Lumière Brothers
The Lumière Brothers were inventors who came up with the idea for a film camera for short films and a projector. The first film they shot was called 'Sortie D'usine' in 1895 and is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made. The film is one single continuous shot of workers coming out of the Lumière factory and it is a short black and white silent documentary film. It was the first ever film made and people were astonished by it as they had never seen anything like this before. Sortie d'usine has no story line to it and no editing.
https://youtu.be/EXhtq01E6JI
Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison was an American inventor who was working on the same thing as the Lumière brothers around about the same time. Edison ran a film laboratory where the developed many devices including the Kinetographic camera and the Kinetoscope. Edison also developed the 35mm film strip and the projector to play it.
George Méliès
George Méliès was a french filmmaker and magician who saw the films created by the Lumière Brothers and immediately noticed the possibilities of more than just motion in film. He got a camera and he soon discovered the camera tricks we know so well today. He came up with the idea for special effects and in 1896 he accidentally discovered the art of stop motion. Its rumored that this happened when his camera broke for a brief second and he realised the possibility of in-camera editing. In 1896 he made 'The Vanishing Lady.' This is a french silent film in which George Méliès supposedly makes a woman vanish. George does this using in camera editing. He records the lady in a chair and then he stops recording and at this time the lady walks away and then he starts recording again and the audience believe the lady has disappeared. George was one of the first filmmakers to use in camera-editing as well as hand painted colour in his work. Then 8 years after 'The Vanishing Lady,' in 1904, he made 'Voyage à Travers L'impossible.' Unfortunately, in 1913, commercial growth of the industry forced him out and he died in poverty. The film 'Hugo' shows elements of his life.
https://youtu.be/f7-x93QagJU
https://youtu.be/FS_cl3qzEJA
G.A. Smith
G.A. Smith pioneered the technique of using shots from different locations and developed film making from single shot films. In 1898 G.A. Smith made 'The Miller and the Sweep.' It is short black and white silent comedy. It features a miller carrying a bag of flower and a chimney sweep. The chimney sweep bumps into the miller and they get into a fight and end up covered in flower. Then they chases the each other off screen and then a crowd of people come and chase them. The film ends when the last of the crowd of people walk off the screen. One year later in 1899 he made the film 'The Kiss in the tunnel.' This is another short silent film showing a man and a women sharing a small kiss as their train passes through a tunnel. G.A. Smith said that he 'felt that some extra spice was needed' in 'phantom ride' genre. It featured a shot of a moving train, and a shot of two people kissing which was taken in a studio and inserted into the film. This was a new understanding of continuity film editing.
https://youtu.be/l3yDHDz2E6c
Edwin S. Porter
Edwin S. Porter worked as an electrician before joining the film laboratory of Thomas Alva Edison in the 1890's. In 1903 he made the breakthrough in the film industry with 'Life of an American Fireman.' This film was among the first to have a plot, action and close up shots. Porter discovered important aspects of motion picture language. He discovered splicing and that shots can be filmed at widely different locations over a period of time such as hours, days or even months and then combined into a narrative whole. These key discoveries were the things that made all narrative motion pictures possible. 'The Great Train Robbery' was the film to follow 'Life of an American Fireman. It used many innovative techniques such as camera movement, location shooting and cross-cutting.
https://youtu.be/jAfUNySlheg
Charles Pathe
Charles Pathé was a French film pioneer who introduced the first example of parallel editing in his film 'The Horse that Bolted' (1907) with cutting between two storylines: The horse and the delivery man. The delivery man parks his horse and cart to make a delivery. While the man is inside, his horse see's a bag of oats and starts to eat them. Throughout this part if the film, parallel editing cuts between the man inside making the delivery and the horse outside eating the bag of oats which allows the audience to see that two things are happening in d
different locations at the exact same time. By the time the man comes back outside, his horse has gone out of control running through the town and destroying most things in its path.
https://youtu.be/tuYG93vu-Zk
D.W. Griffith
D.W Griffith was an American film director and an early supporter of the power of editing. He made use of cross-cutting to show parallel action in different locations. Griffiths was one of the first of the early directors to use editing techniques in feature length films. His most controversial film and the one he is best remembered for was 'The Birth of a Nation' in 1915. This film is around three hours long making it one of the longest films and it is still seen as controversial to this day. This film was so shockingly racist that some black actors refused to be a part of the film, therefore black people were portrayed by white men in black face.
https://youtu.be/vZ871wZd7UY
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