William Heise

Thursday

Jan282010

1847-1910 | Kingdom of Prussia

Cinematographer | Producer | Director | Actor

The German-born American filmmaker William Heise can easily be considered the first professional director of photography. He has shot nearly 150 short films in the last decade of the 19th century, yet it is surprising how little biographical evidence is currently available about him. He was the key man to help William K.L. Dickson in developing the medium of film, and, after the latter’s departure from Edison Studios in mid-1890s, Heise became the chief cameraman of the company.

The 1900 New Jersey census is one of the rare sources that shed more light into his personal history. Identified as a ‘machinist’, Heise has emigrated from Germany into USA in 1869. By the 1890s, he helped Edison to establish the Black Maria Studio in West Orange, the place that is to become his home for the entire decade.

At Black Maria, Heise has proved his ability in framing and lighting the film subject through films such as Carmencita (1894), Souvenir Strip of the Edison Kinetoscope (1894) and the experimental colour film Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1895). In all of these works we find an eye that has an acute sense of contrast. The human body shines against the dark background in a way that is partly reminiscent of Muybridge, however, with Heise, the body gains a certain soulfulness that recharges the power of the film image to connect with its spectator.

This relationship with the human body is most evident in one of his own films, The Kiss (1896). The brief act performed with humour by Broadway stars, May Irwin and John C. Rice, is innocent in its nature. However, the first calls for film censorship could have partly been driven by Heise’s extreme close-up (at the time) that plays effectively with contrast. Traces of light mingle passionately with the shadows they create as if it was them and not the actors that engaged in the erotic act.

William Heise’s career has ended sharply after his decision to take a non-film role in the 1900s. This move could be related to his reasonable uncompetitiveness in shooting exterior scenes amongst his contemporaries, in spite of a few exceptions. What he needs to be remembered though is for those intimate shots at the Black Maria in which he defined the technique of how to film actors.