The choreutoscope is the first pre-cinema device which employed a system similar to early film projectors.[1] It was the first projection device to use an intermittent movement, which became the basis of many cine cameras and projectors. It was formed by a sheet of glass on which different drawings were made, and the sheet was mounted on a type off Maltese cross mechanism, which made the image move suddenly.[2] The most common drawing was the 'dancing skeleton' in which six sequential images of a skeleton were animated in the viewing pane.
The choreutoscope was invented by Lionel Smith Beale in 1866.https://visitmuseum.gencat.cat/en/museu-del-cinema-col-leccio-tomas-mallol/object/coreutoscopi Beale used it for demonstrations at the Royal Polytechnic. However, Beale was not the only one to create a choreutoscope, a few years later William C. Hughes created his own choreutoscope in 1884, and B. Brown created a similar machine in 1896.