This episode examines the early development of cinema through the work of Brighton-based filmmakers George Albert Smith and James Williamson—members of what later historians called the "Brighton School"—and explores how many early filmmakers, including Georges Méliès and Dadasaheb Phalke, came from backgrounds in magic, stage entertainment, and magic-lantern shows. The discussion highlights Smith's topical trick film The X-Rays, inspired by the public craze following Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen's discovery of X-rays, and Williamson's increasingly ambitious narrative filmmaking such as Attack on a China Mission. Central to this emerging industry was American-born producer and distributor Charles Urban, whose Warwick Trading Company distributed films by Smith, Williamson, and Méliès while helping shift cinema from pure spectacle toward narrative storytelling. The episode culminates with Urban's collaboration with Méliès on the reconstructed news film The Coronation of Edward VII, a staged "actuality" created to compete with exclusive footage of the real coronation at Westminster Abbey, illustrating both the growing commercial power of film and the transition from trick-film attractions to more sophisticated narrative and documentary forms at the turn of the 20th century.

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