industry. There were several hands on interactive exhibits that are excellent for kids, or even adults that may find technical concepts to be difficult to understand when drawn out on paper. Such exhibits displayed the concepts of voiceovers, flipbooks and classic toys such as the thaumatrope.

The overall craftsmanship of televisions and radios made in the 1950's was amazing. I was surprised to learn that electronic companies factored their equipment to look like a stove or washer and dryer machines in order to market their products to women. Many of the electronics added to the household décor blended in with the furniture.

On the second floor of the museum most of the exhibits were memorabilia consisting of costumes from the movie Chicago or Bill Cosby’s wardrobe from the Cosby Show and photographs of major actors from before 1980’s.

…remember Atari?

They had antique video game consoles like Atari and Nintendo and a variety of arcade games, such as Pacman, that you could play with the purchase of tokens at the cashiers counter. To think we used to be entertained by such a simple game like Pong, and now the graphics almost make video games come to life.

The Museum of Moving Images turned out to be very entertaining and refreshed my memory of how things came about in film and media. It is an excellent exhibit and I intend to take my 3-yr-old to explore what used to be.