the Pre-1900s (to 1889)

Year Event and Significance

The Greek Aristotle was the first to observe and describe how he saw a light
300s
after-effect: a persistent image (that slowly faded away) after he gazed into
B.C.
the sun.
The Roman poet and philosopher Titus Lucretius Carus described the
65 principle of persistence of vision - the optical effect of continuous motion
B.C. produced when a series of sequential images were displayed, with each
image lasting only momentarily.
130 The Greek astronomer and geographer Ptolemy of Alexandria discovered
A.D. (and proved) Lucretius' principle ofpersistence of vision.
Belgian optician and showman Etienne Gaspard
Robertson's Phantasmagoria - a kind of amusement 'horror show' designed
to frighten audiences that became popular in Europe. He produced the show
late
with a 'magic lantern' on wheels (which he called
1790s
a Phantascope or Fantascope), usually out of view of the audience, to
project ghostly-looking, illusory images that changed shape and size, onto
smoke or onto a translucent screen.
The Frenchman Peter Mark Roget (famed as the author of Roget's
1820s
Thesaurus) rediscovered the persistence of visionprinciple.
The Belgian scientist Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau, who had studied
the phenomenon of persistence of vision, developed a spindle viewer or
1832- spinning wheel called a phenakistoscope (aka Fantascope or Magic Wheel),
34 the first device that allowed pictures to appear to move - and considered the
precursor of an animated film (or movie). [The device was simultaneously
invented by Austrian Simon von Stampfer.]
William George Horner invented the first zoetrope (which he called
a daedalum or daedatelum), based upon Plateau'sphenakistoscope. It was
1834 a very crude, mechanical form of a motion picture 'projector' that consisted
of a drum that contained a set of still images. When it was turned in a
circular fashion, it created the illusion of motion.
The zoetrope, another animation toy, was invented by French inventor
1860
Pierre Desvignes.
1872- British photographer Eadweard Muybridge took the first successful
 photographs of motion, producing his multiple image sequences analyzing
human and animal locomotion. California senator Leland Stanford
commissioned Muybridge to determine whether the 4 legs of a galloping
horse left the ground at the same time, so he set up 24 still cameras along a
racetrack. As a horse ran by the cameras, the horse broke strings which
1878
were hooked up to each camera's shutter, thereby activating the shutter of
each camera, capturing the image and exposing the film. Soon after, the
photographs were projected in succession with a viewing device called
a Zoogyroscope (akaZoopraxiscope). Viewing the photos in sequence
comprised a primitive movie.
The praxinoscope (which refined the long-established zoetrope with mirrors
rather than slots) was invented and patented by the Frenchman Emile
Reynaud. In 1892, Reynaud opened his Theatre Optique in Paris with a
1877
theatrical form of his 'movie or animation' device designed for public
performances. The device reflected out, in long segments, the sequential,
hand-painted drawings that were on long broad strips inside the drum.
Etienne Jules Marey in France developed a chronophotographic camera,
1882 shaped like a gun and referred to as a "shotgun" camera, that could take
twelve successive pictures or images per second.
Pioneering British inventor William Friese-Greene collaborated with John
Rudge to make an enhanced magic lantern, one of the earliest motion
picture cameras and projectors, termed a Biophantascope, to project
photographic plates in rapid succession. He claimed to have sent Thomas
Edison (who denied receiving anything) details of his camera designs, but
1886
received no replies. In 1890, Friese-Greene received a patent for his
'chronophotographic' camera, capable of taking up to ten photographs per
second using perforated celluloid film, but his experiments met with limited
success, unlike Edison. However, he became the first man to ever witness
moving pictures on a screen.
Daeida, the wife of real-estate developer Harvey Henderson Wilcox, named
her ranch in Cahuenga Valley "Hollywood". [Another origin, though probably
1886
inaccurate, of the "Hollywood" name may be from the toyon, popularly
known as California holly.]
Nitrate celluloid film (a chemical combination of gun cotton and gum
1887
camphor) was invented by American clergyman Hannibal W. Goodwin.
1888 Edison filed his first caveat (a Patent Office document) in which he declared
 his work on future inventions, anticipating filling out a complete patent
application for his Kinetoscope and Kinetograph (a motion picture camera).
George Eastman introduced the lightweight, inexpensive "Kodak" camera,
1888 using paper photographic film wound on rollers, and registered the
trademarked name Kodak.
French inventor Louis Augustin Le Prince, "The Father of Cinematography,"
developed a single-lens camera which he used to make the very first moving
picture sequences. The paper film moved through a camera's sprocket
1888 wheels by grabbing the film's perforations. In mid-to-late October of 1888,
he shot several short sequences, including theRoundhay Garden Scene and
a Leeds Bridge street scene - both among the first movies ever shot and
then shown to the public. (See below)
The oldest or earliest surviving film (a sensitized 53.9mm (21/8in) wide
paper roll recorded on 1885 Eastman Kodak paper-based photographic
film), was a short silent (2.11 seconds) titled Roundhay Garden Scene
(1888), according toGuinness World Records. It came from the camera of
1888 French inventor Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince. The film was made in mid-
October 1888, in the garden of his father-in-law, Joseph Whitley in
Roundhay, Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK, shot at 10 to 12 frames per second.
However, some sources claim the earliest may be Man Walking Around a
Corner (1887), also shot by Le Prince.
Henry Reichenbach developed (and patented) durable and flexible celluloid
1889 film strips (or roll film) to be manufactured by the pioneer of photographic
equipment, George Eastman, and his Eastman Company.

he Pre-1900s (1890-1899)
Year Event and Significance
William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, commissioned by Thomas Alva
1890 Edison, built the first modern motion-picture camera and named it
the Kinetograph.
1889 or William K.L. Dickson filmed his first experimental Kinetoscope trial
1890 film, Monkeyshines No. 1, the only surviving film from the cylinder
 kinetoscope, and apparently the first motion picture ever produced on
photographic film in the United States. It featured the movement of
laboratory assistant Sacco Albanese, filmed with a system using tiny
images that rotated around the cylinder.
Thomas Edison and his assistant W.K.L. Dickson also developed or
invented the Kinetoscope, a single-viewer peep-show device in which
film was moved past a light. It was the first recognizable motion
picture machine. Allegedly, the first public demonstration of motion
pictures in the US using the Kinetoscope was presented to the
National Federation of Women’s Clubs. The very short film’s test
footage, 3 seconds in length and titled Dickson Greeting (aka
1891
Monkeyshines 2), displayed William K. L. Dickson himself, bowing,
smiling and ceremoniously taking off his hat and passing it from one
hand to another. It was filmed on May 20, 1891 at Edison's laboratory
of Photographic Building (West Orange, NJ). Edison filed for a patent
for the Kinetoscope in 1891 that was granted in 1893. On Saturday,
April 14, 1894, a refined version of Edison's Kinetoscope began
commercial operation.
Dickson and Edison built a vertical-feed motion picture camera in the
summer of 1892. It used a film strip that was 1 1/2 inches wide. This
1892 established the basis for today's standard 35 mm commercial film
gauge, occurring in 1897. The 35 mm width with 4 perforations per
frame became accepted as the international standard gauge in 1909.
The Limelight Department, one of the world's first film studios, was
officially established in Melbourne, Australia. In the next nine years, it
produced arguably the first feature-length film (a series of 13 films
June, 1892 titled Soldiers of the Cross (1900) delivered as a 'multi-media'
presentation of songs, slides, films and scripture) and documentary
film (the Federation of Australia ceremony (January 1, 1901)) in the
world.
October, The first public performance of a motion picture show was given in
1892 Paris by French inventor Charles-Émile Reynaud at the Musee
Grevin (using his modified animated device known as
a praxinoscope, or Theatre Optique film system, that used
perforations for the first time). The hand-operated projected show
(known as Pantomimes Lumineuses) was of color animated (cartoon)
images that had been hand-painted directly onto a transparent strip of
 film. The three films that were shown included Pauvre Pierrot (aka
Poor Pete) (500 frames, 15 minutes), Un Bon Bock (aka A Good
Beer)(700 frames, 15 minutes), and Le Clown et Ses Chiens (aka
The Clown and His Dogs) (300 frames, 10 minutes).
Edison completed construction of the world's first motion picture
production studio in West Orange, New Jersey, a Kinetograph
production center nicknamed the Black Maria (slang for a police van).
Construction began in December 1892, and it was completed by
February 1, 1893, at a cost of $637.67 - it was only a tiny wood-
1893
framed building covered in tar paper. Many major show-business
performers would soon star in Edison films made at the Black Maria,
including "Strong-Man" Eugene Sandlow, "High-Kicker" Ruth Dennis,
and performers from the Barnum & Bailey Circus and Buffalo Bill's
Wild West Show (Annie Oakley and 'Buffalo Bill' Cody).
Thomas Edison displayed 'his' Kinetoscope projector at the World's
Columbian Exhibition in Chicago and received patents for his movie
camera, the Kinetograph, and his electrically-driven peepshow device
- the Kinetoscope. On May 9, 1893, Edison also held the world's
first public exhibition or demonstration of films at the Brooklyn
1893
Institute of Arts and Sciences. The 34-second film, Blacksmith Scene,
was viewed on Dickson's Kinetoscope viewer, and was shot using a
Kinetograph at the Black Maria. It showed three people pretending to
be blacksmiths - the first instance of of actors performing a role in a
film.
The first Kinetoscope parlor, consisting of a row of coin-operated
kinetoscopes (single-viewer, peep show device, for films produced
with the Kinetograph camera) opened at 1155 Broadway (in a
converted shoe store) in New York City for business on April 14, 1894
-- it was called the Holland Brothers' Kinetoscope Parlor. This marked
the first commercial presentation of a motion picture, seen on a total
April 14,
of ten Kinetoscope machines (in two parallel rows of five). Each film
1894
cost 5 cents to view (or 50 cents for all ten reels). The mostly male
audience was entertained by a single loop reel depicting clothed
female dancers, sparring boxers and body builders, animal acts and
everyday scenes. Soon, peep show parlors were set up in penny
arcades, hotel lobbies, and phonograph parlors in major cities across
the US.
 Edison's 1-minute Kinetoscope short comedy The Boxing Cats
1894 (1894) was possibly the first instance of filmed comedy, in its
depiction of two cats (donning boxing gloves) in a small boxing ring.
Kinetoscope parlors quickly opened across the country. One of the
companies formed to market Edison's Kinetoscopes and the films
was called the Kinetoscope Exhibition Company. It was owned by
Otway Latham, Grey Latham, Samuel Tilden, and Enoch Rector. In
the summer of 1894 in downtown New York City (at 83 Nassau St.), it
1894 set up a series of large-capacity Kinetoscopes (able to handle up to
150 feet of film), each one showing one, one–minute round of the six
round Michael Leonard-Jack Cushing Prize Fight film (produced and
filmed at Edison's Black Maria studio). Each viewing cost 10 cents, or
60 cents to see the entire fight. The popular boxing film was the first
boxing film produced for commercial exhibition.
Fred Ott's Sneeze (aka Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze),
was one of the first series of films made in Edison's Black Maria and
1894
noted for the first medium-closeup shot. It became the first film
officially registered for copyright on January 7, 1894.
The short film Dorlita in the Passion Dance (1894), shown in peep
1894 show parlors, was probably the first film ever to be banned in the U.S.
(in New Jersey).
A short film (about 21 seconds long) titled Carmencita (1894) was
directed and produced by Edison's employee William K.L. Dickson.
She was filmed March 10-16, 1894 in Edison's Black Maria studio in
West Orange, NJ. Spanish dancer Carmencita was the first woman to
appear in front of an Edison motion picture camera, and quite
1894
possibly the first female to appear in a US motion picture. In some
cases, the projection of the scandalous film on a Kinetoscope was
forbidden, because it revealed Carmencita's legs and undergarments
as she twirled and danced. This was one of the earliest cases of
censorship in the moving picture industry.
June, 1894 Pioneering inventor Charles Francis Jenkins became the first person
to project a filmed motion picture onto a screen for an audience, in
Richmond, Indiana, using his own invented movie projector termed
the Phantoscope. The motion picture was of a vaudeville dancer
doing a butterfly dance - it was the first motion picture with color
 (tinted frame by frame, by hand). It was the first patented film
projector.
The earliest hand-tinted color films ever publically-released
were Annabelle Butterfly Dance (1894), Annabelle Sun Dance (1894),
and Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1895) featuring the dancing of
vaudeville-music hall performer Annabelle Whitford (known as
1894-1895 Peerless Annabelle) Moore, whose routines were filmed at Edison's
Manufacturing Company in New Jersey and directed by William K.
Dickson. Male audiences were enthralled watching these early
depictions of a clothed female dancer (sometimes color-tinted) on a
Kinetoscope - an early peep-show device for projecting short films.
In the early 1890s, Edison and Dickson also devised an early
prototypical sound-film system called
theKinetophonograph or Kinetophone - a precursor of the 1891
Kinetoscope with a cylinder-playing phonograph (and connected
earphone tubes) to provide the unsynchronized sound. The projector
was connected to the phonograph with a pulley system, but it didn't
1894-1895 work very well and was difficult to synchronize. The first known (and
only surviving) film with live-recorded sound and specifically made to
test the Kinetophone was the 17-second The Dickson Experimental
Sound Film (1894-1895). It was formally introduced in 1895, but soon
proved to be unsuccessful since competitive, better synchronized
devices were also beginning to appear at the time. Edison's attempt
to combine the phonograph and motion pictures failed commercially.
The dubious claim was made that the 17-second The Dickson
Experimental Sound Film (1894-1895) was the first movie to depict
1895
homosexuality, due to the fact that two men were seen dancing
together in the short clip.
The first public testing and demonstration of the Lumieres' camera-
projector system (the Cinematographe) was in their basement. During
the private screening to a scientific conference - a trial run for their
public screening later at the end of the year (see below), the
March 22,
Lumieres caused a sensation with their first film, Workers Leaving the
1895
Lumiere Factory (La Sortie des Ouviers de L'Usine Lumiere a Lyon),
although it only consisted of an everyday outdoor image - factory
workers leaving the Lumiere factory gate for home or for a lunch
break.
 Incident at Clovelly Cottage (1895, UK) (aka Incident Outside Clovelly
Cottage, Barnet), produced and shot by Birt Acres, is considered the
1895
first British film, and the first successful motion picture film made in
the UK.
The American Mutoscope Company, the first and the oldest movie
company in America, was established by William K.L. Dickson, a
disenchanted inventor and nickelodeon film producer who had been
working with Thomas Edison for a number of years, but left following
a disagreement. Three others joined Dickson, inventors Herman
Casler and Henry Marvin, and an investor named Elias Koopman.
The company was set up at 841 Broadway, in New York - its sole
focus was to produce and distribute moving pictures. The business
1895 was moved to Canastota, NY. Superior alternatives to
the Kinetoscope were the company's invention of
the Biograph, released in the summer of 1896 - a projector using
large-format, wide-gauge 68 mm film (different from Edison's 35mm),
and the Mutoscope - a hand-cranked viewing device utilizing bromide
prints or illustrated cards in a 'flick-book' principle. Biograph soon
became the chief US competitor to
Edison's Kinetoscope and Vitascope. [Note: The American
Mutoscope Companyeventually became the Biograph Company.]
The first historical book to be published (as a monograph with 55
pages and 54 illustrations) on the subject of film was History of the
Kinetograph, Kinetoscope, and Kinetophonograph, written by
1895
Edison's pioneering motion picture assistant William Kennedy
Dickson with his sister Antonia. A preview version of the book
appeared the year earlier inThe Century Magazine (June 1894 issue).
April 21, In New York on Frankfort Street, a device called
1895 the Eidoloscope Projector (aka the Pantoptikon) was demonstrated
for the NY press by Woodville Latham (who had been working with
Eugene Lauste and W.K.L. Dickson). It was one of the first public
exhibitions of motion pictures in the world. Latham was credited with
the "Latham Loop" - a feature of movie projectors involving a loop to
feed the film smoothly, and to allow for longer films. (This showing
preceded the landmark exhibition of the Lumieres in Paris by about
eight months. See below.) On June 1, 1895, Latham applied for a
patent for his "Projecting-Kinetoscope" with the "Latham Loop." It was
 granted and lasted until its expiration in 1913. By 1905, virtually all
movie projectors used the Latham Loop.
A filmed boxing match between Australian fighter Albert Griffiths
(Young Griffo) and Barnett, titled Young Griffo v. Battling Charles
Barnett (filmed on the rooftop of Madison Square Garden on May 4,
1895 by Woodville Latham and his sons Otway and Grey) was the
May 20, first motion picture in the world to be projected onto a screen before a
1895 paying audience, at a storefront theatre at 156 Broadway in New York
City. The eight minute B&W silent film (shown on one continuous reel
of film without interruption, using the "Latham Loop" to prevent
tearing) premiered on May 20, 1895, more than seven months before
the Lumière Brothers showed their film in Paris (see below).
The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1895) contained the first
special effect (in-camera), reportedly, of the controversial execution
(decapitation) of Mary, Queen of Scots (Robert Thomae) on the
execution block, using a dummy and a trick camera shot (substitution
shot or "stop trick"). It was reportedly the first shot using special
1895
effects (i.e., stop-action). In the short silent sequence, Mary knelt
down, and put her head on the block as the executioner raised a
large axe. When the axe was brought down, her head rolled off the
chopping block to the left - where the executioner picked it up in the
final frame and held it up.
Charles Francis Jenkins and Thomas Armat projected Kinetoscope
Sept-Oct,
films at the Cotton States Exposition, Atlanta, Georgia, using
1895
their Phantascope projector instead of a Kinetoscope.
Dec. 28, In France, two brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière had invented
1895 the Cinématographe which was patented in early 1895. It was a
combination hand-held movie camera and projector, capable of
showing an image that could be viewed by a large audience. They
held their first public screening or commercial exhibition in the last
few days of 1895 - often considered "the birth of film" or "the First
Cinema" since the Cinematographe was the first advanced projector
(not experimental) and the first to be offered for sale.

They projected a motion picture onto a screen for the first time in the
basement room called the Salon Indien at the Grand Café on 14
Boulevard des Capucines in Paris. It was the first commercial
 exhibition of a projected motion picture to a paying public in the
world's first movie theatre - the Salon Indien.

The 20-minute afternoon program shown to an invited paying

audience of 33 people included ten short films (or "views") with twenty
showings a day. The ten shorts ("sujets actuels") included the famous
first comedy of a gardener with a watering hose (aka The Sprinkler
Sprinkled, The Waterer Watered, or L'Arrouseur Arrose), the factory
worker short (La Sortie des Ouviers de L'Usine Lumière à Lyon,
or Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory), a sequence of a horse-
drawn carriage approaching toward the camera, and a scene of the
feeding of a baby. The Lumieres also became known for their 50-
second short Arrivee d'un train en gare a La Ciotat (1895) (Arrival of
a Train at La Ciotat), which some sources reported was shocking to
its first unsophisticated viewing audience. With a few exceptions, the
early films were mostly documentaries (or films of every-day life) - or
so-called actualités.
The Kiss (1896) (aka The May Irwin Kiss) was the first film ever made
of a couple kissing in cinematic history. May Irwin and John Rice re-
enacted a lingering kiss for Thomas Edison's film camera in this 20-
second long short, reenacted from their 1895 Broadway stage
1896 play The Widow Jones. It became the most popular film produced
that year by Edison's film company (it was filmed at Edison's Black
Maria studio, in West Orange, NJ), but was also notorious as the first
film to be criticized as scandalous and bringing demands for
censorship.
The "Pathé-Frères" Company was founded in 1896 in Paris by
Charles and Emile Pathè. By the next decade, it would become the
1896 largest producer of films in the world. Around 1906-7, only one-third
of the films released in the US were American-made. Pathé-Frères
was responsible for over one-third of the films shown on US screens.
1896 Edison's Company (because it was unable to produce a workable
projector on its own) purchased an improved version of Thomas
Armat's 1895 movie projection machine (the Phantascope, originally
invented by Charles Francis Jenkins in 1893), and renamed it
the Vitascope. It was hailed as Edison's latest invention, although he
had only commercialized the Phantascope. It was
 the first commercially-successful celluloid motion picture projector in
the US.
Thomas Edison presented the first publically-
projected Vitascope motion picture (with hand-tinting) in the US to a
paying American audience on a screen, at Koster and Bial's Music
Hall in New York City (at 34th Street and Broadway), with his latest
April 23,
invention - the projecting kinetoscope or Vitascope. At the time,
1896
the Vitascope was showing films in only one location, this one in
NYC, but that wouldn't last for long. Customers watched the Edison
Company's Vitascope project a ballet sequence in an amusement
arcade during a vaudeville act.
The first public film exhibition in Asia was held on July 7, 1896, at
Watson's Hotel in Bombay, India. It was the advent of cinema in the
continent of Asia, about six months after the Lumieres had held their
first public film exhibition in Paris in late 1895 (see above). The
July 7, 1896
pioneering exhibition, called "the marvel of the century, the wonder of
the world," was organized by Lumieres' agent Maurice Sestier, and
consisted of some of the same Lumiere shorts shown in Paris (Arrival
of a Train at La Ciotat and Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory).
After showing films in a lakefront park, William "Pop" Rock and Walter
Wainwright transformed a converted vacant store (at 623 Canal St.)
in New Orleans, Louisiana into Vitascope Hall. It became the first
July 26,
"storefront theater" or building in the US dedicated exclusively to
1896
showing motion pictures, although it screened films for only two
months. The theatre accommodated 400 people, and had two shows
per day, with admission 10 cents.
The world's first permanent movie theatre exclusively designed as a
venue for showing motion pictures was theEdisonia Vitascope
Theatre (aka Edisonia Hall), a 72 seat theatre which officially opened
in downtown Buffalo, New York on Monday, October 19, 1896 in the
October 19, Ellicott Square Building on Main Street. It was created by Buffalo-
1896 based entrepreneur Mitchell H. Mark, a supreme visionary of the
future of motion picture theaters. It was likely that the opening night's
showing including US premieres of the Lumiere short films, since
Mark had contracted with the Lumieres (and Pathé-Frères) in France
to exhibit their films in the US.
 Parisian French film-maker Georges Méliès first film based on a trick
of substitution (one of the earliest instances of trick photography with
1896 stop-action - an early special effect) was Escamotage d'une dame au
théâtre Robert Houdin (aka The Conjuring of a Woman at the House
of Robert Houdin) (1896).
The black and white Coronation of the Czar of Russia (1896, Fr.), a
news short created by the Lumiere Production Company, recorded
1896
the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II, which took place in 1894. It was
one of the first significant news events ever recorded.
The roots of horror films (and vampire films in particular) may be
traced back to French film-maker Georges Méliès' two-minute short
1896 film Le Manoir du Diable (1896) (aka Manor/House of the Devil, or
The Devil's Castle, or The Haunted Castle), although it was meant to
be an amusing, entertaining film.
French-born Alice Guy (Blaché) started in the film business as a
secretary for Léon Gaumont in 1894. In 1896, she joined Gaumont in
his new company founded in Paris in 1895, the Gaumont Film
Company, and began making primitive sound films when she was
promoted to be the head of motion picture production at the studio.
1896 She is generally acknowledged as the world's first female director in
the motion picture industry (with France's Gaumont Film Company).
Her first film made in April of 1896 was the one-minute long fictional
film La Fée aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy) (1896). Some historians
consider it the first ever narrative fiction film. She became one of the
key figures in the systematic development of the narrative film.
The American Mutoscope Company (later renamed the American
Mutoscope & Biograph Company and eventually called the Biograph
Company), marketed their own films and their
new Biograph projector, thus becoming the foremost motion picture
1897
company in the US. The American Mutoscope Company's The
Haverstraw Tunnel (1897)became its most popular film - it was the
first "phantom ride" film in which a camera was mounted on the front
of a train, and recorded its passage into a tunnel.
1897 Early pioneering British film-maker Robert W. Paul donated some of
his treasured films to the British Museum in London, England for
cataloguing and preservation, although the institution didn't know
 what to do with them. It can be considered the world's first film
archive, although a second donation did not occur and nothing came
of the effort. Others have noted that the first major (and successful)
film archive in the world was established at the Museum of Modern
Art (MoMA, New York) in 1935 by Iris Barry and her husband, John
Abbott.
Georges Méliès constructed the first movie studio that used artificial
illumination, a greenhouse-like structure that featured both a glazed
1897
roof and walls and a series of retractable blinds. It was an influential
model on the development of future studios.
The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight (1897), another filmed boxing match,
reported to be 100 minutes in length (the longest film ever to be
released by that date), and shown by the Veriscope Company, had its
debut on May 22, 1897 at the Academy of Music in New York City.
May, 1897 Some consider it the world's first feature film. It included all fourteen
3-minute rounds of the bout, in addition to a 5-minute introduction,
and non-stop filming during the one-minute rest period between
rounds. Running commentary was provided by an expert sports
announcer from the side of the ring - the first of its kind.
One of the earliest projects the Edison Studios created (probably in
July of 1897) was the advertising film Admiral Cigarette
August 5, (1897), promoting the slogan "We All Smoke." The 28 second-long
1897 silent film was the first prototype commercial for the Admiral Cigarette
company. Edison's film was the first advertising film, or commercial,
to be submitted for copyright.
The 35 mm film gauge became widely accepted as the standard
gauge for motion pictures, although American Mutoscope and other
1897 film companies continued to use other gauges. In 1909, the 35mm
width with 4 perforations per frame became accepted as the
international standard film gauge.
Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton's short film, The Humpty
Dumpty Circus (1897, or 1898), was the first (known) example of
object manipulation and stop-motion animation. Also, the two were
1897
founders of the film production company Vitagraph Studios (or
Vitagraph Company of America, aka American Vitagraph Company)
in 1897. (see also 1898 below)
 The Spanish-American War drew camera operators to Cuba, but they
were shut out by the US Army. Since they could not capture the
1898
battles on film, many went into studios and created them using
models and painted backdrops -- the start of scale-model effects.
The William Morris Agency, founded in 1898, was the oldest major
talent agency ever founded. However, its first offices were in New
1898
York City, and it didn't move out to the LA/Hollywood area until around
1930.
The short theatrical 'cartoon' from Vitagraph, The Humpty Dumpty
Circus (1898), a lost silent film, was the first American film to use the
stop-motion technique. Guinness claimed it was "the first animated
film using the stop-motion technique to give the illusion of movement
1898
to inanimate objects." Reportedly, directors/filmmakers Albert E.
Smith (with James Stuart Blackton) conceived the idea, borrowing
one of their young daughter's circus toys and shooting the acrobats
and animals in barely changed positions one frame at a time.
One of the earliest known instances of parallel action without cross-
cutting was in the early one-minute single-scene short, Santa Claus
(1898, UK) made by British film-maker George Albert Smith. It was
notable for featuring the first opening title screen with lettering, and
1898 also contained a number of visual effects (many of which were also
being perfected by French filmmaker Georges Melies) -- stop-motion
jump-cuts, super-imposition multiple exposures, and iris-masking of
the camera lens to produce a scene-within-a-scene in a circular
vignette.
May, 1898 In mid-1898, Edison filed a patent-infringement suit against
the American Mutoscope Company, claiming that the studio had
infringed on his patent for the Kinetograph movie camera. [Edison’s
competitors had developed other motion-picture devices, which
became the Biograph and the Mutoscope.] After years of legal
battles, in July of 1901, a U.S. Circuit Court in New York ruled that
Biograph had infringed on Edison's patent claims. Biograph appealed
the ruling, claiming it had a different camera design. The decision was
reversed in March 1902 by a U.S. Court of Appeals. It ruled that
Edison did not invent the motion-picture camera, but allowed that he
had invented the sprocket system that moved perforated film through
the camera. The new ruling essentially disallowed Edison from
 establishing a monopoly on motion picture apparatus - and ultimately
on the making of films.
The American Mutoscope Company (or Biograph) made history with
two of its documentary films in 1898: (1) Divers at Work on the Wreck
of the Maine (1898) - the first film shot in Havana, Cuba at the
1898
location of the sunken warship, and (2) W.L.K. Dickson's filming of
Pope Leo XIII in Rome, M.H. Pope Leo in a Chair (1898) - Leo XIII
was the first Pope captured on film.
The Passion Play of Oberammergau (1898) was taglined: "EDISON's
Copyrighted Production of THE PASSION PLAY All Moving Pictures.
True to Life." Audiences were led to believe that this was the filmed
account of the play held only once every ten years in Bavaria,
Germany. However, it was only a 'recreation' made with specially-
1898 constructed sets, and produced in New York City. A lecturer provided
commentary during each venue's showing. Some have dubiously
claimed it was the first narrative feature film, and the first film to split
the roles of director (Henry C. Vincent) and producer (Thomas A.
Edison, uncredited). The total film, about 20 minutes in length, was
originally made up of 23 scenes each on a separate reel.
The American Mutoscope Company, founded in 1895, changed its
1899
name to the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company.
Two of the earliest westerns (or cowboy-related) films were both
Edison Manufacturing Company films made at Black Maria: the one-
1899 shot (less than one minute short) Thomas Edison's Cripple Creek Bar
Room Scene (1899) - with the 'first' western saloon setting,
and Poker at Dawson City (1899).
The French magician Georges Melies became the film industry's first
film-maker to use artificially-arranged scenes to construct and tell a
narrative story, with his most popular and influential film to date
- Cendrillon (aka Cinderella) (1899). Melies wrote, designed, directed,
1899 and acted in hundreds of his own fairy tales and science fiction films,
and developed techniques such as stop-motion photography, double
and multiple-exposures, time-lapse photography, "special effects"
such as disappearing objects (using stop-trick or substitution
photography), and dissolves/fades.
1899 The first known Shakespearean film, an adaptation of one of the
 Bard's plays, was the British film King John (1899, UK) (aka
Beerbohm Tree, The Great English Actor), with the title character
played by stage actor Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree. Directed by
William K.L. Dickson and Walter Pfeffer Dando, and composed of
only four short scenes, only one survived - the last scene of the
King's death.
Early Jewish film pioneer Sigmund Lubin (aka Siegmund Lubszynski)
constructed the first purposely-built movie theater in West
Philadelphia, PA for the National Export Exposition. Lubin's
Cineograph Theatre was a small, modest portable theatre built on the
esplanade or midway of the fair. It was possibly the world's first
structure erected expressly for the presentation of motion pictures.
1899
For ten cents, patrons could view "continuous shows" of the Spanish-
American War, reproductions of boxing matches, and several of
Lubin's own home-made productions. The film billed as "The
Sensation of the Hour" was The Dreyfus Court Martial Scene. It was
evidence of Lubin's early work as a motion picture distributor and
exhibitor, to showcase his projectors, cameras, and films.