Welcome	About	Introduction	Chapter One beginning of time – 999 AD
Chapter Two 1000 AD – 1399	Chapter Three 1400 – 1599	Chapter Four 1600 – 1649	Chapter Five 1650 – 1699
Chapter Six 1700 – 1749	Chapter Seven 1750 – 1799	Chapter Eight 1800 – 1819	Chapter Nine 1820 – 1829
Chapter Ten 1830 – 1839	Chapter Eleven 1840 – 1849	Chapter Twelve 1850 – 1859	Chapter Thirteen 1860 – 1869
Chapter Fourteen 1870 – 1879	Chapter Fifteen 1880 – 1884	Chapter Sixteen 1885 – 1889	Chapter Seventeen 1890 – 1894
Chapter Eighteen 1895 – 1896	Chapter Nineteen 1897 – 1899	Chapter Twenty 1900 + post cinema	Chapter Twenty-One Addendum 1911+
Copyright	HOTDOC Internet Archive Channel	HOTDOC X Channel	HOTDOC You Tube Channel

_{Period: 1895 – 1896}

“I believe, as I have always believed, that you control the most powerful instrument in the world for good or evil. Remember that you are servants of the public and never let a desire for money or power prevent you from giving to the public the best work of which you are capable. It is not the quantity of riches that count, it is the quality that produces happiness where that is possible.”

^{– Thomas A. Edison}

1895
In September of this year Herman Casler, Harry Norton Marvin, William Dickson, and Elias Bernard Koopman will meet in upstate New York at Casler’s personal residence to formalise the making of the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, or AMBC.

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They will incorporate AMBC 27-30 December basing the company in New Jersey. Operations began 1 January ’96. Casler was completing his solid all-metal Nickelodeon-based flip book Mutoscope at this time.

In one instance four could view rather than just one. You looked into it horizontally rather than downward.

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As opposed to the Dickson Kinetoscope 50-foot band, the Photozootrope housed four separate 360 foot bands holding about 4,800 frames. This major improvement allowed four people to successively see four animated scenes allowing one Photozootrope to out-work four Kinetoscopes.

_{Images Science Museum Group}

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This camera was not only able to shoot film but also function as a projector. Pathé later broke with Joly and took the rights to the camera, which became a foundational tool for his hugely successful film company.

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Joly also filed patents for two other significant innovations in 1896 and one in 1906 for synchronising № 339152, pictured. A patent to reduce flicker because early film projection was notoriously flickery, which caused eye strain and an unpleasant viewing experience.

Joly’s patent for a “method of avoiding flicker” was an attempt to solve this problem by introducing a system that reduced the noticeable pulsation of light, a crucial step toward a more comfortable viewing experience.

The “process of film-in-depth” was a patent for a method to create a sense of three-dimensionality in a two-dimensional film. While the details of the process are not widely documented, it was an early attempt to introduce stereoscopic effects in a time when film was still a novelty.

Joly’s work in this area foreshadowed the later development of 3D cinema.

1895
ANIMATED PHOTO PAINTINGS
THE PHOTO-SCÉNOGRAPHE
CHARLES-ÉMILE REYNAUD (1844–1918)
The Photo-Scénographe was an innovative optical device invented by Charles-Émile Reynaud in 1895, designed to capture sequences of photographs for animated projections, marking a significant step in the progress of early cinema and animation.

The Photo-Scénographe was an apparatus for recording animated photographs, which Reynaud used to create his Photo-Peintures animées (animated photo-paintings) for projections at the Musée Grévin in Paris.

It was a camera capable of capturing sequential photographs on a flexible band, which could then be projected using Reynaud’s Théâtre Optique, a system he patented in 1888.

The Photo-Scénographe allowed Reynaud to transition from hand-drawn animations (e.g. Pauvre Pierrot (1981) and Autour d’une cabine 1985) to photographic sequences, adapting to the emerging trend of photographic motion pictures.

The Photo-Scénographe was heavily inspired by Étienne-Jules Marey’s Chronophotographe à bande mobile, a device for capturing motion in sequential photographs. Reynaud’s design incorporated a horizontal film transport system with a supply reel (for unexposed film) and a take-up reel (for exposed film).

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The Photo-Scénographe was a large device, roughly the size of a tabletop, with a lens positioned centrally and two reels on either side to handle the film strip. The film was perforated, allowing mechanical advancement, a feature Reynaud had pioneered with his Théâtre Optique.

It captured sequences of photographs on glass or a flexible medium, which Reynaud often hand-coloured to enhance the visual effect. These sequences were then mounted on strips for projection via the Théâtre Optique, combining photographic realism with artistic embellishments.

The photographs taken by the Photo-Scénographe were used to create animated sequences projected on a large screen, accompanied by music and sound effects composed by Gaston Paulin, enhancing the theatrical experience.

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While the Photo-Scénographe came after the invention of most of the cinematographs, and has been forgotten and even less, talked about, it is a vital part of pre cinema due to its conceptual ties to Reynaud’s earlier animated projection systems rather than modern filmmaking.

The Photo-Scénographe realised this vision by enabling the capture of live-action sequences for projection. It was overshadowed however, by most all of the Cinematographs of the world, which offered a more practical and scalable solution for motion picture projection. This competition contributed to the decline of Reynaud’s public screenings by 1900.

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🎬 Guillaume Tell (1896) Featured clowns George Foottit and Chocolat performing a William Tell routine at Parc de Saint-Cloud. Filmed in April 1896, it was projected from August 1896 to March 1900.

🎬 Le Premier Cigare (1897) Featured comedian Félix Galipaux, filmed in the studio of photographer Liébert in Paris. Projected from July 1897 to December 1898.

🎬 Les Clowns Price (1898) was a short third sequence, but Reynaud was dissatisfied with a new oscillating-mirror projector he developed for it, and it was never publicly shown.

Reynaud hand-coloured the photographic frames to maintain the artistic quality of his earlier hand-drawn Pantomimes Lumineuses, treating photography as a raw material to be enhanced rather than a standalone medium. All three are believed to be lost.

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This inefficiency limited its commercial viability. By 1900, the success of other pioneers and other filmmakers diminished the popularity of Reynaud’s shows.

In a fit of depression, Reynaud destroyed much of his work, including parts of the Théâtre Optique, and threw most of his animated bands into the Seine, preserving only Pauvre Pierrot and Autour d’une cabine because of salvage attempts by his son Paul.

His work with the device is seen as a precursor to modern animated films. Pictured is one hand-coloured cel from Guillaume Tell (1896) created on the Photo-Scénographe camera.

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Surviving works, including the Photo-Peintures animées, were later preserved by the Cinémathèque Française, with restorations of films like Pauvre Pierrot (1981) and Autour d’une cabine (1985). While initially overshadowed, Reynaud’s innovations, including the Photo-Scénographe, are now recognized as critical steps in the development of cinema and animation.

His work is celebrated for combining art and technology in a unique way. The Photo-Scénographe was a remarkable but short-lived invention by Charles-Émile Reynaud, reflecting his efforts to adapt his Théâtre Optique to the photographic era.

Though it was eclipsed by more practical apparatuses, it played a key role in producing some of the earliest photographic animations. Its significance lies in its contribution to the development of animation and early cinema, showcasing Reynaud’s blend of artistic vision and technical ingenuity.

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Visit emilereynaud.fr managed by Sylvie Saerens, Reynaud’s great-granddaughter. Her site provides a biography and historical details about his inventions, including the Photo-Scénographe.

1895
THE 10 FILMS OF THE GRAND CAFÉ
The famous exhibition catalogued the world over as the first film presentation in the world, turns out was only the first in France. Several others pioneers beat the Lumière’s to the punch. In fact, Max Skladanowsky who had already presented his own ten films on the Bioscop at the Wintergarten Hall in Berlin, 21 November, was sitting in the audience at Le Salon Indien.

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Taking place at Le Salon Indien, in what was then the Grand Café on the Boulevard des Capucines, it was organised by Lumière employee and photographer Clément-Maurice Gratioulet (1853-1933).

He also worked with/for Deyen, Parnaland and Lioret.

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The operator of the Cinématographe was Charles Mossion (1864-1943), another Lumière employee from Lyon. He placed the little wooden box in projector set-up, behind a white screen so the audience saw the actualities backward. This didn’t matter as there were no words to read.

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One of the ten films shown that night was Le Repas de Bébé or, Baby’s Breakfast, photographed by Louis “the cinema has no future” Lumière, and showing his brother Auguste and wife Marguerite Lumière feeding baby Andrée.

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Joly’s patent was introduced as a “Nouvel appareil chronophotographique,” or “New chronophotographic device.” Joly submitted 3 more patent applications following 1896.

🎞️ one patent was for another camera

🎞️ one was a technique to remove flicker

🎞️ one that would offer the appearance of depth

_{Image from Rossell, 2022, 175}

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Having an engineer’s mind and the ability to build cameras for a giant like Pathé, Henri Joly did not have a pleasant future after leaving the industry. He might have gone much further.

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J. E. Hough built sewing machines between 1872 and 1887. In documentation such as the census we find Hough listed as a mechanical engineer and furniture dealer.

In 1892 and 1893, he pursued this occupation from two distinct addresses in the London area. During this time, he sought four British patent applications for improvements to bicycle tires, and by 1894, he was formally trading in the thriving bicycle industry, with Kelly’s Post Office London Directory listing him as a Cycle Agent.

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A funnel at the side of Hough Kinetoscope transmitted light to a collection of images that were held on a helical band on a drum that turned on a screw axis. A slotted shutter functions concurrently between the images and a viewing objective.

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A lens maker in New York, Gray created a special double-image camera-projector which he patented in Germany and the US. His method involved creating it with a single lens and a rotating disk positioned behind it at a 45° angle.

Pictured here is a replica made by the Race to Cinema team. Thanks to the Race to Cinema Team for permission to reproduce images and videos.

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This disk featured half of its surface mirrored, so when it rotated the image was directed to be recorded at two separate angles on the film.

The R. D. Gray, US Patent No. 540545 was applied for 9 March 1895 and issued 4 June 1895. Thanks to the Race to Cinema Team for permission to reproduce images and videos.

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The film bands were lit for projection by two lamp houses positioned at right angles to one another. The revolving mirror was used to reconstitute the image for the single lens by doing its functions in reverse. Images here of the replica by Race to Cinema. Thanks to the Race to Cinema Team for permission to reproduce images and videos.

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SEE the Race to Cinema Team’s Robert Dempsey Gray replica hybrid moving picture camera and projector mechanism in action.

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SEE the Race to Cinema Team’s Robert Dempsey Gray replica hybrid moving picture camera and projector test film No.1 of how it likely would have looked in 1895. Thanks to the Race to Cinema Team for permission to reproduce images and videos.

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SEE the Race to Cinema Team’s Robert Dempsey Gray replica hybrid moving picture camera and projector test film No. 2. Thanks to the Race to Cinema Team for permission to reproduce images and videos.

1895
INCIDENT AT CLOVELLY COTTAGE
This animation is produced by British filmmaker, cinema historian, and William Friese-Greene biographer Peter Domankiewicz. Provided by Brazil’s Cinema in the Public Domain. Domankiewicz gives us an idea of what Birt Acres was showing us given the number of frames he had to work with.

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Incident at Clovelly Cottage was filmed with a camera that Acres and Robert Paul had jointly built during their brief working relationship. It was the first of two films Acres made this year which could position him as having presented the first two publicly shown films made in England.

The second film will be The Henley Royal Regatta which I present later in this chapter.

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This is the famous location today, 19 Park Road, Chipping Barnet, England, UK. It was filmed February – March.

I wonder if the people in the house have any idea that some say this is the location where the “first successful motion picture film made in Britain” took place. Google Street View images.

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Domankiewicz put’s Clovelly Cottage into perspective for us with this talk he gave as part of the British Silent Film Festival Symposium at Kings College in 2019;

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Reich’s patent № 12128 was titled as “Improvements in Apparatus for Making or Exhibiting Zoëtropic and similar Pictures.” Three schematics from the patent below.

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the gas ignited the film during a screening and the unknown-to-history projectionist ran for his life taking the Display Cinematograph with him

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Reich’s patent № 12128 was introduced as “Improvements in Apparatus for Making or Exhibiting Zoëtropic and similar Pictures.” Original five-document description below.

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Henry V. Hopwood’s Living Pictures, (Optician and Photographic Trades Review, London 1899, figure 130, pp120, 121) offers a description with illustration for the workings of the ratchet gear of Theodor Reich’s Display Cinematograph.

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The Animatoscope used a double-width film strip that moved continuously downward. Two lenses were mounted on sliding panels to alternately expose the film as it passed behind them. A circular shutter with two slots controlled exposure, coordinating with the movement of the film and lenses.

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The Eames Animatoscope never caught on, largely overshadowed by more effective systems like the Cinematographe and Vitascope just to name two. From the July-December issue of the Photographic Times: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine, volume XXVII, editor Walter E. Woodbury, NY, 1895, on p319 we see Eames illustration and description of his working Camera Lantern as he called it;

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According to Henry V. Hopwood’s Living Pictures, the synchronization of lens movement and film was intended to align the optical centre of the lens with the screen’s centre during projection. The two-lens sliding system introduced visual inconsistencies, like objects appearing to vibrate or shift because each view came from a slightly different vantage point.

Hopwood called this a “distant type of machine,” a fancy way of saying that it wasn’t quite on the cutting edge and had more drawbacks than advantages.

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The Eames patent stated in its opening “a new and useful improvement in camera-lanterns for exhibiting upon a screen a continuous series of pictures representing objects in motion.“ The film rose and descended at fixed rates as did the lenses.

Because the lens and film travelled at separate speeds; while the right lens descends the left one rises. No exposure happens because the light is cut off by the shutter.

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There are so many Animatoscopes out there, named as such by all of their respective pioneers. Perhaps the most named of pre cinema devices. I am currently trying to curate a series by making heads or tails of all these Animatoscopes I have found. Check back.

1895
OPENING OF THE KIEL CANAL
IMDB says this was shot 20 June and released 19 June. Didn’t Méliès do the same for George VI? Film his coronation before it happened?

This is a Birt Acres production. The original negative is housed at the Science Museum in London. It runs 14 seconds.

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In 1895 Acres was invited to visit Germany to film the opening of the Kiel Canal, and the Kaiser. The resulting film was shown at Koster and Bial’s Music Hall in New York, in the famous first film show of the Vitascope. April 1896.

1895 
AUGUSTE (1862 – 1954) LOUIS (1864 – 1948) LUMIERE
Before their public presentation in December this year to paying customers, the Lumière’s filmed a comedic scenario called  L’Arroseur arrosé one translation being The Waterer Watered.

In it, was the Lumière gardener François Clerc, along with a boy apprentice working in the Lumière labs, Benoît Duval. The story was of course simple and along the more modern lines of Denise the Menace.

^{L’Arroseur arrosé version #1 from 1895}

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^{‘L’Arroseur arrosé’ version #2 from 1896}

This short film (the first version) was one of the ten films shown at Le Salon Indien du Grand Café on 28 December 1895. Not the first screening in the world, but the first in France. In this second version, both Lumière gardener François Clerc, and apprentice Benoît Duval reprised their roles.

This actualité has also been translated as;

🎞️ The Sprinkler Sprinkled
🎞️ The Waterer Watered which is taken from Proverbs c11 v25
🎞️ Le Jardinier
🎞️ Le Jardinier et le petit espiègle
🎞️ and The Tables Turned on the Gardener

An image from the film was used in the background of a poster promoting Lumière films and their Cinématographe.

The poster depicts gardener Clerc and apprentice Duval on the screen in the background. The artist Marcellin Auzolle took one frame to use in his rendering for the movie screen the patrons are watching in laughter – that of Duval taking his foot off the hose and the water spraying up into Clerc’s face.

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the ability of Lumière to draw an audience to see a gardener get soaked by his own hose was not lost on other filmmakers

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This cropped image promotes only the Cinématographe Lumière and not the film by name.

The poster is the first known to promote an individual film because of its use of the background screen image, however the image we have today of this poster is cropped and likely not the full original poster created.

Notice that the lower borders of the poster’s frame are visible but the upper border is not seen. I suggest the actual poster was at least twice as high as this cropped image. A name appears vertically in the bottom right corner. In the bottom left we see the publisher’s name and address.

However I do believe the original poster, now lost I am told, promoted the film in more detail.

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In 2007 a statue commemorating L’Arroseur arrosé was commissioned and completed by sculptor Pascal Coupot. It stands in the courtyard of the Pierre Bayle Media Library in Besancon, France.

^{Photographs Janine Tissot}

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EARLIEST MOVIE POSTERS
Movie Posters grew out of Lithographic Posters used for music hall shows and theatre as a way of advertising the bill. Many believe the oft-seen Lumiere poster above, to be the first generic poster designed for a particular film. This may be. I don’t know.

Lithography printing began in 1798. Called the Planographic printing process, it made use of the immiscibility of grease and water.

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James Bamforth and company engaged in publishing, illustration, and film. In 1898, Bamforth formed a partnership with the Riley brothers, who were two more late pre cinema pioneers wanting to make animated pictures. This collaboration became known as RAB Films.

This lasted until 1900, and during that period, the team created 14 short films. During this time, James devised his own film editing technique. This is clearly seen in his short film Kiss in the Tunnel, which I shall present later in this chapter.

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After seeing the Dickson-made Edison-patented Kinetoscope, Farnum anticipated it’s use as a new method for advertising.

Farnum employed what he dubbed a “transfer roller” to move the images. This can be seen in the left image figures 3 and 4.

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I allowed AI to generate the Viviscope strip of a dancing man, and a man with a sledgehammer. AI still needs a lot of work, but I give it an A for effort.

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Farnum patented the device as a “Kinetoscope for Advertising and Exhibition Purposes.” The Kinetoscope name having already been taken, Farnum called his idea, the Viviscope. It was manufactured by Elias Bernard Koopman of AMBC fame.

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As Farnum stated in his patent for what would become the Viviscope;

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Here is a section of a Viviscope strip of boxers.

^{Photo Stéphane Dabrowski}

Once again, I have employed AI to animate this Viviscope strip of fist-fighters but they look more like they’re dancing. One guy disappears and the other guy has different coloured shorts.

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Not the Farnum Viviscope, so we’ll call it the Burder Viviscope based on Farnum’s design seeing as no animation of the Farnum original seems to exist. From Grand Illusions, here’s as close to the real Viviscope as we may get. David Burder describes.

Runs a minute 38.

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sadly, only about 10% of the almost 800 films shot by Robert William Paul are extant

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Paul designed a functional film projector using a Maltese Cross, or Geneva style of intermittent action a year later in 1896. Pictured is the device with open door and an illustration from Frederick A. Talbot pages 36 and 94.

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From the collection of La Cinémathèque Française these are two views of Robert William Paul’s Rotary Film Perforator from 1896.

^{Photos Stéphane Dabrowski}

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1895
CHARLES JASPER JOLY (1864-1906)
JAMES W. MCDONOUGH (1855?-1927)
Based on du Hauron’s concept in 1869, the first colour screen techniques were developed by Dublin physicist Charles Jasper Joly and Chicago physicist James W. McDonough.

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Referring to Charles Jasper Joly taken from The History of Photography – From the Camera Obscura to The Beginning of The Modern Era Helmut and Alison Gernsheim, Thames and Hudson, London, 1969, p523.

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In 1892, McDonough invented a dusting-on process using dyed resin, small particles of coloured glass, gelatin, and transparent pigments. Neither Joly’s nor McDonough’s techniques were widely adopted.

Just like having borrowed from the work of many others, the Lumières made use of this procedure in their Autochrome process.

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OFF TOPIC
This same James W. McDonough vied along with Philipp Reis to be the first to invent the Telephone during this same time period. A. G. Bell of course won.

However, pictured is the McDonough Transmitter seen on the left, and the Philipp Reis Transmitter on the right.

Just FYI.

GOOGLE PIXEL WATCH IN 1895
THE HEGELEIN WATCH CAMERA
The Hegelein Watch Camera is a rare and fascinating piece of photographic history, developed by John C. Hegelein of New York and patented in 1894 (US Patent 524142). Designed to resemble a pocket watch, this sub-miniature camera was a discreet detective camera meant for portability and covert use.

A seven-section metal tube extends forward.

Plateholders fit on the back. Its design is similar to the Lancaster watch camera from England (right). The camera is housed in a nickel-metal body, approximately 1.75 inches in diametre, with a collapsible seven-section metal tube that extends to reveal the lens.

It features a simple shutter and meniscus lens, producing circular images about 1.75 inches in diametre. The camera uses small rectangular plates or cut film held in wooden double dark-slides, which fit into a rim at the back.

Pressing a button exposes the film, and the camera can be closed back into its compact watch-like form for easy carrying in a vest pocket.

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The metal bellows folds inward and the two lids close the camera. The Hegelein Watch Camera had no clockworks and no time is told.

BTW, $5 in 1895 is about $187 today (early 2026). The Google Pixel Watch however, retails starting at a little over $400.

1895
THE MUTOGAPH
When the Motion Picture Patents Company (or Trust) legally prohibited filming motion pictures with equipment that infringed on Thomas Edison’s patent, William Dickson and Herman Casler created the Biograph Company in 1895.

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the 68/70mm Mutograph camera was originally used by AMBC to photograph flip cards for their hand-cranked Mutoscope

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Dickson and Casler developed the 68/70mm Mutograph camera in 1895 and the 35mm Mutograph in 1899 seen below to get around the patent.

The Mutograph employed a beater action to expose unperforated film and stamping one set of perforations for each frame at the moment of exposure.

^{Images The Malkames Collection}

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Motion Picture film with a width of 70mm has been produced since the late 19^th century. The largest film format we’ve seen was in 1927 when Abel Gance used the Polyvision system for the last reel of Napoleon.

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some of the earliest films were photographed using the Biograph Mutograph

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The 68/70mm Mutograph camera was originally used by AMBC to photograph flip cards for their hand-cranked Mutoscope which competed with the Edison Kinetoscope machine.

Pictured: left-illustration of the Mutoscope showing it’s inner workings with the door opened, and on the right-a Mutoscope showing the same illustration that’s on the left.

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A similar camera used the strut-supported front but in a smartly-styled handbag with a split front door hinged at top and bottom. Another variation has the handbag shape but uses the bottom door as a bed to support the lens. Designed by Bernard Kauffer of Paris.

Six are known to exist.

1895
DICKSON EXPERIMENTAL SOUND FILM
Two men dance while Dickson plays the fiddle into a giant Phonograph horn. Filmed in the Kinetograph Theatre more commonly known as the Black Maria, this film was to be played in the Kinetophone. It was filmed at 30 frames per second.

SEE it here with original sound & picture rejoined. From the Library of Congress preservation. The introductory text is tiny so pause to read if necessary.

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1895
THOMAS ALVA EDISON (1847-1931)
Early this year Edison promotes what he calls his Kinetophones. He uses rubber tubes to connect the viewer of the Kinetoscope, to the Phonograph. Viewers of the peepshow can listen to recorded music as they watch the film advance.

What is written on this Kinetophone Record is; “This record forms a part of an Edison Kinetophone apparatus and is not to be used except in an Edison Kinetophone by an authorized user of said Kinetophone.”

A close up of this famous un-named gentleman model posing using the Kinetophone rubber tubing.

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This is a recording of voice-actor Frank Leonard’s audition from 1913 that he made for Edison for the Kinetophone. He reads a letter to mom and some Shakespeare. What was seen in the Kinetoscope is not known.

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In 1895 Edison Manufacturing filmed the execution of Mary the Queen of Scots. A very short film, it was not historically accurate. The axe man did not whack her in the back, and it took three chops not one, in 1587.

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Deac Rossell has identified these presentations by Skladanowsky at the Wintergarten in Berlin on 1 November, 1895 as “the first projections of film in Europe to a paying audience”

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The Bioscop was designed to run two separate loops of film 54mm wide, projected alternately and frame by frame.

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This thirty-five second clip shows the two children dancing the Italian folk dance Dança Camponesa Italiana from the Ploetz-Larella dance group. It premiered 1 November 1895. A Skladanowsky production. Sound on.

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don’t expect a knock-out, it was a draw but I give the win to the Kangaroo for creative style

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This Bioscop pictured here stands in the foyer of the Potsdam Film Museum.

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WATCH the Skladanowsky Bioscop Wintergarten program in Berlin from 1 November 1895. All 9 films are shown in order as they were that night in Berlin. Brought to us by Iconauta / Breve Storia del Cinema, the free video library for all those interested in the history of Cinema.

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An intermittent worm gear mechanism moved the film, illuminated with arc lamps. This two-lens / two-strip projector was the result of Max, father Carl and brother Emil.

All were lanternists in Europe for many years. Below, Max on the right and his brother Emil from 1934, and a surviving Bioscop.

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Here is a photograph of the second Wintergarten Variete built in 1946 on the left. The original had opened in 1880 and the present, is the 1946 hall, rebuilt in 1962.

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Interestingly, Max Skladanowsky travelled to Paris in December 1895 and was present at the Café presentation by the brothers Lumière on the 28^th, and witnessed their ten actualitiés.

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Skladanowsky’s Bioscop was never to be a viable camera/projector because of its cumbersomeness. It could not compete with what was coming out of England, France and the US and would eventually be forgotten by time.

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SEE Wim Wenders A Trick of the Light (Trailer 1995) of the Skladanowsky brothers, running 3:06. Lucie Hürtgen-Skladanowsky (1904-2001) reminisces about her sister Gertrud and father Max.

Notice at the beginning that Lucie grabs a Flip Book made from a probably-lost film of her sister Gertrude. The sponsor of the Flip Book was Liebig Extract of which I have shown here before, in a previous chapter. They used optical inventions in some of their advertisements such as Flip Books and post cards.

Although his initial system of using two linked projectors was impractical and soon abandoned, he went on to manufacture hundreds of Lumière’s Cinématographes and later collaborated with Lumière on other camera designs. – Mannoni.

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Charles Moisson had built two prototypes of the trial machine Cinématographe, one of which is preserved at the Institut Lumière (l), and the other in the Musée des Arts et Métiers, seen here on the right. The two prototypes were name #0 and #1.

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Three further prototypes were called #2, #3 and $4. From October 1895, the first commercial device built by Carpentier made several trips back and forth between Paris and Lyon for testing, before the production of a series of twenty-five Cinématographes were launched.

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Carpentier continued with Lumière resulting in at least 700 to 800 Cinématographes eventually manufactured. Pictured on the left, one of these original Cinématographes held at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Los Angeles and on the right, one held at the Narodni Techicke Muzeum in Prague.

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The Cinématographe as we know it today was patented 13 February 1895 and first demonstrated as I stated, on 22 March 1895 at the Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale in Paris.

A plaque commemorates the place and date of the first Lumière Cinématographe showing.

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Pictured from the University of Toronto’s School of Practical Science, Gerstein Science Library is an impressive collection of Jules Carpentier’s Paris instruments, acquired shortly after it’s founding in 1878 (School of Practical Science).

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Jules Carpentier’s collaboration with Louis Lumière continued with the Cinématographe Projector (model B for Edison perforations) in 1897 (left), the Carpentier-Lumière Scroller in 1903 (middle) and the Cinématolabe (right [bottom if on your phone]), for which Carpentier filed the patent on 20 November 1909.

Carpentier, also being passionate about the horseless carriage, died in an automobile accident in 1921.

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Page 184 seen here in Scientific American magazine on 21 March 1896. READ the article here at Internet Archive.

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Röntgen’s discovery was made accidentally during experiments with a Crookes vacuum tube contained in a cardboard box

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Röntgen was a German mechanical engineer and physicist, who in 1895 produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range, and the term X-ray was coined.

A sketch of Röntgen’s experiment, with the photographic plate his hand is on.

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This excerpt is taken from The History of Photography – From the Camera Obscura to The Beginning of The Modern Era by Helmut Gernsheim (with Alison Gernsheim), Thames and Hudson, London, 1969, on p517.

Gernsheim references Röntgen and the importance of his discovery.

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FAST FORWARD TO 1897
THE X-RAY FIEND
It took less than two years for the new filmmakers to exploit this new discovery, and, within the field of photography. This 44 second film shot by George Albert Smith is pretty funny. Having been discovered by Röntgen (The Röntgen Rays), Smith exploits this by showcasing an X-Ray Camera.

Suffice to say he gets a little too frisky as a skeleton.

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1897
MAKING SAUSAGES
SPOILER ALERT!
It isn’t pork!

George Albert Smith and British Pathé with a short gruesome tail tale of sausage-making. One of the critters jumps back out! These guys put dog catchers to shame. Runs 1:06.

1895
THE LAMBDA EIDOLOSCOPE
Dickson makes the decision in April to depart the Edison labs for a closer working relationship with Woodville Latham. The L in Greek spoken as Lambda, is taken in representing the name Latham.

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The other film was Incident at Clovelly Cottage which I presented at the beginning of this chapter.

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Clovelly Cottage and Henley were both shot in March. The Kinetic Camera and six frames of The Henley Royal Regatta are shown here. Acres went on to develop the Cinematoscope and Kinetic Lantern.

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Some outlets in cyber space incorrectly state this film was made and shown in 1896. Shortly after the production of these shorts, Acres parts company with Robert Paul. It will be almost a year before Acres looks through another lens.

Rough Sea At Dover was shown to an invited audience at Finsbury Technical College, London.

The words of a reporter at the screening . . . “The second film represented the breaking of waves on the seashore. Wave after wave came tumbling on the sand, and as they struck, broke into tiny floods just like the real thing. Some people in the front row seemed to be afraid they were going to get wet, and looked to see where they could run, in case the waves came too close.”

The first film may have been The Boxing Kangaroo. Something almost identical to the Skladanowsky Mr. Belvedere’s boxing kangaroo, shown earlier in this chapter.

All of these films were shot and then shown to the public long before the Lumière’s in December 1895.

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This event was not, as some have suggested, promotional embellishment.

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there was a moment in time during the early years of cinema, when going to the movies could be dangerous

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Lost for around 111 years, then this copy of Arrest of a Pickpocket was found in 2006, in an English attic. The film was rediscovered in 2006 by Frank Williams, a 79-year-old pensioner living in Redditch, Worcestershire.

The copy had been sitting in his attic, remarkably preserved inside a Marks & Spencer bag, where it had gathered dust for over 60 years. Mr. Williams had inherited the collection from his father, who in turn had received it from Frank’s grandfather, George Williams.

George was a travelling showman and photographer who used the films as part of his fairground Magic Lantern and Peep Show booth in the late 19th century. The footage was analyzed by experts at Sheffield University’s National Fairground Archive. Love those attics.

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The film being photographed on nitrate, Sheffield noted the film had begun to rot inside its tin. They suggested if it had been left for just three more months, the chemicals likely would have degraded beyond repair or potentially spontaneously combusted, which could have burnt down the house.

After a frame-by-frame restoration, the film was given its modern re-premiere at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival in Italy in October 2006.

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In May of 1895 The New York World proudly asserted . . . . “Life size presentations they are and will be, and you won’t have to squint into a little hole to see them. You’ll sit comfortably and see fighters hammering each other, circuses, suicides, hangings, electrocutions, shipwrecks, scenes on the exchanges, street scenes, horse-races, football games, almost anything. You’ll see people and things as they are.”

The writer of that excerpt may have been referring to the experimental and mostly successful films of Acres, Paul, Friese-Greene, but more likely the films of Latham and Dickson.

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“You can project anything on a screen that you can see with the naked eye and which can be photographed”

^{-Woodville Latham}

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Here is a detailed illustration of Woodville Latham’s 1896 projector patent showing his loops in added colour, in a photograph of a modern commercial projector, and a black and white illustration.

1895
THE BIRTH OF THE MOTION PICTURE THEATRE
Within about an eight-month window during the year 1895, anyone and everyone who had tinkered in the business of producing Motion Pictures, was now showing them.

But where to show these new animated pictures?

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As the Motion Picture projectors surpassed the Nickelodeons and Peep Show machines, group screenings became the norm with audiences watching ‘movies’ in town halls, vaudeville houses, arcades, county fairs, amusement parks, churches, circuses, schools and even in barns.

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The Comique Theatre in Toronto advertised Jean the Matchmaker, with Florence Turner, in 1910. The admission price was 5¢. Notice a sign next to the door that says Best Moving Picture Show.

Today, Shoppers Drug Mart occupies 279 Yonge Street.

WATCH Jean the Matchmaker, a Vitagraph of America picture by James Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith. Jean was the Vitagraph Dog. It also starred Florence Turner, Mary Fuller, and Ralph Ince.

Lost and then found, it was copied at 16 frames per second using a tinted 35mm print by the Library of Congress with help from the New Zealand National Film Unit Collection.

Jean, was the director Lawrence Trimble’s dog. The New Zealand copy of this film is the only one known to exist. It was found in 2010.

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a sheet for the screen, some rows of chairs and some kind of curtain and an operator was in business

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The earliest audiences of the scenario’d animated pictures saw presentations that were billed by the name of the projector, like Vitaphone, Vitascope or titles like Animated and Moving Pictures, not the main actor or title of the story like today. The players rarely got any billing.

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1895
THOMAS ARMAT (1866-1948)
Armat was an American mechanic and inventor, best known for his pioneering contributions to the early film industry through the co-invention of the Vitascope. Armat came up with the first projector in the US that used intermittent movement.

In 1896 Armat made a deal with Thomas Edison, for Edison to manufacture it under the name Vitascope. Born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Armat studied at the Mechanics Institute in Richmond, Virginia, and later at the Bliss Electrical School in Washington, D.C., where he met Charles Francis Jenkins.

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Made along with Charles F. Jenkins, the projector was called the Phantascope and had a public demonstration in Atlanta, October of 1895.

Below is the projector illustration taken from page 67 of Brian Coe’s book The History of Movie Photography, New York Zoetrope Inc., 1981.

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Here is the Thomas Armat Vitascope that was depicted in the Scientific American magazine, from 31 October, 1896. READ it here at Internet Archive on p1 and p331.

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Pictured is the Jenkins-Armat Phantascope projector (for Edison Kinetoscope celluloid films) 1895 from Stephen Herbert, The Optilogue.

The Academy presented Oscar statuettes in 1947 to only four men specifically for their historic contributions to the development of film. The other three were William Selig, Albert A. Smith, and George Kirke Spoor.

The award was given for their “belief in a new medium” and for blazing the trail that took movies from “obscurity to world-wide acclaim.”

During his acceptance, Armat famously thanked the Academy for “remembering the forgotten man,” which was a direct reference to how many of the pre cinema pioneers had been overshadowed by the movie stars and directors of the 1930s and 40s.

The Academy has a long history of dishonouring it’s own pioneers.

He built this so students could see the transition from discrete anatomical positions into continuous motion. Because the figures are three-dimensional, the passing of light and shadow across the surface gives the animation an unusually physical, sculptural quality.

It’s currently in the collection of the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. By 1895 the pre cinema world is already in the shadow of Chronophotography and the impending motion picture camera.

Richer is using older animation technology dating back to 1832, but applying Marey-style motion analysis to it. It’s essentially a bridge-object between 1830s optical toys; 1880s–1890s scientific motion analysis; the pedagogical needs of artists who used it for study, in the Beaux-Arts system.

1895
AUGUSTE (1862 1954) LOUIS (1864-1948) LUMIÈRE
BAIGNADE EN MER (La Mer)
The first public showing of a celluloid film in France took place the evening of 28 December, 1895 at the Salon Indien du Grand Café on the Boulevard des Capucines in Paris. The Lumière’s exhibited ten films they made on the Cinématographe. This is the last of the ten Acualities shown that night.

Maximilian Skladanowsky who did the very same thing a month earlier in Berlin with nine films exhibited, was present.

Not the first public exhibition (paid or not) of a Motion Picture in the world, not even the first in Europe, the Lumières never felt the Motion Picture was anything important. And yet so many give them all the credit of having invented movies.

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“the cinema is an invention without a future”

^{– Louis Lumière felt the cinema was somewhat ‘nonsensical’}

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One of the ten rolls of film shown at 14 Boulevard des Capuchins 28 December was titled La Pêche aux poissons rouges. All ten Lumière films were 35 mm in the Cinématographe. Fishing for goldfish runs 42 seconds.

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This Lumière private screening took place on 22 March 1895 in preparation for the public showing in December of that year. Known as Actualités or actuality films, their repertoire of experimental films amassed to over two thousand by the year 1903.

These films of everyday life added greatly to the popular culture and by early 1896, the Lumières had opened theatres in New York, Brussels, and London, as well as in France, showing their films on the same machine which had taken them, the Cinématographe.

Today, a director wouldn’t think twice about angling the camera within feet of the tracks as a train entered into the frame. We see it all the time.

However, in 1895 it was a frightening thing to see, in a crowded, small room, with many people and little room to maneuver in your seat.

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^{Image Antiq-Photo}

The Cinématographe (pronoun) was a compact-looking cinematographe (noun) named after the Leon Bouly machine.

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WORKERS LEAVING THE LUMIÈRE FACTORY
Another one of the ten rolls of film shown was titled for lack of a better term, Workers Leaving The Lumière Factory or in Le français, Ouvriers quittant l’usine Lumière.

An appropriate name considering no one had yet made many films, let alone name them.

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“Our invention can be exploited for a certain time as a scientific curiosity, but apart from that, it has no commercial future whatsoever.”

^{– Auguste Lumière}

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1895
L’ARRIVÉE D’UN TRAIN EN GARE DE LA CIOTAT
Catalogued as Nº 653, this experimental film featured members of the Lumière family in the crowd including; Rose, wife of Louis; Suzanne, daughter of Louis and Rose; Jeanne-Joséphine wife of Antoine; Madeleine and Marcel Koehler, children seen in Children at Play, another Lumière short.

Little Suzanne Lumière was a staple of her father as a stand-in or as a star like Child’s Quarrel and was active in front of the camera even through the Autochrome years.

Arrival Of A Train At La Ciotat Station was again shot two years later in 1897 but did not cause as much of a stir than it did in 1895. Another train film was made at Joineville station and will be at the heart of a controversy which will come up later in this chapter.

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1895-1903
LUMIÈRE ACTUALITÉS
Twelve Actualités from the Lumières beginning in 1895 and concluding in 1903. Each is between :44 seconds to 1:16 in length.

1896
HONOURABLE MENTION
THE PHOTO-MOTOSCOPE
FREDERICK NOAKES
In 1896, Frederick Noakes patented a device numbered 4374 called a Photo-Motoscope, described as a viewing instrument for continuous picture films. It would have used a succession of images on a transparent film strip, illuminated from behind, with an intermittent stop / start motion and a shutter to create the illusion of continuous movement.

This may or may not be the Motophotoscope of William Charles Hughes which he patented 19 March, 1897 and was possibly built by Alfred Prestwich. The Noakes Photo-Motoscope was self-built and more than likely wasn’t the Hughes machine.

1896
THE PROJECTOSCOPE
The Edison Company developed its own projector known as the Projectoscope or Projecting Kinetoscope in November 1896, and abandoned marketing the Vitascope. Edison created what was essentially his own device, which he named the Projectoscope, after splitting from Armat and his Vitascope.

Before switching to a rudimentary reel system for supply and take-up, Projectoscopes employed a spoolbank that was exactly like the one found inside the Kinetoscope.

On the left is the Projectoscope sealed up with interior spoolbank and on the right is the take up and supply reels version without lamphouse.

By 1898, they had also included a Magic Lantern attachment for still slides. The Projectoscope was an early motion picture projector developed by Thomas Edison’s team in the late 19th century, specifically around 1896–1897.

Unlike the Kinetoscope, which allowed only one viewer at a time to watch films through a peephole, the Projectoscope was designed to project moving images onto a screen for a larger audience, marking a significant step toward modern cinema.

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On the left is the Projectoscope with lamphouse.

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1896
PLATE CINEMATOGRAPH
W. SCHMIDT
A. CHRISTOPHE
From Eugene Trutat’s La Photographie Animée, published in 1899, we read about these two elusive gentlemen who proposed glass plates instead of celluloid.

“The use of celluloid films covered with sensitive gelatin in recording and projector devices presents several drawbacks, and among these one of the most serious is that which results from the high price of these kinds of preparations; thus, we can classify animated Photography up to now among the processes of great luxury or scientific curiosities. In order to remedy to a certain extent all, the drawbacks which result from the use of films. Messrs. Schmidt and Christophe have combined a device which allows the substitution of glass for films.”

The patent was N° 257231, 13 June 1896 for “Appareil enregistreur photographique du mouvement” listed in the ‘Bulletin de la Société Française de Photographie,’ which translated is “an apparatus for photographically recording motion.”

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The series of shots constituting the whole of the view to be taken or projected, is divided into several plates, of equal dimensions and which can be substituted for each other. A continuous rotational movement, imparted to the mechanism of the device combined for this purpose, successively extracts the plates from a magazine where they are arranged.

The objective is passed in front of a lens by determining the stops necessary for the installation of each of the shots that a plate can contain and finally leads them gradually into a receiving magazine from where they will be removed once the operation is finished.

The figures which accompany this description Trutat states, “will make it easy to understand the method of construction of the apparatus and its operation.”  Schmidt and Christophe applied for another patent N° 258662, 4 August 1896 for “Procédé et appareil photographiques enregistreurs du mouvement,” suggesting either a second application, a continuation or a corrected filing.

1896
THE ALÉTHOSCOPE / ALÉTHORAMA
PAUL MORTIER (1857-1920)
French patent № 254090 issued to Mortier was for a “Appareil denomme Aléthoscope, destine a enregistrer photographiquement les scenes animees eta les reproduire soit par projection, soit par vision directe avec ou sans illusion du relief.’’

_{Getty images}

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The Aléthorama was patented by Mortier and manufactured by François Chéri-Rousseau (1826-1908), a noted painter-photographer in Saint-Étienne France. Using no intermittent mechanism, the Aléthorama ran continuous film with several turning mirrors. Think Praxinoscope.

I have also seen this device called an Aléthoscope (Rossell, Living Pictures, p175 for instance).

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Patented 17 February, this device was capable of projecting to an audience, or could be viewed by a single person. Translated as a “Device called Aléthoscope, intended to photographically record animated scenes and reproduce them either by projection or by direct vision with or without illusion of relief.”

_{Images Getty Museum}

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Ray Zone speaks of this device as a “reversible stereoscopic cinematographic camera” (p70) with “Coloured filters in complementary colours must be placed in front of the projection lenses, and the spectators must be provided with similarly coloured spectacles.”

Sounds anaglyphic to me.

_{Ray Zone, Stereoscopic Cinema and the Origins of 3-D film, 1838-1952, University Press of Kentucky, 2007, p70}

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Mortier also proposed a sophisticated system that had glasses with alternating shutters driven by electricity. The glasses were synced with the shutters in two interlocked Magic Lanterns, which were powered by electricity. A modest multipolar alternator maintained everything.

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The suffixes scope and o’rama both mean to ‘view’ in the Greek language. The name Aléthoscope pops up under different descriptions and years in my research and should not be confused with the Aléthoscope of Carlo Ponti of whom I have spoken of.

This is an enhanced version of Brandauer’s from 1893, which in turn was an amendment to Kohlrausch’s Chronophographic device from 1890 (Rossell 2022 p194).

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Plump’s adaptation included a focal plane shutter that was automatically configured and then actuated by the movement of the wheel while capturing sequential movement.

This places Plump as part of the continuing growth in the late 19th century to develop machines capable of capturing sequences of movement for analysis or projection.

There’s zero evidence his camera sparked a widespread breakthrough or achieved fame beyond patent filings. Unlike Marey’s Chronophotographic gun (1882) or Anschütz’s ElectroTachyscope, Plump’s contraption remains a footnote tucked into patent glossaries.

Still, it’s a legitimate piece in the puzzle of early motion-image tech from what I can tell. Wish I had more. No images known. Still looking.

1896
ANTHONY’S BIOPTICON
The Biopticon was an early optical device developed by E. & H. T. Anthony & Company, a prominent American photographic equipment manufacturer based in New York. It was designed as a combination of a camera and projector, similar to an Eidoloscope, intended to capture and project moving images during the early days of motion-picture technology.

The Biopticon by the brothers Edward and Henry was made to house 500 feet of film, and is illustrated in Figure 169. Its preparation for projection will be seen in Figure170.

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It struggled against more successful competitors due to technical limitations, such as poor image quality or mechanical issues. Little else is found about this contraption.

Born in Tournus, Saône-et-Loire, France, Parnaland moved to Paris in 1890, initially working as a chartered accountant. Alongside his brother Louis, he developed a keen interest in mechanics, leading them to file several patents for various mechanical devices.

This year Parnaland along with his brother Louis and their first company Parnaland Frères, files a patent for their first motion picture camera, the Phototheagraphe. In 1895, Parnaland founded the company Parnaland Frères to commercialize his inventions.

The following year, he patented the Photothéagraphe, an early film camera.

By June 1896, he had developed the Cinepar, a more refined camera utilizing center-perforated film, which he patented both in France and the United States.

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Going back to the drawing board because the Phototheagraphe failed to live up to expectations, Parnaland designed and constructed a much better motion picture camera he called the Cinépar.

It was patented 9 June 1896.

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one of the founding fathers of animated photography, Parnaland obtained his patent in February 1896 and began exhibiting his first “filmed views” in 1897

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Several views of the Parnaland Cinépar motion picture camera from Cinémathèque française.

^{Photos Stéphane Dabrowski, Cinémathèque française}

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Parnaland called his work as a pioneer of cinematography “filmed views.”

From the foundation of his first company until the premises became the Éclair company, in 1907, Parnaland made all genres of film, not just actualities; scientific, comedies, historical, and trick films.

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“We are thrilled to show around 40 Parnaland films at our Il Cinema Ritrovato festival. These films have been conserved & restored by Filmoteca Española in Madrid, Lobster Films in Paris, and Filmoteca de la Generalitat de Catalunya.”

^{– Camille Blot-Wellens, Filmoteca Española}

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His 1897 films had Edison 35mm perforated format film. Parnaland celluloid perforations had two types;

🎞️ three perforations (left-centre-right) in-between each frame (right image)
🎞️ or a centralised perforation between each frame (left image)

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All the Parnaland films made between 1897 and 1907 accumulated to over five hundred. Parnaland’s Cinépar camera could photograph up to fifty frames per second and was fifty milimetres wide.

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WATCH Mât de beaupré from 1898, it’s one of Parnaland’s films, translated from the French as Bowsprit Mast, it runs just 1:12.

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GROSSE TETE DE PIERROT 1900
Ambroise François Parnaland filmed this clown showing us his tongue for 53 seconds. This is from Filmoteca Española. Parnaland called his work as a pioneer of cinematography, “filmed views.”

The clown isn’t identified in contemporary catalogues or archival records. The film was probably shot using a studio or variety performer under contract, not a named celebrity clown. No verified documentation links the face to any known Pierrot actor (a performer who plays Pierrot, the classic white-faced clown from the French Commedia dell’Arte tradition).

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BONNE D’ENFANTS ET MILITAIRE 1897
Time for some pranks and practical jokes offered by Ambroise François Parnaland with his Cinépar camera. Filmed and made public in March 1897. Fifty-two seconds long.

By 1880, he was living in Chicopee, Hampden County, Massachusetts, as recorded in the U.S. Census. At the age of 14, he was working in a cotton mill, alongside his family members, including his father, R. Leon Petett (or Petit), his mother, Phebe, and siblings.

The census lists him as Adamir Petett, perhaps a variation or misspelling of his name. This little man now living in New Jersey applies 7 December 1895 for two patents, an “Apparatus for Exhibiting Successive Photographs,” (No. 614356) and is granted copyrights on 19 May 1896 along with Joseph Livingston who worked with Ottomar Anschutz on the Schnellseher.

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The Petit US patent №560367 for the projector schematic I am posting about primarily, is here. It had three viewing ports.

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No trace of the Petit apparatus has been found and in fact of all my sources that should know, they have no mention of this man except for Petit’s overshadowing work alongside Edison in attempting to record sound.

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Petit was also granted another US patent № 560425 on 19 May 1896 with the identical name “Apparatus for Exhibiting Successive Photographs,” and a near identical description of it’s operation. Neither machine seems to have survived, if they were ever built.

The full patent is here.

He ran the Anglo-American Photo-Import Office, located at 368 rue Saint-Honoré in Paris, starting around 1893. Through this shop, he distributed photographic and film equipment including Blair Camera Company products from London and began selling high-speed film rolls by 1895.

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1895, de Bedts developed a camera capable of using perforated 35 mm film which could also double as a projector. The Kinétographe was originally called the Chronos. De Bedts made re-makes of Edison and Lumière films. Below is the George William De Bedts Kinétographe projector. Illustration from La Revue Scientifique et Industrielle (1st volume 1897) by Jules-Louis Breton.

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An important pioneer of French cinema, George William de Bedts was largely forgotten and his work close to completely unknown until the discovery of some archived documents and equipment were uncovered.

In January 1896, de Bedts founded the first French finance company dedicated to exploiting cinema, and expanded operations into London via a shop at 65 Chancery Lane and a Kinetographe Company agency in Herne Hill.

By 1897, his catalogue boasted 310 short films, including remakes of Edison and Lumière works, plus original productions by himself and his assistant, Arthur Roussel. He also marketed a smaller, more affordable version of his camera for amateurs in late 1896.

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De Bedts had been a negotiator and representative for von Reitzner in France at one point. Financial troubles mounted after his partner Guillaume Sabatier left, and the company ultimately went bankrupt in July 1898, with the last known record of him appearing in 1902.

At the Cinémathèque française, a 35 mm reversible camera known as the Kinétographe de Bedts manufactured in Paris in 1896 is preserved. It carries a patent under his name and displays the technical ingenuity of the time (intermittent film drive, dual roles as camera or projector, hand crank, etc.).

The de Bedts patent for his 1896 Kinétographe № 260,841 “Système d’appareil chronophotographique et de projection” filed 29 October stated it was for;

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De Bedts patented the Kinétographe in March 1896 as documented in Henry Hopwood’s Living Pictures – Their History, Photo-Production and Practical Working, With A Digest of British Patents and Annotated Bibliography, p242.

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De Bedts was a representative of The Eastman Photographic Materials Company beginning in 1890. At a meeting of the Photo-Club de Paris, he showed a number of views that he had taken with a Kodak, while in America and Egypt in 1891.

Later, he was director of Eastman Paris.

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an important pioneer of French cinema, George William de Bedts was largely forgotten and his work close to completely unknown until the discovery of some archived documents and equipment were uncovered

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In 1894 De Bedts left Eastman and opened the Anglo-American Photo Import Office in Paris. Later he worked as an innovative producer and distributor of chrono and cinematographic equipment in 1895 with Léon Gaumont and Georges Demeny and afterwards under the name G. De Bedts and Cie.

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In 1899, he established the Société de Reproduction Photographique Industrielle in Asnières. On both glossy and matte platino-bromide paper, they created large-scale advertising content in artistic and industrial photography.

In 1905, the company filed for bankruptcy.

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This Kinétographe (shown open and closed) by de Bedts was the film camera used in 1896 by Reis. From Cinemateca Portuguesa Museu.

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Beginning in September 1896, dos Reis also began to film using the de Bedts Kinétographe.

He filmed about thirty titles.

Each film was planned to have a maximum duration of one minute and thirty seconds at 16 fps with a maximum length of thirty metres of film.

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a failed business trip to Brazil in 1897 due to a malfunctioning projector left a bad taste in dos Reis mouth and he returned to selling flowers

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Dos Reis travelled to Lyon to meet the Lumières and purchase a Cinématographe.

Antoine had instructed the boys not to sell one and dos Reis left empty handed.

It is at this moment I have read, that Louis said his rationale was “the cinema is an invention without a future.”

Dos Reis went to Paris and bought a similar, now-unknown motion camera and some film from Dujardin and Schaeffer, a company on Condorcet Street in Paris. He renamed this machine the Kinematógrafo Portuguese and returned to his city of Porto and began filming ordinary scenes of Portuguese culture and customs.

One of these films exists today, or at least part of it. It’s a near exact copy of Workers Leaving The Lumière Factory (Ouvriers quittant l’usine Lumière). It’s named Saída do Pessoal Operário da Fábrica Confiança and was photographed on Santa Catarina street in Porto, Portugal.

WATCH 49 seconds of this Aurélio da Paz dos Reis 1896 film here.

Saída do Pessoal Operário da Fábrica Confiança was a copy cat film of the Lumière’s Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory of 1895. It shows workers departing the shirt factory of António da Cunha, a business associate of dos Reis.

Today, this location is a Benetton store.

A failed business trip to Brazil in 1897 due to a malfunctioning projector left a bad taste in dos Reis mouth and he returned to selling flowers. A short adventure into the world of animated pictures lasting just three years.

I do not know which of his two machines failed.

1896
THE PETTENKOFER KINETOSCOPE
ADOLPH PETTENKOFER (1856-1932)
Adolphe (or Adolph) Pettenkofer isn’t a household name with a rich biographical legacy, especially not in the history of moving pictures. Referred to by Rossell (Chronology of the Birth of Cinema, 1833–1896, 2022, p198) as a Table Top Peep Show Viewer, patent granted 17 November 1896 in Brooklyn, was in fact an improved Kinetoscope by title. This isn’t a major cinematic breakthrough.

In fact, historical records suggest that Pettenkofer’s patent represented an incremental, almost obsolete, attempt to ride on Edison’s coattails. By 1896, the world was already shifting toward projection systems which could display films to an audience rather than just one viewer at a time.

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As Pettenkofer tells us in his opening patent statement, which was a direct reference to Dickson’s Kinetoscope;

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Pettenkofer filed 22 January for his Kinetoscope in the United States patent office who certified it as № 571496. It was granted 17 November. Rossell states it was “a variant of the Mutoscope with pictures individually mounted on a long supporting band that is cranked by hand through the apparatus.”

Inside was an endless flexible tape/belt carrying a series of pictures. The tape ran around a roller and over a stationary block that has a sharp corner/shoulder. As the tape travels over that sharp edge, each picture flips into a near-horizontal position directly behind the viewing window, then flips away again, creating the motion sequence.

It’s not perforated film running continuously past a shutter like Edison/Dickson Kinetoscope. It’s a mechanical flip presentation of individual pictures mounted to the belt, flipped by the stationary sharp corner, closer in spirit to a belt-driven Flip Book than to Dickson’s film-transport.

That “flip at the edge” is exactly what he claimed. As you can see in the patent images, the Pettenkofer band of images are nothing like the Dickson fifty-foot spoolbank—no patent infringement here.

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Pettenkofer is one of those many small-scale inventors who filed Peep Show patents during the Kinetoscope period, but his idea didn’t change the game. By then, the real revolution was moving from personal peephole devices, toward communal projection.

By late 1896 the Pettenkofer version was already behind the curve as projection took over.

Contemporary overviews note that the Pettenkofer “Improved Kinetoscope” was obsolete on arrival. Pettenkofer remains a patent-only footnote in pre cinema history, with no known surviving machines. In his patent, Adolph Pettenkofer of Brooklyn specified that;

P. S. The Smithsonian lists an Adolph Pettenkofer of Brooklyn on a different patent model; a sewing machine in 1890.

1896
GEORGES MÉLIÈS MYSTERY
ARRIVAL OF A TRAIN AT VINCENNES STATION (1896)
Considered LOST Star Film Archive Nº 7

OR

ARRIVAL OF A TRAIN AT JOINVILLE STATION (1896)
EXTANT Star Film Nº 35
In the earliest days of the post cinema era, all fledgling filmmakers were making actualité or reality films. Many were the same─trains arriving in a station because of the daring motion it showed. Even the same filmmakers filmed the same, just at different stations. And this just might be the reason for this confusion.

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In 1896, two of Méliès’s actualité films were Arrival of a Train at Vincennes Station (both frames below are of Vincennes) and Arrival of a Train at Joinville Station.

Both are lost.

However, one of these films may still exist in the form of a Flip Book. Those closest to the story say it’s Vincennes Station. All frames shown within this segment, are from the newly discovered Flip Book.

In 2013 animators Bernhard and Sara Richter came upon a Flip Book that was published back around 1900 by a man named Léon Beaulieu, a French bimbelot. A bimbelot is a French term for a seller of children’s trinkets and toys. One of the toys, was this Flip Book. When engaged, it revealed a train arriving in a station.

The Richters found the Flip Book in a German book store.

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Pauline Duclaud-Lacoste (nee Méliès), the great-great-granddaughter of Georges Méliès has agreed with Lecointe that the Flip Book was made of frames from her great-great-grandfather’s ‘Arrival of a Train at Joinville Station’

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Some of the well known Flip Books were Folioscopes or Filoscopes. They were made by photographing the individual frames of a film, typically during the 1895 to 1898 period.

This Filoscope by Robert W. Paul and Henry Short, of Westminster Bridge is from 1896. It’s pictured here along with a turning animation of what it looks like.

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There’s no certainty which film the Flip Book is made from, but indications point to it being Méliès’s Arrival of a Train at Vincennes Station. Parts of it appear to be photographs, other parts appear drawn as if to replace missing frames. SEE what is likely Méliès’s Star Film Nº 7 here.

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French film scholar Thierry Lecointe has concluded the Flip Book depicts the train at Joinville. Pauline Duclaud-Lacoste (nee Méliès), the great-great-granddaughter of Georges Méliès (pictured hugging her GGGF’s bust) has agreed with Lecointe.

She believes that the Flip Book was made of frames from her great-great-grandfather’s Arrival of a Train at Joinville Station.

This Flip Book discovery of c. 1900 is definitely not the Lumière Arrival Of A Train At La Ciotat Station. My own study of the two show that travellers along the platform are not the same and the two trains are different.

This has been made from a Méliès train film.

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1896
A TERRIBLE NIGHT
Méliès shot 78 films in 1896. He had covered every type of film; actualités, comedies, historical, dramas, magic, tricks and horror. This one is a nominee for first horror film.

Star Film Catalogue No. 26

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1896
DÉFENSE D’AFFICHER
Méliès Post No Bills Star Film Company Nº 15 is a silly film today but was a big hit in ’96. Another “thought lost” film until a copy was unearthed in 2004 at the Filmoteca de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain. This Spanish film archive, based in Barcelona, is dedicated to preserving and restoring cinema heritage.

It was here that a print of Méliès’s short comedy was located in 2004, after decades of being considered lost. Like many of Méliès’s works, Défense D’afficher disappeared because Méliès himself destroyed much of his film stock in the 1920s, and surviving reels were scattered across Europe.

Its rediscovery added to the small but growing corpus of Méliès’s early films that have been recovered, helping fans and scholars better understand his transition from stage magic to cinema. Notice the self-advertising on the Théâtre Robert-Houdin poster. Runs 1:09

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As Star Film catalogue number 15, it represents Méliès’s very earliest phase, before his famous trick films.

Its rediscovery underscores the role of international archives in saving films thought lost, often far from their country of origin. God bless them. In 2016, Méliès’s Match de Prestidigitation (1904) was found in the Czech National Film Archive.

Purchase this film for your personal copy at 15 American pennies per foot of film. Therefore, Post No Bills at 65 feet in length, would cost you $9.75 in 1896 and it took four weeks to send you your copy from Paris.

No wonder Blockbuster went under. What a deal.

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1896+
MARIE-GEORGES-JEAN MÉLIÈS
THE FIRST AUTEUR – HIS FILMS BETWEEN 1896 & 1902
Méliès had appeared in, written, produced, and directed nearly all of his five hundred films by the time he died in 1938. A must watch. Runs 12:07

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1896
THE HAUNTED CASTLE
Possibly our first Vampire movie as Georges Méliès transforms a bat into the devil using his new stop ‘n go technique. There is no blood sucking.

Thought lost until a print was discovered in New Zealand in 1988. Runs 3:18

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1896
PLAYING CARDS
Méliès first film and listed as No 1 in his catalogue. A remake of Lumière’s La Partie de Cartes also in 1896. Méliès himself is seen in the centre, and his brother Gaston on Georges right, or our screen left, and his little daughter Georgette as the serving girl even though the woman does the serving according to law.

Lost for 85 years until found in 1981. Runs 1:27

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1896
A NIGHTMARE (LE CAUCHEMAR)
Georges Méliès Star Film Company archived as Nº 82. The advertising listed it as scène fantastique.

Filmed outside in the garden of Méliès property in Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis, France. How is a pretty girl (his wife) sitting at the end of your bed a nightmare?

Runs 1:10

1896
LE COUCHER DE LA MARIÉE
Portrait photographer Louis Eugène Pirou was the Pathé Frères producer for this risqué film with Albert ‘Léar’ Kirchner directing. Louise Willy played the wife. The original seven minutes had decayed in the tin to under two minutes when found in 1996.

Here is one minute and thirty-seven seconds of those two minutes.

1896
Canadian William Charles Billington photographed Cliff House and Seal Rocks, San Francisco in 1896 showing a Camera Obscura in the Southwest turret (left side of left photo).

Left image Bob Bragman Collection

Right image Jack and Beverly Wilgus Collection via Luminous-Lint.

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Petersen photographed the first Danish film called Kørsel Med Grønlandske Hunde (Driving with Greenlandic Sled Dogs), January 1897. Despite its title, it was shot in a Copenhagen parkland called Fælledparken.

SEE one and a half minutes of the two-minute film here.

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many of Elfelt’s films have been preserved and constitute an historic archive of life in Denmark around the end of the 19th century

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Petersen changed his name to Elfelt and began filming a series of reportage films, which involved a succession of royal arrivals, funerals, children’s activities, sports, animal shows, politicians, parades, and other exhibitory themes for the public.

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1897
BRANDVÆSNET RYKKER UD
Peter Elfelt (Peter Lars Petersen prior to his name change) filmed this as one of the earliest Danish films. Translated to English as The Fire Department Moves Out. Completed for public viewing on 26 December. Runs 43 seconds.

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1903
THE EXECUTION (HENRETTELSEN)
Photographed at Christiansborg Castle, also named Capital Execution was Denmark’s first theatrical film running seven minutes by Peter Elfelt. Based on the true execution of a French lady for murdering her two children.

WATCH one minute and thirty seconds here.

Peter Elfelt was not convinced that story-telling in motion pictures was something the public would want. He concentrated on his news and documentaries, and reportages.

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1896
THE TRAMP AND THE DOG
From Colonel William Nicholas’s Selig Polyscope Company. Selig made 2,500 films beginning in 1896, many from his Chicago base. This was his first.

Selig used the Andrew Schustek camera which was based on the Lumière Cinématographe to film.

^{– Jeff Look, great-grandnephew of W. N. Selig}

This copy from the film archive of the National Library of Norway. Runs 1:22

1896
THE MOTOGRAPH MOVING PICTURE BOOK
WALTER SYMONS (1855-1905)
Symons received British Patent № 5759 on 14 March, 1896 for a publishing technique that caused pages in a book to appear to move. This process was used two years later making this book the oldest known publication that used two known everyday resources to create the illusion of motion in a static picture.

The secret and combined materials that caused this apparition were talc, and a ribbed page transparency. It helped too, that Symons was a publisher.

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THE MOIRÉ EFFECT
Here is a pretty good and contemporary description of the Symons Motograph Moving Picture Book published in The Spectator, 1 January 1898. It explains what it is, how it works, and offers a visual account as you read.

This technique falls under what is called Moiré. This very brief article fell under the heading Current Literature. Fascinating is the closing sentence by the editor that “Apparently, the secret is to be found in the fact that the talc is ribbed.”

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Let’s have a look at what all this means. If you look in the top right corner of the transparency in this video, as it’s slid downwards, you will see the ribbing or lines, at work causing the smoke to appear to billow. This is the only place where the magic of motion appears in this video unfortunately.

I have better videos showing this effect coming up. But for now let’s watch this one.

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THE RIBBED COMMENT
The London publisher Symons proposed a transparent sheet with either horizontal or vertical ribbed lines be placed on top of a particular type of image that had Moiré stripes, in 1896. The London publisher Bliss, Sands and Company published the Motograph Moving Picture Book as a result.

Seeing is the best definition of the Moiré effect. When you move or slide the transparency over the image at different speeds, you will see the dark Moiré effect change into movement.

The appearance of motion in a static book.

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THE TALC COMMENT
Talc is a magnesium silicate mineral which can appear translucent to opaque and in-between. Because of its composition and crystal structure, talc has a number of intriguing optical characteristics. Talc has luster, because light interacts with the surfaces of the talc crystals.

Talc is translucent to opaque as I said, depending on the quality and thickness of the crystals. Less talc is more likely to be translucent, while thicker masses can be opaque.

Talc is not birefringent, which means it does not exhibit double refraction like some other minerals. When viewed under a polarizing microscope, talc will not show the characteristic interference colours observed in birefringent minerals.

Talc has low dispersion, meaning it does not separate light into its component colours like a prism does.

These and other optical characteristics of talc fit in nicely with Symon’s Motograph Moving Picture Book and the Moiré effect. In powder form, talc will help slide the transparency over the lined image quite smoothly. Ask any baby.

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Berthier’s photos, seen here, help to demonstrate the process.The upper image of Figure 4.31 shows the strip grid placed on the composite image. Unlike motographs, a space is required between the image and the grid.

The composite image is presented at the bottom left, while the two images that an observer would see with the left and right eyes are shown next to it on the right. The 3D effect will be difficult to see here since the large black lines will distort the overall image perception. Image from Basics of Virtual Reality: From the Discovery of Perspective, Armin Grasnick, 2022, p252.

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Notice in the Berthier picture, that he used scissors to cut his grid lines to lay over it. Very high tech. Image from Basics of Virtual Reality: From the Discovery of Perspective, Armin Grasnick, 2022, p252.

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Four of the pages in Walter Symons Motograph Moving Picture Book published in 1898 by Bliss, Sands and Company, London. Notice the cover design was completed by the famed Parisian painter Toulouse Lautrec.

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Henry Vaux Hopwood was a contemporary of many of the pre cinema pioneers of the late 19th century. His book Living Pictures published in 1899 offers this one hundred and twenty-six year old (as of 2025) characterization on Symon’s Motograph Moving Picture Book;

“Though not exactly depending upon Apparent Motion, this ingenious device (issued by Messrs. Bliss, Sands, and Co.) may well be mentioned here, its effect being secured by a novel application of an old principle. Every one, presumably, remembers the Lantern Chromotrope, the “twinkle, twinkle, little star,” of earlier days. The apparent motion of the Chromotrope is due to the intersection of curved coloured lines rotated in opposite directions. As these revolve, the point of intersection is removed either to or away from the edge of the screen, and this is the source of the apparent motion. In the Moving Picture Book engravings of a machine, volcano, or what not are printed with the shading lines very distinct, and running in definite directions. A transparent ruled screen is supplied with the book, and when this is laid down on the engraving and given a certain motion, the intersections of all the ruled lines on the screen with the shading lines of the drawing are continually displaced, and give the effect of motion in a direction determined by the direction of the shading lines.”

_{– Hopwood, Living Pictures, 1899, page 153}

1896
THE VIVOMATÓGRAFO
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA
This projector-only, with the name Vivomatógrafo screens films in Buenos Aires between 6-8 July by a gentleman named Enrique de Mayrena, first in a salon called Calle Florida and then in the Odeon Theatre pictured here.

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Subsequently, there were daily screenings in a room of 50 chairs, from 11:30am to 11pm, until the end of August. After August 12th, a new program was offered. The origin of the films shown in that first series of screenings has not yet been identified with certainty.

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However, in his work Chronology of the Birth of Cinema 1833–1896, 2022 on pages 283 and 284 Deac Rossell tells us the first daily screenings from 6 July were;

Llegada de un tren a la estación; Las vistas del mar; Plaza de la Vendome, Paris; Hyde Park de Londres; Puente de Blackfriant, Londres; Combate de box.

And beginning 12 August the films shown were;

Llegada de un batteau-mouche en el Sena; Trafalgar Square – Londres; Danza egipcia; Dúo acrobático; Escena en un café; Baile del Moulin Rouge, Hyde Park, Les Halles, Jugadores de naipes, El graben en Viena; Boulevard Haussman; El regador reegado; Serpentina con colores; Coronación del zar Nicolás

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Eugène Alejandro Cardini (1879-1962) was an Argentine amateur filmmaker and photographer. He is considered a pioneer of cinematography in Argentina, being the filmmaker of one of the first fictional films in the country called Scenes Callejeras (1902).

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WATCH a few seconds of Plaza de Mayo (1902) by Argentine film pioneer Eugène Alejandro Cardini.

1896
THE SINÉPHOTOGRAPHE
EUGÈNE CHABOT
Eugène Chabot was part of a family of Fairground entertainers. His father ran a Théâtre Mécanique (mechanical theatre), and both Eugène and his brother Henri became involved in the burgeoning world of moving pictures.

On 12 July 1896, Eugène Chabot introduced the Cinéphotographe, also known as the Sinéphotographe, developed by L’Epée, in La Roche-sur-Yon, France. This early motion picture device was showcased at his Théâtre Chabot, which operated until July 18, 1896.

The Sinéphotographe was one of several rival devices to the motion pictures apparatuses of the world. It was developed to bring the new spectacle of animated images to travelling fairs and local audiences in France. Chabot’s machine is remembered in regional histories of cinema as one of the “heroic era” devices that helped popularize film outside major cities.

Today, it stands as a reminder that cinema’s birth was not just the work of a few famous inventors, but a collective innovation across the globe, with figures like Eugène Chabot playing a role in its democratization.

1896
THE KINEMATOGRAPH
JOHN HENRY RIGG (1865-1939)
Rigg, an electrical engineer and producer of telephones, phonographs, and other e-devices, lived in Leeds. He had his own recording studio and produced recordings for Leeds theatre performers. In early 1896, Rigg partnered with William Isaac Hurst to develop a motion picture projector.

One of Rigg’s main selling points was that his machine was relatively compact and could be used by traveling showmen. While Rigg provided the engineering and electrical expertise, Hurst was often the one handling the practical demonstrations.

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Kumberg was associated with the Anglo-Continental Phonograph Company, which helped market and exploit the machine. While Rigg handled much of the manufacturing in Leeds, Kumberg’s connections in London were vital for the projector’s public exhibition and commercial reach.

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This became the centre of a patent dispute, which was ultimately settled in Rigg’s favor. Unlike many contemporary projectors that were hand-cranked, the Rigg & Kumberg Kinematograph was unusually driven by an electric motor.

They experimented with synchronizing the projector with a loud-speaking phonograph to provide sound or music, an early attempt at talkies nearly 30 years before they became the industry standard.

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Rigg converted the projector into a camera. He also created the Kinetophone, which was the Kinematograph projector synchronised with a phonograph to produce music to the accompanying films. One was Switchback in Operation at Shipley Glen photographed in September 1897.

Kumberg was a prolific inventor in his own right. Outside of his work with Rigg, he is well known for the Telephonograph, an early device designed to record telephone conversations (a precursor to the answering machine), for which he filed patents in 1899.

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Rigg made a small but real contribution to early cinema technology, particularly in the transitional phase from late Magic Lantern culture to Motion Picture projection

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As for Hurst, he was the face of the operation, responsible for bringing the Kinematograph to the public. Hurst’s primary contribution was the commercial exhibition of the Kinematograph. He acted as the manager and presenter, ensuring the machine was not just an invention in a lab but a public attraction.

It is worth noting that William Isaac Hurst is a name shared by several individuals in historical records including a well-documented family in the United States.

However, in the context of British cinema history, he is specifically identified as the London-based manager and showman who collaborated with Rigg of Leeds and Kumberg of London to launch one of Britain’s earliest successful projection systems.

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By 1898, the pioneer era was ending. Larger companies with better distribution networks and more reliable technology (like Paul or Hepworth in the UK) began to dominate the market.

Rigg’s Kinematograph Syndicate eventually went into liquidation around the turn of the century, and Rigg returned to his roots in general electrical engineering. View the June 1897 issue of the Optical Magic Lantern Journal, page xii (between pages 104 and 105) here.

1896
SHADOWGRAPHY
FÉLICIEN TREUWE (1848-1920)
Félicien (Treuwe Anglicised as Trewey) was a magician who died at the age of 72; the same year his book The Art of Shadowgraphy: How it is Done was published. Trewey’s hand Shadowgraphy performances (Ombres Chinoises) are firmly rooted in live optical illusion and bodily animation, not mechanical reproduction.

The practice relies on light, projection, Silhouette, temporal transformation, and spectator perception — all core pre cinema concerns.

His work sits in the same lineage as 18th and 19th century Shadow Theatre; popular science demonstrations; and Magic Lantern performance culture (minus the apparatus).

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Trewey crosses the boundary when his shadow acts are filmed (notably by the Lumières in 1896). At that point, the performance remains pre cinematic in origin, but the artifact is cinema.

Shadowgraphy or as it’s sometimes known, Ombromanie, is the art of performing pre cinema motion story-telling using images made by projected hand shadows. It was also called “cinema in silhouette.”

Performers are titled as a Shadowgraphiste or Shadowgraphers. I will have more to say on Ombromanie in future posts.

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with his fingers and ingenious little Silhouettes worn thimble fashion he cast life size moving shadow figures on the canvas

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He demonstrates how the body itself functioned as an image-producing mechanism before cinema. His work exposes the continuity between: embodied illusion projection without media and later cinematic representation. He’s a terminal figure — one whose art is pre cinema in method but absorbed by cinema as subject matter.

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SEE the only film of Félicien Trewey we have. Thirty-one seconds of Trewey performing plate waltzing before a camera.

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These two pages from Terry Ramsaye, A Million and One Nights- A History of The Motion Picture Through 1925, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1986, on pp242 and 243 explain the Félicien Trewey magical pre cinema projection method “was a capable approximation of the motion picture.”

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Here we see sixteen seconds of Félicien Trewey doing hat impersonations alleged to be from 1897.

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Here from The Art of Shadowgraphy- How it is Done from 1920 is Félicien Trewey’s explanation with visual help, of his Shadowgraphy on pp3, 5, 7.

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READ the Félicien Treuwe book The Art of Shadowgraphy: How it is Done (Jordison and Company Limited, London, UK, 1920) at Internet Archive.

I would say Trewey’s Shadowgraphy is legitimately pre cinema in practice, historically transitional in context, and cinematic only by later appropriation, not by intent or design.

The Lumière brothers’ Cinématographe may have been used for the first show in Brazil on 8 July 1896 in Rio de Janeiro, under the name Omnigrapho.

The two machines seen beside Affonso are not Lumière Cinématographes. The showman was Paschoal Segreto (1868–1920). Paschoal opened Brazil’s first cinema in Rio de Janeiro on 31 July 1897.

Affonso brought a Cinématographe back from Europe in 1898 and started filming actuality scenes, including early depictions of Guanabara Bay and reenacted local crimes, some of the earliest Brazilian film footage.

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Directed by Federico Ferrone and Michele Manzolini, it narratively dramatizes the story of Pasquale, Gaetano, and Alfonso Segreto—Italian immigrant brothers who rose from poverty to dominate Rio’s nightlife and ultimately become Brazil’s first filmmakers.

It blends fact and fiction, between myth and memory, tracing their rise and fall.

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the only local Brazilian film producers until the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, were the Italian-Brazilian Segreto brothers

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The footage he shot of Guanabara Bay in 1898 is often cited as Brazil’s first moving images, though there’s debate whether the film actually survived.

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Paschoal Segreto produced 89 films. Affonso Segreto as a director had 100 films accredited to his name. He was Cinematographer on 83 of those films as well. Vistas de Aspectos Fluminenses in 1898 was their first film, which has never been found.

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Here is what the Gazeta de Notícias reported on 20 June 1898, from a reliable compilation on Brasiliana Fotográfica: “Before disembarking in Rio de Janeiro, Affonso filmed with a Lumière camera the entrance into Guanabara Bay, the fortresses and the anchored ships” (second column).

It’s cited as Brazil’s first film and is considered the origin of the “Day of Brazilian Cinema.” This is the only explicit contemporary mention of Affonso Segreto filming footage from the ship’s arrival, and it’s exactly what earned that date its symbolic weight in Brazilian film history.

The report describes a static panorama or a ‘vista’ capturing the bay’s fortresses as seen from the ship Brésil.

According to Luke McKernan at Who’s Who of Victorian Cinema;

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Because the film appears never to have been publicly screened, and the original prints are lost, some scholars I have found, treat the 19–20 June filming as pioneering symbolism, rather than a concrete debut screening.

According to historian Ana Rita Mendonça, the only local Brazilian film producers until the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, were the Italian-Brazilian Segreto brothers. It’s been estimated that 1,600+ films were produced in Brazil between 1896 and 1926.

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WATCH a one minute 38 second video on the history of Brazilian cinema from Hugo Coimbra in a timeline format with sound on. Covers the period 1896 to 2002. Terrific soundtrack.

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an authenticated Lapipe Lapiposcope 35mm projector dated to 1896 including the dust

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The 8 September, 1896 Lapiposcope patent read “New device system for taking and projecting moving photographic views, known as the Lapiposcope.”

This device is fully described with illustrations (below) on pages 87 to 89 of Eugène Trutat’s book La Photographie Animée.

It has a preface by E. J. Marey.

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Eugène Trutat began to practice photography in 1859 and regularly published technical works on the subject. He is the author of nearly 15,000 photographs, including Autochromes.

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Norman C. Raff and Frank R. Gammon were two prominent American businessmen who played a significant role in the early days of motion pictures. They negotiated with Thomas Armat to purchase rights to his Phantoscope. They then approached Edison to manufacture the machine which then became the Edison Vitascope.

Edison completes and shows his Vitascope projector, which used the same film as the Kinetoscope. He presents the Vitascope for the first time in New York City at the Koster and Bial’s Music Hall, the present location of Macy’s Herald Square flagship store.

If you visit the store, you can find one of two commemorative bronze plaques near the 34th Street entrance. The building was originally built in 1892 by Oscar Hammerstein I (grandfather of the famous lyricist) as the Manhattan Opera House.

The Vitascope plaque reads:

“Here the motion picture began. At Koster and Bial’s Music Hall, on this site, April 23, 1896, Thomas Alva Edison first projected a moving picture on a screen before a public audience.” Not exactly a true statement, but afterall, every camp or nation makes its own “first” statements on their citizens motion picture accomplishments.

When his opera venture struggled financially, he partnered with John Koster and Albert Bial. Under their management, the venue became one of the most famous vaudeville houses in the world. It is most historically significant for being the site of the first public exhibition of projected motion pictures in the US using Thomas Edison’s Vitascope on 23 April, 1896.

New York City’s Koster and Bials Music Hall hosted the inaugural Vitascope presentation 23 April, 1896.

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although Thomas Armat was the true creator, Edison was given credit for the device in order to boost its popularity

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Below left how it may have looked on 23 April, 1896, in Koster and Bial’s Music Hall and on the right, the actual interior of the hall from a photograph in 1896.

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Vitascope and other early performances had numerous issues with electrical current that was not standardized across the country, and the guy who operated the gear was billed as the electrician, a title that supplanted ‘lanternist’ before projectionist was established.

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Here is another impression from an artist of how it may have looked “40 years ago.” This double image is taken from the Motion Picture Herald 25 April, 1936 on page 15, showing the Vitascope premiere.

Left image shows a spoolbank being used on both machines. Interestingly, there is actually a second historical plaque inside the store (near the Memorial Entrance), dedicated to Isidor and Ida Straus, the owners of Macy’s who died together on the Titanic.

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^{Right image Science Museum Group}

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When Edison manufactured his Projecting Kinetoscope in 1896, (it was shown to the public in early 1897), Eastman and other film makers were not producing 35 mm celluloid longer than fifty feet.

The rollers of the spoolbank are clearly seen in these close-ups.

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The first Projecting Kinetoscope was called the spool bank (or spoolbank). Shown here with its enclosing cabinet.

It was called the spool bank because, like the arcade Peephole Kinetoscope of 1894, it did not have supply or take-up reels.

^{Images Science Museum Group}

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The spoolbank Projecting Kinetoscope did not have supply or take-up reels, instead allowing the filmstrip to loop constantly through a series of spools that fed the projection head.

^{Images Science Museum Group}

1896
THE BIOMATOGRAPH / EDISON’S IDEAL
HERMANN O. FOERSTERLING (1857-1912)
Foersterling, born in Aschersleben, was a German manufacturer and promoter who played a role in the early history of cinema. Before getting into cinema, his firm, H.O. Foersterling & Co. in Berlin, was a small-time manufacturer of advertising novelties.

In the first half of 1896, his company was among several in Germany that began making cinema apparatus. He built the Biomatograph, screening films beginning in August. The device was I think, based on the Pierre-Victor Continsouza projector I have reported on. Foersterling was instrumental in bringing Acres and Stollwerck together.

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By the end of 1896, Foersterling’s equipment was being used in Germany, Holland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Switzerland. Also nic-named the Hoppograph, the Biomatograph was improved upon and became known as Edison’s Ideal (a clever promotional scheme).

As Rossell states in Beyond Messter: Aspects of Early Cinema in Berlin, page 4, Foersterling was “slyly associating his product with the work of Edison.”

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From Chronology of the Birth of Cinema, 1833–1896, Deac Rossell, June 2024, Indiana University Press, p343 we see what the Foersterling Biomatograph / Edison’s Ideal / Hoppograph looked like.

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There is so much more on Hermann O. Foersterling outside this pre cinema study, that I encourage you to read Beyond Messter: Aspects of Early Cinema in Berlin, Deac Rossell, in Film History, v. 10 No. 1 (1998), pp 52 – 69 available in pdf form here at Academia.

1896
PORTUGUESE CINEMA
The stately opera house and theatre Teatro Dona Amélia opened in Lisbon 15 August 1894 and a yet-to-be-identified projector was installed in 1896. It may have been the Lumière Cinématographe or the Darling / Wrench cinematograph. The theatre, which opened on 22 May, was originally named after Queen Dona Amélia. After the overthrow of the monarchy in 1910, it was renamed Teatro da República.

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Cinematographo Libório is what was marketed at the Teatro. The films of Méliès and Paul in-between acts of plays and at the end of the play were shown. Press coverage was extensive.

In 1928 the theatre was refurbished for permanent cinema projection and premiered Lang’s Metropolis.

In 1914, the building was destroyed by a fire but was quickly rebuilt. In 1918, it was renamed Teatro São Luiz in honor of the Viscount of São Luiz de Braga, one of its original benefactors.

1896
VIDAMOTÓGRAFO
Rossell reports that an unidentified projector “advertised as a Vidamotógrafo, opens at Avenida No. 32, San Sebastian, Spain, as the first screening in the Basque country, 23 July 1896.” Chronology of the Birth of Cinema, 1833–1896, Rossell, 2022, p297.

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Here are five pages of descriptions and illustrations of the Selig Patent Nº 712462 dated 28 Oct., 1902, found in Selig Polyscope Movie Projectors Made by William N. Selig, A compilation By Soterios Gardiakos, published by Unigraphics, 2010, pp14, 15, 16, 17.

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A selection of Selig film posters, from the 1903 Catalogue, the Soterios Gardiakos Collection, from Selig Polyscope Movie Projectors Made by William N. Selig, A compilation By Soterios Gardiakos, Unigraphics, 2010, p53-55.

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not only was he a well known and successful American film studio pioneer, he was also best friends with the king of the jungle

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Selig’s studio in the prominent Edendale area of Los Angeles, c. 1910, both pictures.

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AN ANGELIC ATTITUDE (1916)
Tom Mix made 40 movies in 1916. He wrote, directed and stars in this one. A Selig Polyscope thirteen-minute East meets West, western. Victoria Forde (who plays Grace) and Mix married in 1918, his 4^th wife.

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MGM kept their lions at the Selig Polyscope Zoo in Los Angeles.

One of the cats was named Jackie (1915–1935). He was MGM’s 2nd lion used out of eleven. Jackie was the lion that was photographed for the MGM logo for their 1939 production of The Wizard of Oz.

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There, he shifted from gelatin-bromide photographic plates to celluloid, developing self-tensioning frames for flat, flexible film, leading to the founding of the Union Photographique de Boulogne, Europe’s first photographic film factory.

Planchon develops for Louis Lumière, what becomes known as the Blue Label emulsion process (Etiquette bleue) for photographic plates used by the Lumière lab for manufacturing their celluloid.

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the town of Boulogne-sur-Mer, France honoured Planchon and his work with this very creative memorial statue of him, not far from the Marilyn Monroe commemorative ‘subway vent’ memorial

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His collaboration with the Lumière brothers was crucial. In 1894, they tasked Planchon with creating a longer, more flexible celluloid film than Eastman’s, which he delivered in 1895, enabling the Lumière’s cinematograph.

A mutual exclusivity contract ensured Lumière used only Planchon’s films, coated with their Etiquette Bleue emulsion.

Not only a chemist, Planchon was also an avid student of photography and its many processes, particularly gelatin bromide plates, and he developed a much stronger interest in celluloid. Planchon was invited to see the Cinématographe in action and in his own words later said;

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They manufactured in excess of 24.85 miles of cinematograph celluloid per working day. In order to produce such quantities, three other factories were opened in Feyzin. Pictured the Lumière Factory c. 1900, Lyon.

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The town of Boulogne-sur-Mer, France honoured Planchon and his work with this very creative memorial statue of him, not far from the Marilyn Monroe commemorative subway vent memorial.

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Planchon had been a chemist from Paris who took over a government pathology lab at Boulogne. Post-World War I, competition from Pathé led Planchon to pivot to artificial silk production under Henri Lumière. Without heirs, his industrial legacy ended with his death in Lyon in 1935.

Planchon’s US Patent for the Blue Label emulsion process states in its opening lines;

1896
EDMUND AND LEON BLOCH
Edmund and Leon Bloch were brothers who formed a camera manufacturing firm in Paris around 1890, specializing in disguised or detective cameras. Leon Bloch designed the cameras, while Edmund handled manufacturing.

Their company, advertised as “Leon Bloch, inventor – manufacturer,” was located at 1 Avenue de la République, Paris. They produced innovative spy cameras. Bloch patents the Physiographe, a stereo camera made in the shape of small binoculars. The chamber on the right side of the camera could hold up to 12 plates sized 1.7 x 4.2 inches. Produced in France from 1896. The lenses were f/6.8, 52 mm.

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The camera manufacturing Bloch’s, was founded in 1890 by two brothers, Edmund and Leon. They specialised in detective cameras that were either disguised or hidden. Leon designed the cameras, while Edmund built them.

Physiographe, a subminiature camera resembled a monocular binocular for discreet photography. The Physiographe featured Jena glass achromat lenses or Cooke lenses, and was constructed with all-metal bodies covered in Morocco leather.

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Edmund and Leon Bloch’s Physiographe binocular camera was an upgraded version of the monocular Physiographe. In 1900, the camera was enhanced by using a film magazine rather than individual plate photographs. Motion was an upgrade indeed.

Another significant creation was the Sherlock Holmes camera (circa 1912), a rare magazine box camera disguised as a briefcase. Their designs influenced later models like the Nettel Argus and Zeiss Ergo and were sold in the UK by firms like Leuchars and Son and Watson and Sons.

1896
THE GEORGES MÉLIÈS-ROBERT W. PAUL CAMERA
Robert Paul’s projector, dubbed the Animatographe was projecting at the Alhambra Theatre, Leicester Square, London. This was March 1896. Paul began selling his projectors to a variety of interested buyers.

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Méliès first camera is pictured below. It was a Paul projector and transformed into a camera by Méliès following purchase. The annals of English pre cinema history throughout the last 126 years have not written on this “man and apparatus” relationship.

^{Image Cinémathèque Française}

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Laurent Mannoni of the Cinémathèque Française has inspected this camera. Stephen Herbert of The Optilogue and Who’s Who in Victorian Cinema shares his authentication of the apparatus here;

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Below left, the Paul projector from the Science Museum Collection, showing the seven-arm Maltese cross design.

Right is the Sprocket side.

Compare this view with the previous illustration of Méliès’ camera.

^{Photographs by Stephen Herbert taken at the Science Museum}

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Stephen Herbert in The Optilogue article, explains how he assisted the pre-production of Hugo, citing the Maltese cross that Méliès changed, vital to his conversion of the Paul projector to the camera;

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The Robert Paul projector referenced in the above quote by Herbert. It sits in the foreground of this scene where Méliès played by Kingsley converts the Paul projector into the first Méliès camera. Frame from the Scorsese film Hugo released in 2011 by Paramount Pictures.

Appleton was a notable British manufacturer and pioneer in the early days of photography and cinematography. He inherited and expanded his father’s photographic and Magic Lantern outfitting business, Appleton and Company, in Bradford, Yorkshire.

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It was reported that nearly 250,000 spectators saw Queen Victoria’s Jubilee procession in the days following mostly thanks to the cinematography of Appleton and other pioneers like William Hughes that also filmed the event. This is photography from one of those pioneers.

_{Queen Victoria’s Jubilee procession, Royal Collection Trust / BFI, unknown photographer}

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Nonetheless, he is rarely spoken of. Most historians pass over him and give the spotlight to the more well-established names like Acres, Friese-Green, and Paul.

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We advanced so much further towards true cinematography due to the work of these men. Whatever you will be viewing tonight, thanks be to them.

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it was reported that nearly 250,000 spectators saw Queen Victoria’s Jubilee procession in the days following, thanks to the cinematography

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The Leeds Times reported on page seven of the 19 December 1896 issue that;

1896
THE PHOTOTACHYGRAPHE
RAOUL GRIMOIN-SANSON (1860-1941)
Raoul Grimoin-Sanson invented the Phototachygraphe, a pioneering device in the later history of cinema, patented on 5 March 1896 № 254515. This device was an early step toward projecting moving images, inspired by the desire to project films like those seen in any of the other cinematographs.

It was a crude but innovative camera-projector combination designed to both capture and project moving images. Grimoin-Sanson, who began experimenting with moving pictures in 1895 after acquiring a Kinetoscope copy from Robert W. Paul in England, aimed to advance beyond the Kinetoscope’s limitation of single-viewer peephole viewing.

The Phototachygraphe used a rudimentary mechanism to move 70mm film through the device. The film, wound on a free-moving reel, passed over drive rollers, through a gate (boîte-fenêtre), and was guided by a pinned cylinder before being rewound onto a receiving reel.

A hand-cranked gear wheel drove the system, controlling an escapement mechanism and a pinned cylinder to advance the film intermittently, ensuring the desired frame-by-frame motion. An obturator (shutter) was synchronized via an angle pinion, and a belt drove the take-up reel.

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The initial 1896 version used a 14-pin gear wheel for film advancement, which was noisy and unreliable. By November 1896, Grimoin-Sanson improved it with a refined escapement mechanism, patented as the Multiplex Projector, which I will talk about soon. This made it more suitable for serial production at his Montrouge workshops.

Grimoin-Sanson demonstrated the Phototachygraphe on 12 May 1896, to the Photo-club rouennais and later exhibited it at the Exposition nationale et coloniale de Rouen in 1896, earning a gold medal. This was a significant moment, as it showcased his ability to project moving images to an audience, though his claims of being a primary inventor of cinema are debated.

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1896
LE PANTOMIMOGRAPHE
CHARLES ALIBERT (1848 – d)
Alibert who was a maker of traditional French old walnut tailboard cameras, operating at 12 St. Martin in Paris. The Pantomimograph was designed and built by Alibert and patented by Georges Messager in June 1896.

It was notably exhibited at Earl’s Court in London, which hosted various exhibitions, including the Victorian Era Exhibition in 1897, where new technologies and entertainment were showcased.

It was used at the Aquarium for the exhibition of a celebrated prize-fight, with negatives secured by the Veriscope. This suggests it was capable of projecting longer sequences of animated content. The instrument was electrically driven, and its intermittent motion was achieved by a variable-screw acting on a cogged wheel attached to the sprocket-roller.

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He even collaborated with Bernard Kauffer on a Photographic Lady’s Handbag camera in 1895 which I talked about recently. He began marketing the Pantomimograph in 1897. Surprisingly little is known of the device or man. We know it ran film that was perforated on its edges.

Its power was a hand crank and a toothed wheel opening and closing the shutter, and activating a Maltese Cross.

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The Pantomimograph was designed to project animated images, creating the illusion of movement. This was a crucial step in the development of moving pictures. The Pantomimograph had a hand crank, rack and pinion gearing and toothed wheels. It’s described as a Maltese-cross motion machine.

This is a specific type of intermittent movement mechanism often used in early projectors and film cameras to advance the film frame by frame, then hold it still for projection, and then quickly advance to the next frame. This intermittent motion is essential for preventing blurring and creating clear, stable projected images.

Below, Patent № 257730, the first page and the illustrated schematic “Apparatus for photographing and projecting animated scenes, called Pantomimograph.”

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In essence, the Pantomimograph was an important piece of early cinematic technology that helped to bring “living pictures” to audiences in the late 19th century. Its use of the Maltese cross mechanism was a significant engineering solution for achieving smooth and stable projection of animated images.

1896
BIRT ACRES (1854-1918)
ROBERT WILLIAM PAUL (1869-1943)
Co-inventors, Paul and Acres team up to design and build the Kineopticon. The relationship soured after six weeks because Acres had claimed the Camera for his own.

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The fall-out between the two started when Acres had filed sole patent papers without Robert Paul’s knowledge.

Here we have two drawings by the famed French illustrator Poyej, of the Kineopticon from two angles, and Acres Kinetic Camera schematic illustration.

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Acres fell in love with motion photography however, he first returned to his homeland America, and for a short time became a frontiersman

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Here is a write-up on the Kinetic Camera from R. Child Bayley’s book Modern Magic Lanterns- A Guide to The Management of The Optical Lantern, L. Upcott Gill, London, Charles Scribner and Sons, New York, 1900 on pp102 and 103.

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1896
YARMOUTH FISHING BOATS LEAVING HARBOUR
Shot by Birt Acres in the summer of 1896. Considered lost but discovered by Ray Henville (placed in his collection in 1995). One of a repertoire of twenty-one films screened by Acres to the royal family 21 July.

_{Yarmouth Fishing Boats Leaving Harbour, Birt Acres, 1896}

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Pictured: Max Skladanowsky and his original Bioscop used in the Circus Variété tour in Oslo Norway 1896 and on the right, the original and extant Bioscop in the Potsdam Film Museum.

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The legendary projection apparatus Bioscop rests in the foyer of the Potsdam Film Museum. In July 1895, the Skladanowskys held a screening in the Berlin-Pankow tavern Feldschlößchen where they exhibited sequences that had previously been shot in the bar’s garden.

A mosaic strip with the inscription 1895 BIOSKOP 1995 currently stands in front of the old location of the Feldschlößchen.

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In November 1895 a four-week engagement of the brothers Skladanowsky took place at the Wintergarten Variete was advertised as “the most interesting invention of the modern age.”

These frames from Skladanowsky’s Bioscop camera / projector were from a presentation given on 1 November, 1895 at the Wintergarten Variete Hall in Berlin.

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This 35 second clip shows two children dancing an Italian folk dance from the Ploetz-Larella dance group. Premiered 1 November 1895. A Skladanowsky production. Sound on.

_{Skladanowsky Ploetz-Larella dance, 1895, Iconauta production}

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the legendary projection apparatus Bioscop rests in the foyer of the Potsdam Film Museum

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Max Skladanowsky travelled to Paris in December 1895 and was present at the Café presentation by the brothers Lumière on the 28^th, and witnessed their ten actualitiés.

The boxer’s name is a Mr. Belvedere. The kangaroo’s name, we do not know. Don’t expect a KO, it was a draw but I give the win to the Kangaroo for creative style.

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SEE the Skladanowsky Bioscop Wintergarten program in Berlin in its entirety from 1 November 1895. All 9 films are shown in order as they were that night in Berlin. Courtesy Iconauta.

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Photograph of the second Wintergarten Variete built in 1946 on the left. The original had opened in 1880 and the present, is the 1946 Hall, rebuilt in 1962.

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SEE Wim Wender’s A Trick of the Light (Trailer 1995) of the Skladanowsky brothers, running 3:06. Lucie Hürtgen-Skladanowsky (1904-2001) reminisces about her sister Gertrud and father Max.

1896
THE KINEOPTOSCOPE
CECIL WRAY (1866-1944)
Cecil Wray was born in 1866 and lived in Terrace, Bradford, UK. His interest in cinematography developed early, positioning him at the forefront of the burgeoning film industry. By the mid-1890s, Wray was actively engaged in experimenting with and inventing devices to project moving images, building on the foundational work of other pre cinema pioneers.

Wray’s Kineoptoscope was a projecting device which when attached to a Magic Lantern became a film projector. Fitted in front of the lantern, the Kineoptoscope was manufactured for Wray by lantern makers, the Riley Brothers.

On 3 January 1895, Wray patented a lantern/prism device designed to project Kinetoscope peep show pictures onto a screen, an early step toward making film viewing a communal experience rather than an individual one. This invention marked his entry into the field of film projection technology.

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The Kineoptoscope had no sprocket wheels but an intermittent movement containing a four-pin claw to pull down the film. On 9 March 1896, Wray delivered a lecture to the Bradford Photographic Society titled ‘Phonographs, Kinetoscopes, and the Kinetograph,’ where he discussed advancements in cinematography and promoted the use of the Edison-Bell Phonograph as a tool for recording.

On 11 June 1896, he showcased films in Bradford using a device referred to as the Cinetograph, likely his Kineoptoscope, further demonstrating his innovations to the public. Wray also assisted in the British version of the Edison Kinetoscope by Robert Paul, becoming a projector in 1895.

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Wray partnered with Cecil William Baxter and Bradford clockmaker Joseph Oulton to establish premises at Borough Mills, Manchester Road, Bradford. Together, they designed and manufactured the B & W Cinematograph, a robust cine camera/projector claimed to be the first of its kind used in Japan.

On 6 May 1897, they patented the Perfection Cinematograph, a device similar to the Kineoptoscope but marketed for its durability and versatility, capable of both photographing and projecting films of varying lengths.

Their advertisements boasted that the machine “never gets out of order” and could handle films from 50 feet to half a mile in length (2,640 feet). They also sold films, including those by pioneering filmmaker George Méliès. Below right is the Kineoptoscope without the lantern, and left, with the lantern. The Kineoptoscope was eventually sold by Wray back to the Riley’s.

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The Kineoptoscope was marketed as being;

🎬 “As steady as Lumière’s.”

🎬 “There are no breakdowns.”

🎬 “The most portable and perfect known.”

With each downward stroke of the handle, a double-toothed claw mechanism gripped the perforations in the film, advancing it one frame.

The partnership with Baxter was short-lived, and by 1899, Wray was trading independently from the same Borough Mills address. His advertisements proudly claimed, “In this Business we have led, others have followed,” reflecting his confidence in his contributions to the field.

Little is documented about Wray’s life after the early 1900s, but he continued to work in Bradford, contributing to the early film industry. He died in 1944, leaving behind a legacy as one of the early innovators in cinematography.

His work on the Kineoptoscope and B & W Cinematograph helped lay the groundwork for the development of modern film projection technology, transitioning moving pictures from novelty to a mainstream form of entertainment.

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The Kineoptoscope was available in two varieties: one that was built with the Magic Lantern itself, and another that was free-standing but required the use of a lamphouse.

^{Images The National Media Museum}

Wray’s innovations came at a pivotal time when many other pre cinema pioneers in the US, France, the UK and Germany were also advancing cinematography. His focus on practical, adaptable projection devices made film screenings more accessible, contributing to the rapid growth of the cinema industry in Britain and beyond.

His collaboration with local Bradford businesses, such as the Riley Brothers, highlights the regional hub of technological innovation in Yorkshire during this period.

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The Kineoptoscope was manufactured for Cecil Wray by lantern makers, the Riley Brothers. Like most of the earliest film projectors, it required a Magic Lantern to provide illumination.

It was an early motion picture hybrid camera–projector and used a Petzval lens, a friction clutch for intermittent film movement, and featured a special lamp with condenser and reflector. Evidence suggests only one working prototype existed.

That model was housed in the Moscow Museum of Polytechnics, but was apparently destroyed during the Soviet era. All that remains today are technical descriptions, drafts, and official documents.

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The patent stated it was “an apparatus designed for shooting moving photographic images.” The Stroboscope used film that photographed between 15 to 20 fps. In 1896 Ivan Akimov received certification for his Stroboscope.

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Akimov was a Russian photographer and member of the Russian Photographic Society, active in the late 19th century. The Stroboscope camera could also project and had a friction clutch device to ensure intermittent movement.

Akimov is known to have built only one Stroboscope which was given to the Moscow Museum of Polytechnics. During revolution the device was destroyed. Sources confirm that no films were made with the Akimov Stroboscope and that it essentially vanished into obscurity.

As the Who’s Who of Victorian Cinema puts it: “One may be sure that Akimov’s apparatus was never used and no films were made by it.”  There’s simply no record of public demonstrations, critical reviews, press coverage, or audience reactions to his device.

Pictured is Moscow’s Polytechnic Museum following recent restoration.

The clearest modern write-ups come from film-history compendia that note his patent and a single prototype (kept at Moscow’s Polytechnic Museum and later lost). Ivan Akimov used a customised lamp with condenser and reflector for projection with his Stroboscope.

No known images, illustrations or photos exist for the Stroboscope. Only a technical description, documentation in the form of drafts remain to prove that it existed.

Akimov invented a Photometre, a device used to measure light and authored A Guide for Beginning Photographers, aimed at helping novices in photography.

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This camera Serial Nº 108 that you see below, is believed to be the camera used to film the clip you just saw by Smith of the ladies at the seaside. Images/info Sam Dodge Collection.

“Outside of Edison’s Museum I believe this camera to be the oldest camera that can be linked to a specific movie.” — Collector Sam Dodge

^{Images Sam Dodge Collection}

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A portion of  Two Clowns  from George Albert Smith’s Kinemacolor test in 1906. What better way to express colour than in clown costumes. Sound added.

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From 1908, George Albert Smith’s two-colour process Kinemacolor film of a woman waving two handmade woven flags.

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^{Images Sam Dodge Collection}

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From historian Luke McKernan, this is a photograph he says is of an auditorium of students at Ann Arbor Michigan (University of Michigan?) watching a Kinemacolor film in 1913.

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Along the River Nile filmed with Smith/Urban’s Kinemacolor two-colour process. The year is 1911. These segments are chopped into four parts. Two minute or less each.

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A George Albert Smith image from the National Media Museum Collection. It was taken in Smith’s office at Furze Hill, Hove in 1900. On the centre of the desk is a film measurer.

On the tripod, Smith’s camera, possibly the Nº 108.

In 1894, Pathé encountered Thomas Edison’s phonograph at a fair in Vincennes, sparking his interest in sound recording. He began selling phonographs and, in 1896, with his brothers Émile, Théophile, and Jacques, founded Société Pathé Frères in Paris to manufacture and sell phonographs and cylinders.

His ambitions grew after seeing Edison’s Kinetoscope in London, leading him to expand into cinema. Pathé Frères became a powerhouse, producing films, developing cameras, and distributing film stock across Europe and the U.S.

The company adopted the Gallic rooster as its logo in 1905, symbolizing its French identity. The Pathé Frères Company became one of the biggest film production companies the industry has seen.

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Pathé revolutionized the film industry by introducing the cinema newsreel, Pathé Journal, in 1908, and producing early films like Les Misérables (1909), one of the first feature length films. He collaborated with key figures like director Ferdinand Zecca and discovered stars like Max Linder.

By 1908, Pathé Frères dominated the global film market, with studios in France, the US, and beyond, and pioneered vertical integration by controlling production, distribution, and exhibition.

Soon after, Pathé introduced a colour process known as Pathé Color. Pathé Color, also known as Pathé Chrome, was a pioneering film colouring process developed by Pathé Frères, the company founded by Charles Pathé.

Introduced in the early 20th century, it was a stencil-based technique used to add vibrant colours to silent films, enhancing their visual appeal at a time when most films were black and white.

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Charles Pathé established the Pathé Frères Company which became one of the biggest film production companies the industry has seen

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Charles Pathé went on to film un-staged scenes and events and produced a hand-coloured stencil application Pathé Color.

Facing competition from Hollywood, Pathé sold his business interests in 1929 and retired to Monaco, where he died in 1957, just before his 94th birthday. His innovations laid the groundwork for modern cinema, making him a foundational figure in film history.

Charles Pathé was a pioneer in the birth of newsreel footage, which in turn became the forerunner of television news and documentary films.

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BRITISH PATHÉ — “The films in this production are some of the first taken for public entertainment and date back to 1897.” Runs 1:06

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1897
AU BOIS DE BOULOGNE
Pathé Frères. This Parisian Park was once the Forêt de Rouvray hunting grounds of the Duke of Normandy aka William the Conqueror.

Fifty-two seconds.

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1897
DISPUTE DE COCHER (COACHMAN’S DISPUTE)
Thirty-six seconds of a dispute between a coachman and his fair, from 1897. Pathé Frères actualité archives film Nº 584. Director is listed as Ernest Normandin.

1896
PRIVATE LANTERN SCREENINGS
Up to and including 1896, private projectionists provided personal screenings to the upper class and wealthy patrons throughout the world.

These practitioners were travelling lanternists, magicians, and other early-cinema show people.

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The popularity of these private engagements waned following disastrous events such as the great fire of 1897 at Bazar de la Charité in Paris. Celluloid being highly flammable, light source safety standards were put into place for those now projecting film.

Common public venues became the norm for those still projecting slides.

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Here is a matching description and illustration of the Oskar Messter Maltese Cross. From Julius Pfragner’s The Eye of History, Index, p227.

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“it is a very wonderful process, representing people, their movements and actions, as if they were alive”

^{– H.R.H. Queen Victoria}

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Royal photographers William and Daniel Downey used specially made 60 mm celluloid that had four round perforations on each margin. The footage was shown at Windsor Castle 23 November.

Pictured is Balmoral Castle, Scotland today.

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Following Prince Albert’s death in 1861 she became withdrawn and upon counsel she allowed herself to be photographed. She allowed cameras to film her on more than one occasion as a way to gain popularity from, and trust with her subjects.

^{Photograph by Alexander Bassano in 1882}

Thus, we have perhaps the first use of the cine camera as a way to broadcast the well-being of the Monarchy to the public. This began a long tradition of using the media as an accessibility tool.

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The camera the Downey’s used was a Robert Paul Theatrograph and on 3 November a Harrison-built projector showed the film.

In her daily journal entry for the event the Queen wrote;

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After the event, Queen Victoria wrote in her daily journal a second time following the screening;

While working on electrical installations at the Casino de Paris in 1895, Baron encountered an Edison Kinetophone, sparking his interest in combining motion pictures with synchronized sound.

Little is known about Bureau’s personal life or background, as historical records primarily mention him in the context of his association with Baron.

He is noted as an administrator and cashier at the Olympia, a prominent Parisian entertainment venue, during the mid-1890s.

Bureau’s significance lies in his financial and administrative support for Baron’s pioneering work in synchronized sound film technology. In 1896, Bureau partnered with Baron to file two key patents: one on 3 April 1896 № 255317 for a “system for recording and reproducing animated scenes and sounds simultaneously,” and another on 3 June 1896 № 256926 for a film perforating machine.

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The Graphophonoscope was an early cinematic device developed in the late 1890s in France, designed to synchronize motion pictures with sound. It was one of the earliest systems aimed at creating sound films by combining a motion picture camera with a phonograph for audio recording.

The device sought to capture and reproduce animated scenes and their corresponding sounds simultaneously, a pioneering step toward modern sound cinema.

Here from page 46 of Birth of The Motion Picture by Emmanuelle Toulet is an illustration of the Baron and Bureau Graphophonoscope studio concept, along with the accompanying blueprint.

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The Graphophonoscope used a wax cylinder, a common audio recording medium of the time, to capture sound, synchronized with a film camera to record moving images. Baron shot several short films on a unique 50mm film reversible camera with cameraman Félix Mesguich, and projected the images using a projector with a two-lens attachment that reduced flicker.

Baron’s system featured an electrical mechanism to ensure precise synchronization between the motor-driven camera and the cylinder recorder. Keeping the cylinder recorder in sync, the motor-driven camera was electrically controlled. Four carbon mics provided the signal for the electro-magnetic cutting needle, allowing a four-minute recording.

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Left, part of the Graphophonoscope patent Nº 255317, 3 April, 1896, and another view of Barons unique 50mm film reversible camera. In 1899 Baron gave a projection demo to the Académie des Sciences in Paris with a film of a woman singing, which demonstrated the system’s ability to synchronize sound and visuals effectively.

This was a significant milestone, as it predated many other attempts at sound film technology. Baron produced several short films using this system, some of which were shown at venues like the Olympia in Paris.

Right, a side-scrolling film by Baron, 50mm, one round perforation top and bottom of each image 1896-1897.

He also experimented with a unique 50mm film format and a double-lens projector to reduce flicker during playback, improving the viewing experience. In his studio in Asnières-sur-Seine, established in 1898, Baron employed four carbon microphones to record audio for up to four-minute sequences, an impressive duration for the era.

In 1899 Baron gave a projection demonstration to the Académie des Sciences in Paris with a film of a woman singing, but he was obliged to forgo further development due to a lack of $$.

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Here is a fifty-eight second film by Auguste Baron shot in 1897 France, of a train arriving at a station. It looks a lot like all the other trains arriving at stations in the early days except this train is a double decker.

Brought to us by Filmoteca Española / Guy Jones. Sound added.

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Baron shot several short films on a unique 50mm film reversible camera, and projected these images using a projector with a two-lens attachment

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Below on the left is a drawing of the Graphophonoscope of Baron extracted from the patent filed in the US on 31 October, 1898, which uses the figures from the French patent of 4 April, 1898.

Also pictured, is a coloured illustration of the electro-magnetic writer of the Baron phonograph and it’s electrical amplifier.

Last, patent drawings of Baron’s, extracted again from the patent filed in the United States on 31 October, 1898, which uses the figures from the French patent of 4 April, 1898.

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🎞️ Left, a watercolor depicting the stage curtain of the Asnières studio around 1899

🎞️ Right, a studio scene in Asnières

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The Baron charcoal Electricité Microphonie Phonographie Accessories illustrated, beside a picture of Auguste Baron in the 1930s, posing with an Ambroise-François Parnaland-type camera.

^{Photograph Cinémathèque française}

The Graphophonoscope remains a notable milestone in the history of cinema, representing one of the earliest attempts to integrate sound with moving images. While it did not achieve commercial success, it laid groundwork for later developments in sound film technology, such as those by Léon Gaumont and others in the early 20th century.

Baron’s work with the Graphophonoscope is recognized as a visionary effort, contributing to his eventual recognition with the Legion of Honor in 1933 and the naming of Place Auguste-Baron in Paris in 1978. The Baron charcoal Electricité Microphonie Phonographie Accessories illustrated.

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In 1900 Auguste Baron was awarded a patent for an Improved “Apparatus for taking and reproducing animated scenes and sounds” № 656762 on 28 August. The five sheets seen here.

1896 
BIRT ACRES (1854 – 1918)
Acres presented his Kinetic Lantern to the Royal Photographic Society in January this year that received this review in the Journal;

“Mr. Birt Acres gave a demonstration of an apparatus which he called the Kinetic Lantern. The object of this was to throw a number of pictures upon the screen in such rapid succession as to reproduce the motion of life.

The photographs for use in the lantern were taken in a somewhat similar apparatus also devised by Mr. Acres – at the rate of about 40 a second, although he could, if necessary, take as many as a hundred in a second, but the effect of motion was satisfactorily reproduced by projecting them on the screen at the rate of about fifteen per second.

The subjects shown included men boxing, a review of the German Emperor, Epsom Downs, and the Derby race, serpentine dancing, and the sea breaking against an embankment.”

^{–  The Photographic Journal, page 123, 31st January 1896}

In 1896 Acres establishes The Northern Photographic Works Company, which will propel him into the 20th century as one of the foremost producers of film stock in England.

1896
ALICE GUY-BLACHÉ (1873-1968)
Guy-Blaché was the first of her gender to begin experimenting with film making. She worked as the secretary for Leon Gaumont, a French camera maker.

She is credited with the involvement of at least 1,000 films in France and the US.

She later moved to America and started her own studio, Solax, which was the largest studio in the US for a short period. In France, she directed, produced, and supervised hundreds of silent films ranging in length from one to seven minutes, as well as one hundred and fifty synchronized sound pictures.

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1896
LA FEE AUX CHOUX
The Cabbage Fairy in English, I always thought storks brought babies but apparently, they come from cabbages. Released 31 March, this is one of the early films by Alice that gained her notoriety. Runs 00:54

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she directed, produced, and supervised hundreds of silent films ranging in length from one to seven minutes, as well as 150 synchronized sound pictures

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As the image states, Alice Guy-Blachés’ personal life story is a film script itself. On the right, we have a wee Alice Guy at a tender age.

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1912
CANNED HARMONY
Released 9 October, 1912, Canned Harmony is an Alice Guy-Blaché Solax Film, Nº 198 in the company registry. Watch for the split-screen scene from 7:14 to 7:36. Runs 9:19 of an original thirteen minutes.

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She wed Herbert Blaché in 1907, the production manager for Gaumont’s American operations in Fort Lee.

Alice returned to France in 1922 and started working for William Randolph Hearst’s International Film Service. Alice did not make another film, and spent the next 30 years lecturing film students and adapting movie scripts into novels.

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Alice received France’s Legion of Honour (pictured) in 1953 in recognition of her Motion Picture contribution, and moved back to Mahwah New Jersey in 1965 with her daughter Simone.

She died 24 March, 1968.

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1912
FALLING LEAVES
An absolutely adorable film of naivety and innocence. Filmed at her New Jersey Solax studio in March. The beautiful little child-sister on a mission to save older sis is seven-year old Magda Foy (1905-2000) who was known as the Solax Kid.

Magda made twenty-six pictures for Alice and then retired.

A print of the film is preserved in the Library of Congress.

_{Falling Leaves, Alice Guy-Blaché, Solax, 1912}

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Guy-Blaché set cars on fire, detonated explosives, trained rats to attack the lead actors, ran film backwards, taught animals to act and made the moon smile

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In 1995 the National Film Board of Canada released their documentary on Alice, her life and career, called The Lost Garden: The Life and Cinema of Alice Guy-Blaché.

Runs one hour and twenty-nine minutes.

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1896
ROBERT WILLIAM PAUL (1869-1943)
Paul displays his Theatrograph projector pictured here, at Finsbury Technical College, London. He made many short films as well as newsreel footage of the Royal Family.

In 1896 Paul sets up four years’ worth of screenings at the Alhambra Theatre, Leicester Square. It has taken over eight years for the public to embrace the commercial aspect of movie going. This now allows producers such as Paul to secure long runs at these newly renovated halls.

Many of Paul’s scenarios are filmed on the roof of this very theatre.

For a time, Paul’s Theatrograph was the most popular projecting machine in Europe.

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1896
COMIC COSTUME RACE
Robert William Paul filmed this 14 July 1896 at a Music Hall Sports event at Herne Hill, S. London. He used his Theatrograph to show several films at Finsbury Technical College, London. This short film was one of them.

Queen Victoria had seen the film first, being part of some short films shown at Windsor Castle on 23 November, 1896 by Paul. Fifty eight seconds.

In 1896 Paul will meet Ernest Moy and Percy Bastie and started making supplies for the film industry. In 1897 and 1898 Moy applied for and was granted patents for motion picture equipment. They made their first camera in 1900.

Theatrograph 1896 35mm projector below.

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Robert William Paul’s 35mm Theatrograph film Camera from 1896. All images La Cinémathèque française, Stéphane Dabrowski.

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for a time, Paul’s Theatrograph was the most popular projecting machine in Europe

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The Robert Paul Theatrograph held at the Cinémathèque française, in Paris. Photographs by Stéphane Dabrowski.

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AMBC was the spawning ground of directors Griffith, Sennett and such stars as Mabel Normand, Mary Pickford, the Gish sisters, and Florence Lawrence

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Pictured: AMBC’s 35mm Mutograph camera. Biograph’s first cameraman was a guy named William Billy Bitzer.

The Mutograph photographs below:  The Malkames Collection

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1896
WILLIAM MCKINLEY AT HOME, CANTON, OHIO
American Mutoscope Company. G.W. Bitzer on camera, William K. L. Dickson on set. Twenty-fifth president William McKinley and cabinet secretary George B. Cortelyou walking towards the camera and off screen on our right. Runs thirty-four seconds.

McKinley was murdered five years later.

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The AMBC was dissolved in 1917, but not until joining with Thomas Edison to form the Motion Picture Patents Company (Edison Trust). MPPC image Timetoast / Alan Villalobo. Before 1917 AMBC made over three thousand short films and twelve feature films.

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the whole front page is taken up by these four photos that effectively represent the early days of the motion picture business

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The American Biograph camera used non-perforated film of a much larger frame area (68-70 mm) than was customary at the time. This resulted in a much sharper image. It required very careful handling by the projectionist. The Biograph used friction rollers which provided continuous movement.

No sprockets where used.

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Below, an illustration from a photograph, of the Casler Biograph film camera filming the Boer war. It’s taken from the Transvaal Special, 5 January 1901, on pages 12 and 13.

The red arrow indicates that the Biograph was set up in the open field. Seen in close up, below.

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The caption; “Photography as An Adjunct to Theatrical Representation” shows men filming the train, to be used in a theatre; “The Biograph at Work in a New York Theater.” Scientific American, Volume 76, Number 16, 17 April 1897 pp248, 249, 250.

READ the entire article here at Internet Archive.

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This is what the Library of Congress calls “Souvenir strip of the Edison Kinetoscope, Sandow, the modern Hercules.” Strong-man Eugen Sandow stands against a black background in the Black Maria and flexes. The very same strip people paid a nickle to see in the Kinetoscope.

Photographed by William Heise, 18 May 1894. Duration: 0:40 at 16 frames per second. Thirty-nine feet of 35mm film. In the Gordon Hendricks Collection.

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it wasn’t for pre cinema that Sandow delved into the world of invention– he constantly pursued innovative ways to broadcast his own image

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The specifications read “advertisements of any desired character” will be projected, with a proto-slide carousel set up with “clockwork” mechanism to alter the display. The appliance had a cable with the letter ‘J’ on it. The carrier pulled it to advance the slide and change the picture.

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In his patent Sandow stated;

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FAST FORWARD 128 YEARS
Not for others to view, but for the wearer.
Remember the short-lived GOOGLE GLASS? US Patent “Wearable Device with Input and Output Structures.” Filed 18 August, 2011, issued 21 February, 2013. Died 15 March, 2023. Google Glass was succeeded by two versions of the Google Glass Enterprise Edition, which focused on business applications rather than consumer use.

As of now, Google is exploring new augmented reality glasses under Project Astra, indicating a potential revival of smart glasses in the future. RIP.

^{Schematic image the United States Patent and Trademark Office}

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AND NOW, TAKE A LOOK AT THIS FROM 1998
THE SNORRICAM
A SnorriCam is a camera device used in filmmaking similar to the Steadicam, that is rigged to the body of the actor, facing the actor directly, so when they walk, they do not appear to move, but everything around them does. Interesting how history repeats.

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In the mid 90s the Snorri brothers built a camera rig for a low budget music video shoot for an east village all girl’s punk band. The need to bring out an important characteristic of the movie was recognised. The first film to use the Snorricam was Pi (1998).

Thank you, Eugene and William.

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It was never sold and remains an obscure prototype. That would make the Sandow and Friese-Greene ‘Portable Moving Picture Devices,’ the portable projection device-of-choice. If one can be found.

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WATCH Robert William Paul’s The Soldier’s Courtship (1895) which was filmed on the roof of the Alhambra Theatre, Leicester Square, London. It runs nineteen seconds (1:32 including the intro) so I looped it three times.

Remade as Tommy Atkins in the Park three years later.

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1896
BLACKFRIARS BRIDGE
Pre cinema pioneer R.W. Paul took this actuality film of London’s Blackfriars Bridge in July, pointing his camera at the southern end and facing north over the Thames.

Shortly after, and definitely no later than August 31st, as it appears in a printed program on that date (as Traffic on Blackfriars Bridge). It was screened as part of his Alhambra Theatre program. It appears that two or three of the passersby are aware that a camera is present.

^{– British Film Institute}

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1896
UP THE RIVER
The content of this film is described as “Steam launch, from which one of the passengers drops a child, which is promptly rescued by a swimmer from the bank” in R.W. Paul’s catalogue, and an alternative title is the far more descriptive Scene on the River Thames, showing the rescue of a drowning child.

^{– BFI screenonline}

Robert Paul with an early attempt at a scenario instead of just the boat going down the river. However as Paul starts cranking, a child is accidently knocked off the boat. The drowning child is saved but as soon as the kid falls in, the static camera view is blocked. Released July, lasting one minute in length.

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1896
THE TWINS TEA PARTY
Filmed by Robert Paul and his Animatograph Works. Distributed by Edison in America. In August 1896, the film debuted at London’s Alhambra Theatre. Remade in 1898. I have never been able to find out who these two children were.

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1896
TWO A.M. OR, THE HUSBANDS RETURN
From Robert W. Paul and his Animatograph Works. Based on a contemporaneous stage play. Stars Paul Clerget who is also listed as writer.

Filmed using Paul’s Animatograph camera. August release. Runs 1:16

Under French patent № 256036, “Appareil photographique die Mouvementoscope” was a hybrid cinema apparatus with a six-star Maltese Cross worm movement.

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The Mouvementoscope was capable of photographing, copying and projecting. These are the six patent pages № 256036.

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The Mouvementoscope was a cinema device that Joseph Zion patented in 1896. It was an apparatus for obtaining and viewing Chronophotographic proofs, essentially a device for showing animated photographs.

He also patented, with Eugène Gauthier, the Mouvementograph in the same year, which was a device for processing and projecting animated scenes.

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Joseph Zion was known for other photographic innovations as well, including the Simili-Jumelle camera and the Zionscope series of cameras. He was a significant figure in the development of photographic and early cinematic equipment in France. Little else could be found about the Mouvementoscope.

1896
THE MUTAGRAPH
JOHN NEVIL MASKELYNE JR (1839-1917)
Although resistant to inserting the new living pictures into his conjuring act, Maskelyne eventually relented and went on to produce this apparatus the Mutagraph for “securing, or exhibiting in series, records of successive phases of movement.”

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The British patent for the Mutagraph was № 11639 and identified this camera and projector as having continuously moving film with a series of rotating but fixed lenses. The device was an attempt to reduce flicker on the screen.

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It seems that the Mutagraph was never offered for sale, but it was frequently utilized in the Egyptian Hall as the opening poster indicates. Shows were daily, 3pm and 8pm throughout most of 1896 and 1897.

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_{Maskelyne Mutagraph image from the Michael Rogge Collection}

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John Nevil Maskelyne Jr was the famous British magician and should not be confused with dad John Nevil Maskelyne Sr. who was a leather-worker. John Jr. also employed automatons in his programme as had Robert-Houdin.

One that he built was known as Psycho and is pictured here.

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The Egyptian Hall, London, England, as it looked when John Nevil Maskelyne Jr made it England’s House Of Mystery. Drawing, 19Th Century.

1896
RENE BUNZLI (1870-1961)
PIERRE-VICTOR CONTINSOUZA (1872-1944)
Taking one step back and two forward, these two pre cinema pioneers suggested the use of a glass-disk-only device they had patented in France, to replace Celluloid.

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their thought of crafting a safe and effective home-based entertainment system was a little ahead of it’s time

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Believing that celluloid was too dangerous for home use, their machine utilised a glass disk similar to that of previous inventors. It’s circular shape held photographs taken on its surface and placed in a spiral fashion on the disk.

This longing to go backwards and replace celluloid with a glass disk will be attempted in the latter stages of the pre cinema period by more than just these two, and for the very same reasons.

It’s circular shape held photographs taken on its surface and placed in a spiral fashion on the disk.

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Bunzli and Continsouza used a four-sided Maltese Cross to advance the disk. Their thought of crafting a safe and effective home-based entertainment system was a little ahead of it’s time, in a backwards sort of way.

Glass disks are limited in the number of frames they can hold. Celluloid is this side of limitless in the number of frames it can hold. We needed safer film, not disks.

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SEE the Bunzli – Continsouza camera – projector movement shown in this video from the Cinegraphica You Tube channel.

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On 28 April 1896 Pierre-Victor Continsouza filed patent № 255937 with the industrial property office pictured here.

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On 14 November 1896 Continsouza and René Bunzli filed a new patent, № 261292, describing a new device for obtaining and projecting animated photography. This time presenting the advance of the film by means of a cross of Malta with only four branches.

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THE 60° MALTESE
The sixty-degree cross was used to make the projection as bright as possible, reducing the shutter and hence the time required to transition from one image to the next.

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taking one step back and two forward, these two pre cinema pioneers suggested the use of a glass-disk-only device they had patented in France, to replace celluloid

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THE 90° MALTESE
With the increase to a standard 24 fps during the 1920s, the disc now rotating at 1440 rpm the 60° cross wouldn’t do. This is why the use of a 90° cross became widespread.

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In the late 1890s–early 1900s, their precision workshop at Chatou was acquired / involved with Claude Grivolas, leading to a merger with Pathé.

The company became a major supplier of projectors like the Le Robuste model and cameras for Pathé, helping industrialize French cinema production and distribution worldwide.

Continsouza later designed projectors under his own name or for Pathé (such as contributions to the Pathé Kok). Bünzli also experimented later with short 3D films and Stereoscopic devices like the Bünzli L’Animateur which I have a series on.

While celluloid strip film quickly dominated due to longer runtimes and easier duplication, the disk approach highlighted safety and simplicity concerns in the 1890s.

Surviving examples of their mechanisms (often unmarked or attributed to Clément & Gilmer in some auctions) are rare collector items, with mechanisms from ~1897 still documented in museums or private hands.

The Kinematador was introduced following the registration of D.R.G.M. № 64591 in 1896. In the 1896–1897 trade catalogues, Plank specifically marketed this device as a hybrid instrument.

It was advertised as a “Projecting Phenakistoscope” (or Projectirendes Phänakistoskop). Unlike standard Magic Lanterns that only showed still slides, the Kinematador was sold on its ability to produce “vibrant, life-like motion” through a mechanical shutter system.

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Plank’s marketing focused on the “scientific precision” of the movement, appealing to middle-class parents who wanted toys that demonstrated the principles of optics and persistence of vision—a common theme in the “Self-Improvement” culture of the 1890s mentioned in Hopwood’s Living Pictures.

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The Kinematador Intermittent Disc of children bowling from 1896. The size is 5 and 3/4 inches, catalogued as the № 790. Illustrated advertisement “for the projection of images that appear to be moving.”

^{Images de Luikerwaal}

In the early German catalogues, this disc was often listed under the simple title “Kegelbahn” (Bowling Alley).

It was so popular that Plank later converted it from this disc format into a strip format to be sold with the newer loop-based machines.

This bowling disc was typically part of an initial set of twelve subjects released for the Kinematador No. 790 in 1896.

Henry Hopwood notes that these Nuremberg toy mechanisms were “ingenious simplifications” of professional hardware.

He specifically highlights the use of Russian iron (a high-grade, rust-resistant sheet metal) for the gear-works and lamphouses, which allowed these toys to withstand the heat of the lanterns without warping the delicate synchronization of the disk and shutter.

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While the bowling disc is the most famous Plank disk today due to its high survival rate, it was originally sold in a boxed series. Based on 1896–1897 trade lists from Nuremberg, the companion discs featured a mix of sports, circus acts, and domestic comedy—all chosen because their rhythmic, repeating motions were well-suited for a 12-frame loop.

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The multiple image streams you see projected in this illustrated advertisement was meant to depict motion and provide a sense of streaming movement, just like we see in the bowling example.

Standard professional projectors used a 4-slot Maltese cross (for 90-degree rotations). Plank’s Kinematador used an extended star-wheel with 12 slots (one for each image on the disc).

A small drive-wheel with a single protruding pin (or nose) would engage one slot of the star-wheel per rotation, locking the disk in place for a fraction of a second while the shutter was open, then moving it to the next frame.

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The Ernst Plank Kinematador stands as one of the final ‘transitional’ devices of that century. It bridged the gap between the static Magic Lantern slides of the mid-Victorian era and the celluloid film industry that would dominate the 20th century.

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This 1885 Plank Lantern is decorated with coloured glass gems. It has a brass tag on front and back with the E. P. trade mark.

Besides Magic Lanterns, E. P. also made tin toy steamboats and train sets. Ernst Plank was the second largest in Nuremberg, after the Gebrüder Bing brothers.

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This simple barrel-shaped Magic Lantern was sold in many versions. The smallest were suitable for slides 1.18 inches wide. The larger ones could show plates of 3.15 inches.

This simple Magic Lantern was also sold in a red lacquered version.

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The Petit Biograph Parisien was an early motion picture device developed in Paris, France, around 1898 by Léon Beaulieu. It was a type of flip-book or Folioscope (also known as a Kinetoscope style device) designed to create the illusion of motion by rapidly flipping through a sequence of images. The device was patented under French patent number 275851 on March 5, 1898.

It was a compact, hand-operated apparatus, reflecting the era’s fascination with early cinema and pre cinematographic technologies.

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These paper-and-card creations are notable for preserving early cinematic history, with some restored by the San Francisco Silent Film organization in 2021. Little is known about Beaulieu’s personal life, and he remains a minor but intriguing figure in the history of early animation and film.

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Beaulieu appeared in the directory of trade and industry 1898 as a “manufacturer of pocket cinematographs.” Patented on 5 March of the same year, “which allows Folioscopes to be viewed manually.” The address given by the directory is 46 rue Volta in Paris, while the patent indicates 37 rue du Verbois.

There are also Folioscopes of Léon Beaulieu with the following addresses: 144 rue Oberkampf and 257 rue Saint-Denis in Paris, as well as at 1 rue de la Courneuve in Aubervilliers. A man very much on the move for some reason.

Pictured are four pages for Beaulieu’s 1898 French hand-written and hand-drawn patent № 275851 “cinematographe de poche” (pocket cinematograph).

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The Léon Beaulieu Petit Biograph Parisien pictured here originally came with 12 Flip Books. These two pictured contain Wrestling, and the Art of Fencing, 1898.

^{Images Tangible Media Collection}

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In 2017 the San Francisco Silent Film Festival led the effort to re-animate the Flip Books of Beaulieu. As the Festival says, “The goal was to reverse the bimbelotier’s film-to-paper transformation and reconstitute the fragments as motion pictures.”

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La Danse Du Cancan Flip Book produced by Léon Beaulieu c. 1896-97, images sourced identified as Georges Méliès Miss De Vere (Gigue Anglaise 1896), Star Film Company catalogue Nº 45, 121 pages, 12 fps, looped 3 times.

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Lutte de Cuisiniers Flip Book produced by Léon Beaulieu c. 1896-1901, images sourced identified as Georges Méliès, 121 pages, 12 fps, looped 3 times.

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Duel de Femmes Flip Book produced by Léon Beaulieu c. 1896-1901, images sourced identified as Gaumont’s Duel de Femmes, catalogue Nº 24, 1896, 84 pages, 16 fps, looped 3 times.

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Lutte Flip Book produced by Léon Beaulieu c. 1896-1901, images sourced identified as Pathé’s Lutteurs (1896), 98 pages, 12 fps, looped 3 times.

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Flip Books make you the projectionist

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Arrivée du Train Flip Book produced by Leon Beaulieu c. 1896-97, images sourced identified as Georges Méliès Arrivée du Train (Gare de Joineville) (1896) extant, Star Film Company catalogue Nº 35, 120 pages, 6 fps, looped 3 times.

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I WOULD LIKE TO CREATE A CONTROVERSY
Regarding the Bernhard and Sara Richter Flip Book mystery presented here, and this Arrivée du Train Gare de Joineville, directly above, I believe they are the same film. I believe they are both Joineville Station. I base this on two reasons:

🎞️ The San Fransisco Silent Film Festival has identified their Léon Beaulieu Flip Book footage as being Arrival of a Train at Joinville Station
🎞️ And the second reason is that I say these two Flip Books made from an early pre cinema film, are both the same-this is an obvious fact if you compare both side by side

If I am correct, the San Fransisco Silent Film Festival has solved the Richter Flip Book mystery.

Lets take a closer look at both films/flip books. I have placed both Flip Books side by side for easier comparison.

Please note I have removed the San Fransisco Silent Film Festival’s (on the right below) lead-in prefix titles and lead-out suffix titles for simplicity. All you will see are the frames from the film:

^{Richter ▼ Flip Book mystery}

^{SFSFF ▲ Flip Book solved}

The three most obvious clues are;
🎞️ three main characters depart the train;
  🎦 a lady with puffy white sleeves;
  🎦 a man in a white trench coat;
  🎦 a man in a top hat (or bowler) and bow tie
🎞️ notice that in both Flip Books the lady in the white blouse and gigantic puffy sleeves departs first and disappears camera left
🎞️ the second traveller (in both Flip Books) is the man in the billowing white trench coat who disembarks and disappears camera right
🎞️ our third person (in both Flip Books) is the man in the top hat, bow tie and tuxedo-looking jacket who is departing the platform camera left when the frames end
🎞️ I will also add that the trains are identical in both, including that the trains are both double-deckers with the sleeping compartment atop the seats

Because the SFSFF has identified their Flip Book as Arrival of a Train at Joinville Station, (and the Richter mystery is not yet determined but leaning towards Arrival of a Train at Vincennes Station) and both Flip Books are identical, I don’t think there is any doubt that the Richter Flip Book mystery is solved: it’s Arrival of a Train at Joinville Station.

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“the cinegraphoscope, that new extraordinary combination of photography, seemed to make the canvas alive with moving figures”

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Hearst removes any flags, and drapes large canvas sheets out the windows to act as picture-screens, on the side of his New York Evening Journal building, and then builds wooden towers on the sides of his other newspaper locations throughout the city.

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when the time came, these Magic Lantern Stereopticon projections proclaimed “McKinley is elected”

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Electronic headlines and projected images on the walls of buildings, on giant erected screens and large television monitors are commonplace today.

An article by Dan Streible writing for Érudit (online) regarding William Randolph Hearst’s campaign against peepshows of the times and how children were exposed to the adult themes of some ‘Nickelodeon operators, tells us of Heart’s use of the “early screen technology” and “display of electric technologies” when he writes . . .

“The Hearst company’s use of early screen technology is worth noting. Like other big city newspapers, including Hearst’s first daily, the San Francisco Examiner, the New York Evening Journal promoted itself and purveyed its news with highly visible bulletin services. For events of immediate topicality—elections, sporting events, war reports—newspaper offices attracted huge crowds eager to hear results. Telegraph and telephone operators with megaphones became supplemented with visual and aural elaborations. Hearst added motion-picture displays to his bulletin services as early as 1896. Notably, the New York Evening Journal used a spectacular display of electric technologies to increase its public profile in a city with a highly competitive newspaper market. Hearst purchased the small Morning Journal at the end of 1895 with designs to challenge Joseph Pulitzer’s World with the tabloid style that had gotten high circulation in California. In addition to his well-known tactics—hiring competing columnists, luring Outcault and his “Yellow Kid” comic strip from the World, using splashy headlines and illustrations—the publisher put his news on the street with large screen devices.

The U.S. presidential election of 1896 was the launching point for the Journal’s skyrocketing sales. Readers were told “there will be stereopticon-kinetoscope exhibitions, and some startling new inventions” helping to deliver electoral results. The bulletin service became part of the detailed reportage of the spectacle. At several locations throughout Manhattan, including the Journal headquarters, wooden towers were erected which held stereopticons and other projection devices. A large canvas screen (“monster bulletin board”) was hung on the side of the Journal building. A map of the United States was placed at the top, illuminated with two colors of lights. The spaces below it were filled with a combination of text (headlines), still images, and, apparently, movies, designed to “amuse” the throngs until the election results were known. The paper noted that the service “threw on cartoons and pictures more or less moving,” including “panoramascope” pictures. “At Hammerstein’s Olympia” theater, where an additional news station was installed, it claimed: “the cinegraphoscope, that new extraordinary combination of electricity and photography, seemed to make the canvas alive with moving figures.

More stunning than the movies perhaps, were hot-air balloons that flew above Manhattan and New Jersey, rigged with electrical stars that illuminated green when William McKinley and Republicans won, red for Hearst’s Democrats. In a triumphant display of technology and public spirit, brass bands played the “Star-Spangled Banner” when the bulletin proclaiming “McKinley Is Elected” shone on the screens of New York. The projecting and screen technologies of bulletin services became a fixture of turn-of-the-century public news events. (Hearst, incidentally, got his candy. The Journal’s circulation became the greatest in New York, selling over a million penny editions on election night 1896.) This then was the press incorporation of protocinematic technologies into discourses about the public sphere. The newspaper deployed them towards the virtues of journalistic enlightenment, democratic process and public participation in electoral politics. Technology in the service of nation building was the lauded application.”

^{— Dan Streible, Children at the Mutoscope, Érudit, 9 September, 2004}

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Here is an image of the original illustration of the New York Evening Journal from 8 November, 1896.

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This is Charles Graham’s illustration of the Presidential election of 1896 called Election Night in New York City, published in The World’s Sunday Magazine on 8 November, 1896.

From the Library of Congress, newspaper microfilm Nº 1363.

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1896
ALMOST A FLIP BOOK
JOHN NEVIL MASKELYNE
Made from the style of Flip Book making, this short video provided by John Helvin, is made from thirty small images reprinted from the celluloid photographs that Maskelyne made to highlight his art of plate-spinning.

With only 30 frames to work with, Helvin says, “I scanned the pages, editing each tiny photo into a separate file and then made this video.” Four seconds of animation means you are seeing approximately 7.5 frames per second.

The film is titled Mr. Maskelyne Spinning Plates and Basins (alternatively known as Maskelyne: Spinning Plates). It was shot by the British film pioneer Robert W. Paul in mid-1896, likely between May and June.

The film captures Maskelyne performing a feat he had mastered as a youth—often called plate waltzing or spinning plates and basins on a flat table rather than on poles. This specific skill was a staple of his repertoire at the Egyptian Hall in London.

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1896
Following their French triumph in December 1895, the Lumières took the Cinématographe to Belgium in March 1896 and sent crews to the world’s major cities to quench demand. While there, they filmed a myriad of actualiés.

Back home in Paris, and turning down numerous offers to;

🎞️  sell a Cinématographe
🎞️  sell their rights to the Cinématographe or
🎞️  accept investments . . .

. . . and blinded by its popularity, Auguste had this to say to yet another request;

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1896
TVERSKAYA STREET MOSCOW
Charles Moisson (1863-1943) was a Lumière travelling cinematographer. He filmed this casual 48 second street scene of everyday life in May. Exactly one hundred and twenty-six years ago. It was screened in Lyon on 9 August 1896.

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1896
CHILDREN PLAYING MARBLES
From the Lumière Actualités archive No. 50, we see children playing marbles in Lyon France in 1896. Photographed with the Cinématographe and 35mm film. One hundred and twenty-six years ago. First shown 4 October.

Runs fifty-six seconds.

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1896
BROADWAY
Filmed by Alexandre Promio for the Lumières on Broadway at Union Square in New York city. Listed as Nº 319 in their actualités catalogue. Four generations of travel can be seen: pedestrians, horse and carriage, trolleys, automobiles. So much movement. Everything a pre cinema pioneer wanted.

Promio travelled the world for the brothers, as one of the earliest cinematographers.

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1896
BASSE-COUR
Poultry Yard shenanigans by Lumière. Two little girls star in this epic farmyard scene, but get upstaged by the ducks. Motion picture photo bomb. Actualité Nº 14.

Runs fifty-one seconds.

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1896
COOLIES À SAIGON
A Lumière Actualités No 743 from 1896 of street life in Saigon Vietnam. Constant Girel was running the camera on a street.

Runs fifty-one seconds.

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1896
AUTRUCHES
Ostriches, camels, and elephants pulling wagons filmed by the Lumières then documented as Nº 4 in their actualités catalogue. Louis Lumière directing traffic on the camera. Photographed at the Paris Botanical Garden. Lots of moving things.

Runs fifty seconds.

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1896
AQUARIUM
Like shooting fish in a barrel. Lumière actualité Nº 3 from their archive. Shot and released in January.

The first Aquarium Channel.

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1896
CHAUDIÈRE or LOADING A BOILER
Lumière Actualité shot with the Cinematographe. Filmed or shown around April.

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1896
QUERELLE ENFANTINE or Childish Quarrel
Louis Lumière shot his two babes, Andrée Lumière and Suzanne seen on the right. Fans and followers of the Lumières will know they used their children a lot throughout their actualités period, right through their Autochrome period.

Suzanne is seen often as she grew up. Photographed and released in March. Forty-five seconds.
Is that a can of film on her tray?

1896
THE CROWN AND FLOWER OF THE 19^TH CENTURY
Here is William K. L. Dickson’s thoughts on the future of Motion Pictures from 1896. This great Scottish designer, inventor, and builder of most things Edison, when it comes to cinematography, is quoted in a pamphlet he wrote.

“it is the crown and flower of nineteenth century magic”

I make him out to be an historian as well, as he talks of the “lore of the East,” the “wisdom of Egypt,” the “erudition of Babylon,” and the “Eleusian Mysteries.” He certainly knew his history as it pertained to the history of cinematography, a craft he adopted and excelled in.

And in this booklet he pays homage.

By the 1870s, they were recognized as a leading manufacturer of “Highest Class Photographic Instruments and Apparatus” in England, operating primarily from 313 High Holborn, London, with factories in places like Fullwood Rents and High Barnet, Hertfordshire.

Their product range included fine wooden view cameras, photographic lenses, producing the Motorgraph, which was lightweight, efficient and very popular for a short period.

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An April 1897 advertisement in the Optical Magic Lantern Journal reads;

“W. WATSON & SONS’ ‘MOTORGRAPH’ is one of the Best Machines yet devised for the Projection of Animated Pictures to fit any Magic Lantern. The Motorgraph is supplied with fittings for photography, contact printing, and projection. Films and all accessories for the above are listed in No. 8 Catalogue.” Page iii.

The “fit any Magic Lantern” was a direct reference that it didn’t come with illumination. You had to provide your own.

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Another November 1897 advertisement in the Optical Magic Lantern Journal reads;

“THE MOTORGRAPH. For Projecting Animated Pictures and Exposing Films for producing same. Construction very strong without complications. Working simplicity itself. Action steadier than high-priced machines. Can be used with any Magic Lantern. Takes Films of Standard Perforation. Produces most brilliant picture, passing more light than other machines. Absolutely reliable! Cannot be deranged in working!! Very compact (outside size 6 x 4¾ x 5).” Page vi.

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AN AUSTRALIAN ANGLE
An interesting note is that Joseph Henry Perry, the head of the Salvation Army’s Limelight Department in Australasia, purchased a Motorgraph from W. Watson and Sons in February 1897 and used it for early public film screenings in Australia.

Considered a toy projector, home use and nitrate film were not considered a good mix. The Motorgraph required a Lantern for illumination and did not come with one. From an unidentified source found in the PD is the Watson and Sons factory and showroom in 1893, where the Motorgraph was manufactured.

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1896 and 1897
HONOURABLE MENTION
THE PANTOBIOGRAPH
GEORGES G. P. H. HARLÉ
HENRY W. WADDINGTON
Two separate devices both called the Pantobiograph were patented in Britain a year apart, first by Georges Harlé № 20448 in 1896 and the second in 1897 by Henry W. Waddington № 7497.

Harlé’s patent described a cinematograph machine that could be used for both taking and projecting moving photographs. Waddington’s patent described an improved film transport mechanism for a cinematograph.

I can’t find either patent except bits and pieces of info here and there. This name Pantobiograph is derived from ‘panto’ meaning all or every, and ‘bio’ which means life and graph or to write and draw. These words strongly suggest a motion-picture camera and projector for both.

I’m still looking because the children want to know more.

1896
THE PHONOCHROMOSCOPE
JOSEPH EUGÉNE BEAUGRAND (1862-1916)
CINEMA IN SPAIN
On 30 October, 1896, a device that displayed colourful graphics and Graphophone sounds debuted in Madrid. No images of it can be found but it’s extremely well documented.

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The Phonochromoscope was created by French photographer Beaugrand, who visited Madrid at the invitation of Ramón del Rio, proprietor of the Salón de Actualidades, a theatre located at 4 Calle de Alcalá, Madrid. Beaugrand played recordings brought from France.

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In gleaning the publications of the time, references to shows similar to the cinematograph presented names such as Electrofonocromograf, Fonocromoscop, Cronomascop, Monterograf, Eksadsographe, Metemcrónofo, Metemsograf, Magical Videograph, and a myriad of other names.

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THE MOUVÓGRAFO
For his presentation, on 30 October 1896, he held an “intimate party dedicated mainly to the press,” in which the new projection and camera-recording device, the Monvograph was inaugurated. One of the morning-after write-ups in The Impartial in Madrid;

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Clearly there was some confusion brought on by the excitement generated by the machines themselves but also likely by the ignorance of the reporters of these newspapers, who really didn’t know what they were reporting on.

This is how The Herald of Madrid reported it;

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Other newspaper articles exist however, they are all so much alike and all appear on page three, causing me to think they all got the same memo. I will decline to exhibit each one.

The sound apparatus used by the way, was not the Phonograph but the Graphophone of Bell-Volta.

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Looking further into this event, I found that using a projector and a Graphophone to synchronise was not necessarily intended. What is reported however, is that mostly marching music or background music was employed at this 30 October 1896 Salón de Actualidades event.

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Pacchioni had seen the Cinématographe in action and built his own camera/projector with the help of his brother Enrico. Pacchioni’s first film was modelled after the Lumière,’s L’Arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat. Pacchioni named his copy-cat film Arrivo del treno nella stazione di Milano.

As David Robinson puts it, this “was a direct store to the Lumières.”

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Pacchioni filmed some quasi scenarios in 1896, including The Madhouse, Snow Battle, and The Fake Cripple, which I just showed you. He then went on to film actualities such as Giuseppe Verdi’s Funeral in 1901 which could be considered a reportage.

Twenty-six seconds are presented here.

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1896
VISUAL TOUR OF ITALY
A compilation of 4 films from 3 filmmakers.
From June-August 1896 by Charles Moisson who filmed for Lumière, Italo Pacchioni an independent pre cinema pioneer of Italian Cinema using his own camera which was modelled on the Lumière Cinématographe, and William Dickson likely using his Kinetograph. Added sound. Runs 4:10

1896
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCREENINGS
The Lumière’s continue their private screenings of their Cinematographe throughout 1896; the Empire Theatre, Lyons, France (private); at the Empire Theatre of Varieties in Leicester Square, London (private); at the Marlborough Hall of the Regent Street Polytechnic, London (press only); at the Regent Street Polytechnic, London (to the paying public).

Continued showings are made to paying audiences in many European countries by Lumière affiliates. Regular screenings including the newly coined Matinees in the afternoon, begin at various British Halls; at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly; at the Empire Theatre of Varieties in Leicester Square; at the Olympia; at the Pandora Galley, King’s Road, Brighton; at the Alhambra Theatre and many many more.

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the entire world was being engulfed by a raging fire called the movies

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INTERNATIONAL FILM 1896+
A variety of public commercial and non-commercial screenings using a variety of projectors by a variety of presenter/producers are shown across the world; Birt Acres at Cardiff Town Hall, Wales; Robert Paul at the Empire Theatre of Varieties, Johannesburg; at West End Park, Ottawa Canada using an Edison Vitascope projector; Lubin’s Vitascope, Edison’s Kinetoscope and Vitascope and Lumière Cinématographe are used in presentations seen in Japan; at the Zavani Café in Alexandria, Egypt and other halls and theatres all over the globe.

VICTORIAN ERA RECYCLING
BATHING MACHINES TURNED CAMERA OBSCURA
A portable Victorian-era Camera Obscura parked at New Brighton Beach near Liverpool, UK. Thought to be a converted bathing machine as they were known back then. From a 19th century magazine.

Photographer unknown. Private collection of Jack and Beverly Wilgus.

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TOP
CHAPTER NINETEEN

Welcome	About	Introduction	Chapter One beginning of time – 999 AD
Chapter Two 1000 AD – 1399	Chapter Three 1400 – 1599	Chapter Four 1600 – 1649	Chapter Five 1650 – 1699
Chapter Six 1700 – 1749	Chapter Seven 1750 – 1799	Chapter Eight 1800 – 1819	Chapter Nine 1820 – 1829
Chapter Ten 1830 – 1839	Chapter Eleven 1840 – 1849	Chapter Twelve 1850 – 1859	Chapter Thirteen 1860 – 1869
Chapter Fourteen 1870 – 1879	Chapter Fifteen 1880 – 1884	Chapter Sixteen 1885 – 1889	Chapter Seventeen 1890 – 1894
Chapter Eighteen 1895 – 1896	Chapter Nineteen 1897 – 1899	Chapter Twenty 1900 + post cinema	Chapter Twenty-One Addendum 1911+
Copyright	HOTDOC Internet Archive Channel	HOTDOC X Channel	HOTDOC You Tube Channel

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