Alexander Black |
United States of America |
1894
In the formative years of cinema, the difficulty of achieving a successful sequence of moving images meant the medium was used mainly for entertainment on a visceral level. The simple novelty of achieving a realistic reproduction of the external environment was sufficient to bring attention to film.
Direction - Screenplay - Cinematography |
United States of America
The grandfather of the dramatic motion picture was never going to be scientist, but a writer. Alexander Black, a journalist and an avid photographer, understood early on the potential of staging plays with a sequence of photographs to produce in effect a new form of art.
Direction -
Cinematography |
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
The history of early film is full with forgotten faces and lost talents. Individuals seem to be vanishing behind other names and other inventions. In time, recorded history makes it almost impossible not to exclude certain pioneers from the cinematic canon.
Étienne-Jules Marey |
French Republic |
1890
A fly takes off and vibrantly flies away. We see each beating of its wings in slow motion, gracious and dynamic simultaneously! This early film from Étienne-Jules Marey is still impressive to this day in its detailed microscopic analysis of an insect’s flight.
Direction -
Male Acting Performance -
Cinematography -
Production |
Federal Republic of Germany
The German-born American filmmaker William Heise can easily be considered the first professional director of photography. He shot nearly one hundred and fifty short films in the last decade of the 19th century, yet it is surprising how little biographical evidence is currently available in relation to him.
William K.L. Dickson |
United States of America |
1894
Over two decades ago, a documentary adaptation of Vito Russo's book study of screen homosexuality, The Celluloid Closet (1995), made an unknown film from Edison's archive famous. It featured three men: one playing the violin and two dancing with each other to the sound of music.
William K.L. Dickson |
United States of America |
1893
What a genuine sense of fun lurks in this picture! Three blacksmiths go about their business, hammering intensely on a metal rod. The job says that the metal should be cooled from time to time, and the blacksmiths believe that the human body needs its own refreshment.
Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince |
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland |
1888
In the history of early film, the cinematic output of Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince is of a seminal value. His Roundhay Garden Scene (1888) is the first film shot with a single-lens camera, but many historians and film critics still consider the twenty frames of Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge as the most important of his works.
Direction -
Male Acting Performance -
Music -
Cinematography -
Production |
French Republic
Born in France of Anglo-Scottish descent, William Kennedy Laurie Dickson can easily be considered the most important individual in the history of motion pictures. His pivotal role in the development of the craft can be exemplified by just a few achievements.
Émile Reynaud |
French Republic |
1892
During a quiet night, Harlequin jumps the fence to enter Columbine’s garden. This first sequence of rudimentary images is the earliest proof of an animated moving picture. The director was the celebrated French inventor Charles-Émile Reynaud, the man that gave the world the first animated public projection, the same man that was to die in utter obscurity.
William K.L. Dickson |
United States of America |
1891
There are multiple debates concerning the origins of film. Photographers in the nineteenth century were anxious to find a way to capture movement, almost from the moment they discovered the art of photography. It took less than half a century, and by the 1870s Eadweard Muybridge has already made significant advances.
Direction - Cinematography - Editing |
French Republic
Le Prince found his place in the history of cinema quite late (and long after his disappearance in Dijon on the 16th of September 1890). However, by now, he has earned the acknowledgement as the undisputed father of motion pictures. His Roundhay Garden Scene (1888) is (still) the earliest proof of filmmaking from one point of view.
Eadweard Muybridge |
United States of America |
1878
The history of being able to view images in motion is nearly two millennia old. It started with Ting Huan’s chao hua chich kuan (the pipe which makes fantasies appear), an early version of the zoetrope developed in 180 AD under the Han Dynasty, and the camera obscura, dating from the 6th century.
Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince |
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - French Republic |
1888
Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince was a good provincial artist. Some of his paintings can still be seen in museums in France, UK and the USA. However, by now, they are often exhibited less for their artistic merit, than merely as a historical record to testify to the existence of the author.
Direction - Male Acting Performance - Cinematography - Production |
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
It is often said that discoveries hardly ever start with individuals concerned in the subject matter. This is certainly true in the case of motion pictures. Eadweard Muybridge, a book-seller turned photographer, developed the first projected live-action images with the use of his zoopraxiscope.
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Jun 27, 2018