Cinematography is the illusion of movement by the recording and subsequent rapid projection of many still photographic pictures on a screen. A product of 19th-century scientific endeavor, it has, over the past century, become an industry employing many thousands of people and a medium of mass entertainment and communication.

While cinemas had some success in fighting the competition of television, they never regained the position and influence they once held, and over the next 30 years, audiences dwindled. By 1984 cinema attendances in Britain had sunk to one million a week.