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Oct 3, 2014 · In 1881, 17-year-old Louis invented a new “dry plate” process of developing film, which boosted his father’s business enough to fuel the opening of a new factory in the Lyon suburbs. By 1894 ...
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Lumière brothers, were French inventors and pioneer manufacturers of photographic equipment who devised an early motion-picture camera and projector called the Cinématographe (“cinema” is derived from this name). Auguste Lumière (b. October 19, 1862, Besançon, France—d. April 10, 1954, Lyon) and his brother Louis Lumière (b.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Overview
- Edison and the Lumière brothers
Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, and it quickly became the most popular home-entertainment device of the century. Seeking to provide a visual accompaniment to the phonograph, Edison commissioned Dickson, a young laboratory assistant, to invent a motion-picture camera in 1888. Building upon the work of Muybridge and Marey, Dickson combined the two final essentials of motion-picture recording and viewing technology. These were a device, adapted from the escapement mechanism of a clock, to ensure the intermittent but regular motion of the film strip through the camera and a regularly perforated celluloid film strip to ensure precise synchronization between the film strip and the shutter. Dickson’s camera, the Kinetograph, initially imprinted up to 50 feet (15 metres) of celluloid film at the rate of about 40 frames per second.
Dickson was not the only person who had been tackling the problem of recording and reproducing moving images. Inventors throughout the world had been trying for years to devise working motion-picture machines. In fact, several European inventors, including the Englishman William Friese-Greene, applied for patents on various cameras, projectors, and camera-projector combinations contemporaneously or even before Edison and his associates did.
Because Edison had originally conceived of motion pictures as an adjunct to his phonograph, he did not commission the invention of a projector to accompany the Kinetograph. Rather, he had Dickson design a type of peep-show viewing device called the Kinetoscope, in which a continuous 47-foot (14-metre) film loop ran on spools between an incandescent lamp and a shutter for individual viewing. Starting in 1894, Kinetoscopes were marketed commercially through the firm of Raff and Gammon for $250 to $300 apiece. The Edison Company established its own Kinetograph studio (a single-room building called the “Black Maria” that rotated on tracks to follow the sun) in West Orange, New Jersey, to supply films for the Kinetoscopes that Raff and Gammon were installing in penny arcades, hotel lobbies, amusement parks, and other such semipublic places. In April of that year the first Kinetoscope parlour was opened in a converted storefront in New York City. The parlour charged 25 cents for admission to a bank of five machines.
The syndicate of Maguire and Baucus acquired the foreign rights to the Kinetoscope in 1894 and began to market the machines. Edison opted not to file for international patents on either his camera or his viewing device, and, as a result, the machines were widely and legally copied throughout Europe, where they were modified and improved far beyond the American originals. In fact, it was a Kinetoscope exhibition in Paris that inspired the Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis, to invent the first commercially viable projector. Their cinématographe, which functioned as a camera and printer as well as a projector, ran at the economical speed of 16 frames per second. It was given its first commercial demonstration on December 28, 1895.
Unlike the Kinetograph, which was battery-driven and weighed more than 1,000 pounds (453 kg), the cinématographe was hand-cranked, lightweight (less than 20 pounds [9 kg]), and relatively portable. This naturally affected the kinds of films that were made with each machine: Edison films initially featured material such as circus or vaudeville acts that could be taken into a small studio to perform before an inert camera, while early Lumière films were mainly documentary views, or “actualities,” shot outdoors on location. In both cases, however, the films themselves were composed of a single unedited shot emphasizing lifelike movement; they contained little or no narrative content. (After a few years design changes in the machines made it possible for Edison and the Lumières to shoot the same kinds of subjects.) In general, Lumière technology became the European standard during the early era, and, because the Lumières sent their cameramen all over the world in search of exotic subjects, the cinématographe became the founding instrument of distant cinemas in Russia, Australia, and Japan.
In the United States the Kinetoscope installation business had reached the saturation point by the summer of 1895, although it was still quite profitable for Edison as a supplier of films. Raff and Gammon persuaded Edison to buy the rights to a state-of-the-art projector, developed by Thomas Armat of Washington, D.C., which incorporated a superior intermittent movement mechanism and a loop-forming device (known as the Latham loop, after its earliest promoters, Grey Latham and Otway Latham) to reduce film breakage, and in early 1896 Edison began to manufacture and market this machine as his own invention. Given its first public demonstration on April 23, 1896, at Koster and Bial’s Music Hall in New York City, the Edison Vitascope brought projection to the United States and established the format for American film exhibition for the next several years. It also encouraged the activities of such successful Edison rivals as the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, which was formed in 1896 to exploit the Mutoscope peep-show device and the American Biograph camera and projector patented by W.K.L. Dickson in 1896. During this time, which has been characterized as the “novelty period,” emphasis fell on the projection device itself, and films achieved their main popularity as self-contained vaudeville attractions. Vaudeville houses, locked in intense competition at the turn of the century, headlined the name of the machines rather than the films (e.g., “The Vitascope—Edison’s Latest Marvel,” “The Amazing Cinématographe”). The producer, or manufacturer, supplied projectors along with an operator and a program of shorts. These films, whether they were Edison-style theatrical variety shorts or Lumière-style actualities, were perceived by their original audiences not as motion pictures in the modern sense of the term but as “animated photographs” or “living pictures,” emphasizing their continuity with more familiar media of the time.
Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, and it quickly became the most popular home-entertainment device of the century. Seeking to provide a visual accompaniment to the phonograph, Edison commissioned Dickson, a young laboratory assistant, to invent a motion-picture camera in 1888. Building upon the work of Muybridge and Marey, Dickson combined the two final essentials of motion-picture recording and viewing technology. These were a device, adapted from the escapement mechanism of a clock, to ensure the intermittent but regular motion of the film strip through the camera and a regularly perforated celluloid film strip to ensure precise synchronization between the film strip and the shutter. Dickson’s camera, the Kinetograph, initially imprinted up to 50 feet (15 metres) of celluloid film at the rate of about 40 frames per second.
Dickson was not the only person who had been tackling the problem of recording and reproducing moving images. Inventors throughout the world had been trying for years to devise working motion-picture machines. In fact, several European inventors, including the Englishman William Friese-Greene, applied for patents on various cameras, projectors, and camera-projector combinations contemporaneously or even before Edison and his associates did.
Because Edison had originally conceived of motion pictures as an adjunct to his phonograph, he did not commission the invention of a projector to accompany the Kinetograph. Rather, he had Dickson design a type of peep-show viewing device called the Kinetoscope, in which a continuous 47-foot (14-metre) film loop ran on spools between an incandescent lamp and a shutter for individual viewing. Starting in 1894, Kinetoscopes were marketed commercially through the firm of Raff and Gammon for $250 to $300 apiece. The Edison Company established its own Kinetograph studio (a single-room building called the “Black Maria” that rotated on tracks to follow the sun) in West Orange, New Jersey, to supply films for the Kinetoscopes that Raff and Gammon were installing in penny arcades, hotel lobbies, amusement parks, and other such semipublic places. In April of that year the first Kinetoscope parlour was opened in a converted storefront in New York City. The parlour charged 25 cents for admission to a bank of five machines.
The syndicate of Maguire and Baucus acquired the foreign rights to the Kinetoscope in 1894 and began to market the machines. Edison opted not to file for international patents on either his camera or his viewing device, and, as a result, the machines were widely and legally copied throughout Europe, where they were modified and improved far beyond the American originals. In fact, it was a Kinetoscope exhibition in Paris that inspired the Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis, to invent the first commercially viable projector. Their cinématographe, which functioned as a camera and printer as well as a projector, ran at the economical speed of 16 frames per second. It was given its first commercial demonstration on December 28, 1895.
Unlike the Kinetograph, which was battery-driven and weighed more than 1,000 pounds (453 kg), the cinématographe was hand-cranked, lightweight (less than 20 pounds [9 kg]), and relatively portable. This naturally affected the kinds of films that were made with each machine: Edison films initially featured material such as circus or vaudeville acts that could be taken into a small studio to perform before an inert camera, while early Lumière films were mainly documentary views, or “actualities,” shot outdoors on location. In both cases, however, the films themselves were composed of a single unedited shot emphasizing lifelike movement; they contained little or no narrative content. (After a few years design changes in the machines made it possible for Edison and the Lumières to shoot the same kinds of subjects.) In general, Lumière technology became the European standard during the early era, and, because the Lumières sent their cameramen all over the world in search of exotic subjects, the cinématographe became the founding instrument of distant cinemas in Russia, Australia, and Japan.
In the United States the Kinetoscope installation business had reached the saturation point by the summer of 1895, although it was still quite profitable for Edison as a supplier of films. Raff and Gammon persuaded Edison to buy the rights to a state-of-the-art projector, developed by Thomas Armat of Washington, D.C., which incorporated a superior intermittent movement mechanism and a loop-forming device (known as the Latham loop, after its earliest promoters, Grey Latham and Otway Latham) to reduce film breakage, and in early 1896 Edison began to manufacture and market this machine as his own invention. Given its first public demonstration on April 23, 1896, at Koster and Bial’s Music Hall in New York City, the Edison Vitascope brought projection to the United States and established the format for American film exhibition for the next several years. It also encouraged the activities of such successful Edison rivals as the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, which was formed in 1896 to exploit the Mutoscope peep-show device and the American Biograph camera and projector patented by W.K.L. Dickson in 1896. During this time, which has been characterized as the “novelty period,” emphasis fell on the projection device itself, and films achieved their main popularity as self-contained vaudeville attractions. Vaudeville houses, locked in intense competition at the turn of the century, headlined the name of the machines rather than the films (e.g., “The Vitascope—Edison’s Latest Marvel,” “The Amazing Cinématographe”). The producer, or manufacturer, supplied projectors along with an operator and a program of shorts. These films, whether they were Edison-style theatrical variety shorts or Lumière-style actualities, were perceived by their original audiences not as motion pictures in the modern sense of the term but as “animated photographs” or “living pictures,” emphasizing their continuity with more familiar media of the time.
The Lumières went on tour with the cinématographe in 1896, visiting places like Brussels, Bombay, London, Montreal, New York City, Palestine, and Buenos Aires. [ 15 ] In 1896, only a few months after the initial screenings in Europe, films by the Lumiere Brothers were shown in Egypt , first in the Tousson stock exchange in Alexandria on 5 November 1896 and then in the Hamam Schneider ...
Feb 22, 2019 · The Lumières not only invented the very first night at the movies, they also pioneered the use of the movie poster. In the Paris of the belle epoque, posters were the best form of advertisement.
- Pedro García Martín
- 2 min
Jun 10, 2009 · Making early films The Lumière brothers’ first film (in fact, they made three versions) was shot outside their factory as the workers left at the end of the day. It was shown to the Société d’Encouragement à l’Industrie Nationale in Paris on 22 March 1895: this was probably the first public screening of moving pictures (the Lathams’ first public demonstration in New York took place ...
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Nov 12, 2023 · Directing. The Lumière Brothers — Pioneers of the Silver Screen. By Kyle DeGuzman on November 12, 2023. A. uguste and Louis Lumière, two French brothers, left an enduring legacy in the realm of filmmaking with their inventive genius. Their stint in cinema, while brief, was marked by innovative leaps that revolutionized visual storytelling.
