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

_{1900 – 1910}

The cinema period begins, better known as the silent era.

As cinema arrived during the last decade, I now bring the pre cinema era to a close. However, there is so much more to share which links to the pre cinema era, that I must continue now with chapter nineteen.

The inventors continue to invent and the discoveries continue to be discovered. Overshadowing this is the new art form itself.

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1900
THE BÜNZLI L’ANIMATEUR
HENRI RENE BÜNZLI (1870–1961)
As the pre cinema era comes to an end, Bünzli is documented as having created four very short ten-seconds-each experimental three-dimensional films. And some frames still exist. Born in Reims, France he trained as a watchmaker at the École d’ Horlogerie de Paris between 1885 and 1888.

There he distinguished himself in technical drawing, clockwork theory, and mechanism design. Around 1896 he co-founded a firm with Pierre‑Victor Continsouza, called Bünzli & Continsouza, based in Paris. In January 1898 their company was renamed Manufacture Française d’Appareils de Précision.

Under that banner, Bünzli and Continsouza worked on precision devices: phonographs, cameras, and — crucially for film history — film-projectors.

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The fact that Bünzli came from a watchmaking and precision-engineering background underlines how early cinema often grew out of such crafts

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The company was absorbed by Pathé Frères in August 1900. Later, Bünzli founded a different precision-apparatus company that produced projection equipment. His technical background placed him well to experiment with early film devices.

The L’animateur was a moving-film peep viewer designed by Bünzli to provide 3D relief. It was manufactured by Française d’Appareils de Précision (formerly owned by Bunzli and Continsouza) in Paris.

By its title, it could satisfy only one viewer at a time.

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L’ Animateur was a moving-film peep viewer — an early, proto-cinematic device — designed by Bünzli. It represents one of the earliest documented experiments with 3-D or relief moving images, predating most commonly cited early cinema devices.

Having no peep-show viewer to present these extant frames on, John Wallace at Tangible Media has created the next best thing: this simulated 3D effect. The mechanical ingenuity (mirror + continuous film + stabilization) anticipates some of the optical tricks and intermittent-drive mechanisms that would become standard in later film projectors / animation devices.

The fact that Bünzli came from a watchmaking and precision-engineering background underlines how early cinema often grew out of such crafts — not purely artistic ambition, but mechanical and optical invention.

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These four short 3D experimental films were shown by Serge Bromberg at Lobster Films at a presentation in Paris in December 2009.

Because the original peep viewer is lost, we don’t really know how convincingly 3D the effect was; modern reconstructions simulate the effect for contemporary viewing.

The reach and influence of Bünzli’s work seem limited: his company merged into Pathé Frères in 1900. That likely curtailed further independent development under his name. Much of what we know comes from later reconstructions and pre cinema historians; contemporary documentation appears scarce.

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Bünzli and Continsouza worked on precision devices: phonographs, cameras, and — crucially for film history — film-projectors

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BÜNZLI  IS OFTEN OVERLOOKED
Because the surviving evidence is fragmentary and the device never became widely adopted, Bünzli tends to be a footnote rather than a household name in cinema history. But from a pre cinema / invention genealogy perspective, he offers a crucial example of:

🎞️ how early film — or proto film — was not only about entertainment or art, but about mechanics, precision, and optical experimentation;
🎞️ how 3-D or stereoscopic ambitions existed from very early in the cinematic timeline;
🎞️ how many paths toward moving images were attempted — not just projection onto a screen for many, but intimate peep-viewers for one, like L’ Animateur

_{Bunzli l’animateur French patent image № 296332 Images Tangible Media}

We don’t know exactly what the viewer experience was like: Was the 3D effect convincing, or primitive by modern standards? We don’t know how many people (if any) saw the original L’ Animateur films circa 1900 — there doesn’t seem to be documentation of public screenings.

I am not sure which of these great writers, Charles Dickens or Leo Tolstoy, were fascinated more by the Magic Lantern.

1900-1920s
HONOURABLE MENTION
AUTOSCOPE COMPANY
WILLIAM GEORGE BARKER (1868-1951)
Barker was a British film producer, director, cinematographer, and entrepreneur. In 1901 he started a business at 50 Gray’s Inn Road, Holborn for the purposes of making moving pictures on a hand-cranked Lumière camera, which he had bought a few years before.

He would show films to the public for a fee. This was his first company, the Autoscope Company.

The films were mainly topicals — actuality and news footage. To be clear, Autoscope was the name of his production / exhibition company, not a device he invented.

In 1902 he bought a plot at Ealing and moved his Autoscope Company there from Stamford Hill, which eventually became the famous Ealing Studios.

He later left the Autoscope Company to run the Warwick Trading Company in 1906, replacing founder Charles Urban who went off to found the Charles Urban Trading Company.

Barker then founded Barker Motion Photography Ltd in 1909. He’s a significant figure in early British cinema history. Our Barker should not be confused with Canada’s most decorated war hero of the exact same name.

THE LATE PRE CINEMA PERIOD
THE DIARAMISCOPE
Over the years I have stumbled upon the names Diaramiscope and Diaramascope, where the latter could have some kind of relationship to the Diorama. Nonetheless, I have never been able to clearly identify what this contraption, which appears to have existed, is.

I have seen it mentioned in the proverbial framework of historical optical devices, specifically in texts discussing early motion picture projectors and cameras, such as in the Hopwood book Living Pictures; Their History, Photo production and Practical Working.

In these references, Diaramiscope is listed alongside other better-known devices in the pre cinema category, suggesting it may be a specialized optical instrument or projector used for displaying images or transparencies, possibly related to early cinema or microscopic imaging. Nothing more to say for now, except I’m still looking.

1900
PHOTOGRAPHING SOUND WAVES
ROBERT W. PAUL (1869-1943)
ROBERT WILLIAMS WOOD (1868-1955)
In 1900 renowned American physicist Robert Wood photographed repeating sound waves within a hollow sphere at intervals, to create a phase of photographs. They were photographed at key stages to provide a guide that would plot the curves of a single sequence of sound waves.

The sequence was then drawn and then those line drawings were photographed sequentially to create a film. That film is considered lost.

However, the images of the curves which still exist, 30 in all, were re-animated by pre cinema historian Stephen Herbert before his passing. The original cinematography was by Robert Paul.

_{Image Stephen Herbert}

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The famed American physicist Robert Wood, winner of the Frederic Ives Medal, initiated this work in 1899. His photographs were certainly instantaneous to have captured sound waves. The drawings made from the photographs Wood obtained, still exist and it’s these images Herbert (1951-2023) used in making this re-animation.

_{Animation Stephen Herbert}

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Wood’s work and conclusions were first published in the Philosophical Magazine in August, 1899 (starting on p218 [ https://archive.org/details/londonedinburg5481899lond/page/218/mode/2up?view=theater ] and latter by the Royal Society in January 1900. It was entitled Photography of sound-waves, and the kinematographic demonstration of the evolutions of reflected wave-fronts and can be found here with all of his original photographs and drawingshttps://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspl.1899.0103 . 

Wood used the Schlieren Method.

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“Sound-waves in air were observed by Toepler, but they have never to my knowledge been photographed.” – Robert Wood p218, Philosophical Magazine in August, 1899.

Here are Wood’s original sound wave photographs which he made drawings of. These are figures one through eight on plate III and figures nine through fifteen on plate IV.

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“It occurred to me that if these waves could only be photographed, a most valuable set of lantern-slides could be prepared for illustrating to students the changes in the form of the wave-front, after undergoing reflexion, refraction, &e.” – Robert Wood p218 Philosophical Magazine in August, 1899.

Pictured are plates III and IV of Wood’s sound wave photography comprising thirty images in all which lead to Robert Paul animating them on film. That film is lost to history but thanks to Stephen Herbert we can enjoy what sound waves look like when moving through the air. Source Stephen Herbert.

Sáenz Corona’s attempt to synchronize sound and colour film images—a formidable technical task at the time—was known as the Fonocromoscop. Although nothing is known about the system’s precise workings, it most likely involved phonograph recordings being played in tandem with projected movies.

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“the Fonocromoscop is a set of the colour cinematograph and the phonograph, united with such precision that they give the exact idea of life”

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Considering that early cinema was black-and-white, the inclusion of colour in the pictures added to the surprise. The system’s impact is hypothetical, though, as there are no surviving films or thorough technical details and its success was limited. The main proof of its use is found in press notes mostly from 1901, including those announcing a screening in January 1901.

Sáenz Corona’s films were adaptations of musical compositions, primarily from Zarzuelas and operas, shot with his Fonocromoscop. These films are among the first attempts at sound cinema in Spain, although little information remains due to a dependence on press announcements rather than preserved films or meticulous records.

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From the Madrid Herald of 14 January 1901, we read about the Fonocromoscop fresh from its debut at the Paris Exposition;

Salón de Actualidades. —In the first days of the current week the Fonocromoscop will be presented, a true scientific marvel, which was the most admired item at the last Exposition in Paris. This curious apparatus is a set of the cinematograph and the phonograph, so perfectly twinned, that they give the exact idea of reality by reproducing, by the procedure called the three colors, the figures and landscapes, which seem to be torn from nature. The Fonocromoscop will present the most applauded numbers of modern zarzuelas, impressed on the cinematograph and on the phonograph by distinguished artists.

– Herald of Madrid, Issue № 3715, 14 January 1901, p3

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Five days later is this follow up on its “exact idea of life”;

The Fonocromoscop. —Last night the curious apparatus called the Fonocromoscop was exhibited for the first time in Madrid, which constitutes the last word in modern science, and which was, during the last Exposition in Paris, the most celebrated for its novelty and beauty. The Salón de Actualidades Company, which tries to give its show so much novelty, wanted to be the first to implement this marvelous invention in Madrid, and last night, as we have said, it was presented to the public, who filled all the sections and applauded enthusiastically. . The Fonocromoscop is a set of the colour cinematograph and the phonograph, united with such precision that they give the exact idea of life.

– Herald of Madrid, Issue №  3720, 19 January 1901, p3

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The Fonocromoscop’s reliance on press announcements for documentation indicates minimal commercial or critical success. The system’s complexity—synchronizing sound, vision, and colour—may have made widespread deployment impracticable, especially given the era’s technological limitations.

Furthermore, some announced films such as Canción de la Vecchia Zimarra and Salida de Escamillo may not have been completed, signaling potential production issues.

While his name is obscure in comparison to following pioneers, his work constitutes a bold, albeit under-documented, milestone in the growth of audiovisual storytelling in Spain. The available sources provide no personal information regarding Sáenz Corona’s life (for example, his birth, death, or career after 1901), making him a somewhat enigmatic character.

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Four patents under the name of Ángel Sáenz Corona that were discovered at the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office have nothing to do with sound or cinematography, suggesting that he was either not the inventor or did not file for a patent on them.

Pictured is an image portraying the world premiere of Cavalleria rusticana at the Costanzi Theatre in Rome on May 17, 1890 which Corona would later film.

_{Image Gallica}

1900
HOOCHEE KOOCHEE
AMERICAN PARLOR KINETOSCOPE
As the pre cinema era comes to a close, we have paper film strips making a temporary return to the personal home-theatre market (as have disks), in the American Parlor Kinetoscope made by the company of the same name.

^{Animation Tangible Media}

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It’s suggested that because the background is so dark, this strip might have been shot in the Black Maria. The American Parlour Kinetoscope was manufactured for Edison by The American Parlour Kinetoscope Company of Washington DC.

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the prominent dancer seen in this paper “picture belt” is Dolorita, a celebrated abdominal dancer or Hoochee Koochee girl perhaps what we would call a belly dancer

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The APK’s paper film strips measured 1 3/4 by 1 3/8 inches or 45 x 35 mm.

The 35mm film frames were extended to span the entire 45mm width of the unperforated paper strips, which ranged in length from fifteen to sixty feet, spool banked in the bottom of the cabinet.

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Illumination is from natural light as it shines through a hole in the side of the box. As evidenced by the poor condition of this exhibit, very few of these devices have survived.

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Pictured is an American Parlor Kinetoscope write up in the New York Jeweler.

^{Images Tangible Media}

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1900
THE LOUNGE CINEMATOGRAPHE
PATHÉ
Also referred to as the Cinematograph of the Salons, this was another Nickelodeon single-viewer Peep Show also created for the doctor’s office, or any waiting room as the advertising stated, and is not widely documented in mainstream cinema history.

The Lounge Cinematographe is not a well-catalogued or widely studied Pathé product in film history; mainstream histories of Pathé tend not to mention it. Most historical texts focus on Pathé’s cameras, projectors, film production, and cinema exhibition venues.

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My reference comes from a secondary summary, not from primary Pathé catalogues or contemporaneous documentation that I could locate in major archives. That means while the device certainly existed, it’s not part of the standard historical narrative and may only be referenced in niche collector or Peep Show history materials.

The Lounge Cinematographe ran film as opposed to flip card photographs like the Mutoscope. The film was run through an interior spoolbank like the Dickson Kinetoscope. No special lighting was needed, even a candle at night was sufficient. Pictured is the schematic.

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A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY
In early cinema, the term cinematographe was used broadly and generically in advertising for various motion picture devices — from full projectors to handheld or tabletop viewers — so, not every cinematographe from 1895–1905 refers to what we’d think of as a public film projector.

This is why I occasionally use the terms (noun) vs. (pronoun).

The Cinematograph of the Salons, had a modest price it says, but fails to tell us what the price was. It did not require electricity and no coin was needed–the spectator only has to “turn the crank and you are satisfied!”

As their advertising also boasted;

SILVER HALIDES AND THE SILVER SCREEN
Film chemistry began to change around 1909 when volatile nitrate film began to be replaced by the more stable acetate film although it remained in use into the 1950s. Polyester was introduced as the base layer for photographic film since the 1980s.

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prior to 1952, the bulk of motion pictures were shot and printed on nitrate stock. The Reason: absolutely remarkable image clarity

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George Eastman introduced cellulose nitrate as a foundation for photographic roll film in 1889. Until the 1950s, cellulose nitrate was still used for photographic and professional 35mm motion picture film. In addition to being very combustible, it decomposes and becomes noxious.

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Prior to 1952, the bulk of motion pictures were shot and printed on nitrate stock. The Reason: absolutely remarkable image clarity.

The George Eastman Museum stores more than 24K reels of nitrate-based film prints and negatives, some of the most famous films ever made.

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There are four ways to identify nitrate negatives;

🎞️ Edge markings

🎞️ Dating

🎞️ Testing

🎞️ Visual Deterioration

Many manufacturers like Kodak imprinted identifiers along the top border of professional sheet films.
– Northeast Document Conservation Centre

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Edge markings were first used in film base identification. Nitric oxide, nitrous oxide, and nitrous dioxide are all released as gases from the decomposition of cellulose nitrate.

Cellulose nitrate decomposition can be very rapid. Generally categorized in five progressive stages;

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Long cellulose strands are modified to create nitrate film. If nitrate film is subjected to moisture, heat, and acids over time, the nitro side-groups separate, releasing nitrogen oxides into the air.

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Once started, nitrate degradation accelerates at an increasing rate. The outcome is the nitrate plastic support base itself completely decomposing. Think of the nitrate plastic support base as your dinner plate. The gelatin emulsion holding the silver halides is your dinner.

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The gelatin softening and stickiness is commonly associated with an intermediate phase of degradation.

It’s usually preceded by fading and discolouration of the image silver followed by nitrate plastic base total disintegration into powder.

You just lost your dinner and your plate.

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DIGITAL VS CELLULOID IN 2025
Today films are shot both digitally and on celluloid. Some directors swear by one or the other. Some films are also scanned to digital before release if shot on celluloid and vice versa. Cost, editing advantage and other factors can favour digital filmmaking today.

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One factor favouring celluloid however is that it won’t explode, won’t cast off nasty fumes, or disintegrate or turn to dust anymore. Its superior quality, but costs more mostly due to post production.

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST ELECTRONIC DEVICE
A slight departure from pre cinema but a cousin nonetheless, is this imagery from 1906 showing one receiving an amatory message and the other racing results.

How distant are we from smart phones and electronic devices?

^{Images University of Toronto Library via Public Domain Review}

It serves as a reminder that the fear of technology leading to a breakdown in authentic, or real face-to-face human interaction 118 years ago is not unique to our time alone. Notice the antennas on their hats.

1900
MIRROSCOPE POSTCARD PROJECTOR
The Mirroscope, manufactured by the Buckeye Stereopticon Company of Cleveland, Ohio, was an innovative early 20th-century optical device, often described as an opaque projector, episcope, or magic lantern.

It was designed to project images of postcards, photographs, printed matter, or small objects like coins or leaves onto a wall or screen, offering a versatile way to display visuals for entertainment or educational purposes in homes, schools, or public settings.

The cards are inserted into slots on the inside of the back cover.

^{Images de Luikerwaal}

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By 1900 movies had taken a foothold across the world. Makeshift theatres set up in Vaudeville, and music halls were everywhere and yet, the Magic Lantern of all shapes, sizes, and purposes were still in demand.

The Mirroscope was typically a six-sided tin or metal box, standing about 14–15 inches tall and 8–14 inches wide, depending on the model. It featured a telescoping lens tube on the front for focusing, which could extend up to 6 inches, and a hinged rear panel or back door for inserting the object to be projected.

Two chimneys or heat stacks on top allowed heat to escape from the internal light sources while preventing stray light from interfering with the projection.

^{Images de Luikerwaal}

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The device used two internal light sources, originally gas or kerosene burners in earlier models (circa 1910–1911), later upgraded to electric bulbs in models from the 1910s–1920s. These illuminated the object placed inside, reflecting light through the lens to project the image.

Some models were convertible between gas and electric power, reflecting the transitional technology of the era. The size of this Mirroscope Magic Lantern is eight inches wide by eight and a half inches tall by eight inches front to back with the lens pushed in (it slides).

An early advertisement for this lantern read;

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Unlike traditional Magic Lanterns that projected transparent slides, the Mirroscope was an opaque projector, meaning it projected images of non-transparent objects by reflecting light off them. This allowed it to display a wide range of items, from postcards to physical objects, making it a versatile tool for both personal and public use.

Based at 5502 Carnegie Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio, the company was active in the early 1900s, producing optical devices during a time when Magic Lanterns and Stereopticons were popular for education and entertainment. The Mirroscope was marketed as a consumer-friendly device, simpler than professional Stereopticons but more advanced than basic toy projectors.

^{Images de Luikerwaal}

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The Mirroscope was part of pre cinema’s visual culture, bridging Stereoscopes and early film projectors. It was used to project family photos, travel postcards, or even comic strips (e.g., a 1911 Mutt and Jeff comic slide show), making it a social and educational tool.

Its ability to project opaque objects set it apart from slide-based Magic Lanterns, aligning it with devices like the Radioptican by the Hawley C. White Company. The Buckeye Stereopticon Mirroscope Postcard Projector falls within the category of Episcopes and Epidiascopes.

^{Images de Luikerwaal}

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The 1913 failure of The Voyage to the Moon’s sequel, The Extraordinary Voyage, marked a significant setback. World War I further strained his finances. His Montreuil studio was requisitioned by the French army, and many of his film negatives were melted down for wartime resources.

By 1913, Méliès was bankrupt, and he stopped producing films. He sold his film catalog and turned to other ventures, including running a toy and candy shop at the Montparnasse train station in Paris with his wife, Jeanne d’Alcy. In the 1920s, Méliès faded into obscurity, but his work began to be rediscovered by film enthusiasts and historians.

In 1925, journalist Léon Druhot, editor of Cinémagazine, encountered Méliès at his shop and began advocating for his recognition. This led to a renewed interest in his films. In 1929, a retrospective screening of his works, including A Trip to the Moon, was held at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, reintroducing his contributions to a new audience.

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In 1931, Méliès was awarded the Legion of Honour by the French government, a significant acknowledgment of his contributions to cinema. In his final years, Méliès lived at the Château d’Orly, a retirement home for film industry professionals, funded by the Mutuelle du Cinéma.

He remained active, giving lectures on his career and occasionally performing magic shows. Despite financial struggles, he was celebrated by peers like Charlie Chaplin, who called him an “alchemist of light.”

Méliès died of cancer on January 21, 1938, at the age of 76, in Paris. At the time of his death, his contributions were only partially recognized, but posthumously, he became a legend in cinema history. His innovative use of special effects, stop-motion, and narrative storytelling laid the groundwork for modern filmmaking.

Today, approximately 200 of his 500+ films survive, and efforts continue to restore and preserve his work.

1900
LUMIERE AND SONS / THE PHOTORAMA
At the Paris International Exhibition of 1900, the Lumière’s (Auguste and Louis) presented their Photorama Lumière, a 360 degree panoramic projector  which used 70mm film and an anaglyphic stereoscopic motion picture system which was later introduced into the motion picture industry 1935.

The Lumière Photorama was a process for wide screen static projection. The screen was between twenty and twenty-one metres in circumference and six metres high. The system used revolving lenses to project that of landscapes, riverscapes and cityscapes.

Even though static, the Photorama depended upon Apparent Motion as is the case with cinematography.

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by allowing the lenses to sweep past the film in a circular motion, this allowed each frame to be seen in a separate but constant state

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Here, photographed in 1901 for the Photorama, is the presentation seen by patrons of the view of Santa Lucia harbour in Naples Italy. As you can see, the view is a full 360 degree pan.

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Unlike a static Panorama, the Photorama depended on Apparent Motion. It expanded on the Panorama of Barker, but by projection as opposed to a painting.

The system consisted of twelve lenses fixed on a circular plate which turned three times per second.

^{Images Institut Lumière}

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Fixed lenses turning in unison allowed the film-frames to also remain fixed.

By allowing the lenses to sweep past the film in a circular motion, this allowed each frame to be seen in a separate but constant state.

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Here is the Port de Deauville in Trouville filmed for the Photorama by the Lumières in 1901. The Photorama is the first system to allow both shooting and projecting without aberrations.

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The patent for the Photorama was granted in 1902 for “a method for producing a static circular photograph.”

The patent for “a system of stereoscopic cinema” was granted on 29 December, 1900.

By 1915 Cinema had spread like wildfire. It had roots in all industrialized nations.

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The Old Port of Marseilles filmed for the Photorama by the Lumières in 1901. A 360° single shot on a cylindrical screen that moves around you, the audience.

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Left is a digitized image of a used ticket for the Lumière Photorama, year not exactly known but likely 1900-1902.

Right, Salle Photorama, on rue Clichy, Paris, in 1902.

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Get another idea of what the Lumière Photorama 360º Panoramic projection system would have looked like. The view is Venice’s Porte de Salute.

EARLY MOVIE THEATRE ETIQUETTE
Early theatre audiences had to be taught that movie etiquette was an important factor when viewing the new medium in public. The new cinema may be happening in makeshift vaudeville houses, but this wasn’t vaudeville.

Hootin’ and hollerin’ wasn’t desired and certainly not shooting spit balls at the performers.

1900
FROM THE INTERESTING PHOTOGRAPHY DEPARTMENT
GEORGE R. LAWRENCE (1868-1938)
In the who-can-build -the-largest-camera category, Lawrence wins. After all, cameras were originally the size of rooms.

It took eight foot by four and a half foot plates and weighed 1,400 pounds.

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Lawrence named it his Mammoth, and was commission by Chicago and Alton Railway to photograph their new Luxury Train.

The photograph of the camera was and still is, more popular than the actual Panorama train photograph.

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Lawrence’s most famous photograph is a Panorama of San Francisco, taken just days after the 1906 earthquake. He hung his 40-pound Panoramic camera from a series of kites.

The shutter was tripped by sending an electrical current up a piece of piano wire to the camera. Also pictured is Lawrence’s giant Panoramic camera he used in taking the high-level and wide angle shot of San Francisco just days after the 18 April earthquake in 1906.

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ASC cinematographer Arthur Miller is seen here with a Pathé Studio camera, and a production still from The House of Hate (1918) with Pearl White, Antonio Moreno, director George B. Seitz and Arthur Miller.

The location of the shot is Cliffhanger Point on the Hudson Palisades, near the New York / New Jersey state line.

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Bell & Howell 2709 cameras were used to shoot countless shorts, newsreels and feature films, including the silent classics Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) and Chaplin’s The Gold Rush (1925).

Pictured here is a well known photograph from the set of The Gold Rush showing cinematographer Rollie Totheroh framing up on Chaplin with his 2709.

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Here from Ray Zone’s ‘Stereoscopic Cinema and the Origins of 3-D Film, 1838-1952,’ on p46, Zone’s reporting on the Kinetoscope Attachment for Stereoscopes from Moniot and Garcin.

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Viewing of the animated images, alternating between the left and right eye, required two pictures that would “illustrate a figure in different positions.” The Kinetoscope Attachment for Stereoscopes was a variation of the Motoscope viewer manufactured by D. Appleton in 1860.

1900
THE MIROGRAPHE
LUCIEN REULOS (1864-1928)
JACQUES GOUDEAU
Le Mirographe cine camera/projector was designed, built and sold by the company Reulos, Goudeau et Cie in Paris. The first French device intended for unprofessional Cinematography.

^{Images WestLicht and George Eastman Museum}

There were two models of the Mirographe.

🎞️Model A could film, review and project

🎞️Model B, called the Living Room Cinematograph, was for projection only, by adding a lantern for illumination and securing the projection lens. Model B arrived in 1901.

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The Mirographe cine camera/projector was noteworthy for its easy operation. Running 22 or 20mm film depending on the model, it used the principle of an angled ‘snail’ wheel to move the film.

The Mirographe view of the mechanism on the left and the opened Mirographe seen below.

^{Images Photo JFPB}

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The radius suddenly rises when the cam has completed one full circle, catching the subsequent notch as the preceding notch is released. Additionally, the camera serves as a projector.

_{Images Tangible Media}

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The 20mm Mirographe film showing notches on each side of the nitrate film, in-between frames, as opposed to perforations on each frame.

An original can of Mirographe film.

^{Images Antiq Photo Gallery and JFPB}

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The Mirographe shown in a ready-to-go state on the left.

The open Mirographe with everything except the lens removed.

^{Images Antiq Photo Gallery and JFPB}

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Tangible Media has brought those five and a half frames from the Reulos, Goudeau et Cie Mirographe to life.

_{Animation Tangible Media}

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At the time, the Mirographe was considered one of the first cameras made specifically for amateur cinematography. Remember the 17mm Birtac?

_{Images borrowed from Nicolas Ricordel @Ricordel_N at X.}

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ELEVATOR VIEW ASCENDING EIFFEL TOWER (1900)
A great idea to run a camera while you ascend the Eiffel Tower. The title in the Edison films catalog was ‘Panoramic view from the Eiffel Tower, ascending and descending’ with a optional title from the Edison catalogue 1890-1900 of ‘Scene from the Eiffel Tower, ascending and descending’ with the AFI catalog tile of, ‘Film Beginnings, 1893-1910: Eiffel Tower, No. 1, No. 2, No. 3′

Runs 2:18. Edison wrote “This wonderful tower is 1,000 feet in height, and the picture produces a most sensational effect.”

This is the first half showing the ascension.

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THE MYSTIC SWING (1900)
The Mystic Swing is a landmark silent trick film produced by the Edison Manufacturing Company in 1900. It is a prime example of the early cinematic fascination with stage magic and the supernatural, heavily influenced by the work of French film pioneer Georges Méliès. Direction is usually attributed to Edwin Stanton Porter, who would later direct the revolutionary The Great Train Robbery (1903).

The Mystic Swing is considered one of his earliest experiments with cinematic storytelling and effects. Filmed at Edison’s Black Maria studio in West Orange, New Jersey. The film utilized the stop-motion substitution technique (pausing the camera, swapping an actor for a skeleton or another actor, then resuming).

This was the cutting-edge CGI of 1900. At the time, Thomas Edison was in fierce competition with Georges Méliès. Runs 1:00 / 16 fps. Listed in Edison catalogue, as №. 105.

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In fact, it is because of Kemp Niver and this collection that the film still exists today. In 1900, U.S. copyright law protected “photographs” but did not yet recognize “motion pictures” as a distinct category. Yet.

To protect their work, Edison and other filmmakers had to print every single frame of their movies onto long strips of photographic paper and submit them to the Library of Congress as “photographs.” While the original highly flammable nitrate film prints of most early movies rotted or exploded over time, these Paper Prints sat safely in the Library of Congress archives for decades.

In the 1950s, a film historian and technician named Kemp Niver developed a process to re-photograph these paper strips frame-by-frame back onto modern 16mm or 35mm film. It is now categorized within the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division as part of the Paper Print Collection (Library of Congress) / Niver (Kemp) Collection.

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Because these are archival film materials rather than standard books, they are often requested via their shelf numbers or copyright deposit information. It’s LCCN (Control Number) is 98501178.

The Digital Identifier number is lccn.loc.gov/98501178. FLA 4956 is the specific shelf number for the 16mm viewing print created from the Kemp Niver restoration.

If you are looking at the original Niver inventory (the book Motion Pictures from the Library of Congress Paper Print Collection 1894–1912), the film is indexed under Edison, Thomas A. and cross-referenced with its copyright deposit date: May 14, 1900.

1900
THE PHOTOMETRE
Late in our study, but equally important to the history, is this very early (perhaps the earliest), Mechanical Photometre from 1900.

Made by Simmance-Abady of England, light can now be measured with accuracy for the exposure of film.

This Photometre was used to measure the intensity of light by comparing beams from two different sources. The Photometre that appears in the images is probably a first version of these instruments, since its serial number is relatively low (Nº 833).

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The development of analytical spectrometry is credited to Kirchhoff and Bunsen ( of Bunsen burner fame), and the discovery of indium, gallium, and thallium is credited to the chemists of the day using this method of flame excitation.

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In 1873, Champion, Pellet, and Grenier created another instrument that measured the salt content in plant ash samples to within 5%. This would become the invention of the flame Photometre as we know it today. This brings us full circle to the Photometre of 1900.

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This Simmance-Abady Mechanical Photometre measures 6 x 3.7 x 4 inches. The length of the visor is five inches. Also pictured are two images of the Sekonic lightmetre I used in college. What a difference 75 years make.

1900
EADWEARD JAMES MUYBRIDGE (1830-1904)
Having returned to his native England, Eadweard Muybridge bequeathed to the Kingston-on-Thames Public Library, most of his possessions at the time.

The Zoopraxiscope and Kingston Museum as they look today.

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Today the Kingston-on-Thames Public Library is called the Kingston Museum.

Below are Muybridge’s Zoopraxiscope transport cases. Thanks to curator of Kingston Museum Seoyoung Kim for these images.

INAUGURATION DE L’INSTITUT MAREY (1902)
Inauguration of the Marey Institute in Paris. Chronophotography by Étienne-Jules Marey. He is the first to shake hands. Present is Marey’s granddaughter Francesca Gallone, the young lady in the white bonnet. Runs 15 seconds.

1902
THE LITTLE MATCH SELLER
JAMES WILLIAMSON (1855-1933)
Hans Christian Anderson’s story of a poor, little girl on a cold winter night. We see special effects; super-imps and other visual tricks. Then she dies and Christ’s angel comes. From the Williamson Kinematograph Company. Runs 3:15

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in 1902, the year The Little Match Seller was filmed, Williamson created at his residence one of the earliest post cinema purpose-made glass film studios in the industry

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Unfortunately, the name of the girl who played the Little Match Seller in the film remains unidentified. No cast list survives, and the child performer was never identified in trade papers or catalogues.

Despite the film’s significance as a pioneering piece of British cinema—notable for its early use of double exposure and picture-in-picture effects—the credits for films of that era were rarely recorded or shown on screen.

TWO WILLIAMSON DAUGHTERS
Based on family records and the ages of his children at the time, there is a strong possibility that one of his daughters—Florence or Ethel—played the lead role, though historians haven’t been able to definitively match a face to a name.

In 1902, films were sold by the foot through catalogs. Actors were not stars yet, and their names were almost never listed in promotional materials or on the film itself.

Even the BFI (British Film Institute), which holds the film in its national archive, lists the cast as unknown or simply not recorded.

The film is still widely celebrated today for its technical sophistication. Even without a name, her performance remains one of the earliest examples of a filmmaker attempting to depict a character’s internal emotional life rather than just physical action.

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In 1902, the year The Little Match Seller was filmed, Williamson created at his residence one of the earliest post cinema purpose-made glass film studios in the industry.

Right, the Williamson Kinematograph Company cast on the Motion Picture Apparatus Precision Tripod.

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The rescue scenario was key in Williamson’s realism fiction filmmaking style. Attack on a China Mission (1900), Fire! (1901) and The Little Match Seller are three Williamson examples of this.

Left- Williamson Kinematograph Company logo. Right- the Kinematograph opened.

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SEE the hand-cranked 35mm Williamson Kinematograph camera here, presented by historian and collector Sam Dodge. Runs 10:45.

1902
PANORAMIC VIEW OF CHARLESTON EXPOSITION
Approximately 350° pan of the grounds of the Charleston, South Carolina Exposition. Filmed in April at 16 fps lasting 3 minutes and two seconds. Edison films catalogue № 135 at the Library of Congress.

1903-1935
AUTOCHROME PROCESS
The Lumière Autochrome process was the first viable and beautiful colour process for photographers.

The quest for colour photography began in the 1840s when at least four different procedures began to emerge for the application of colour images.

Although not the first colour method, the Lumière Autochrome process produced some of the most attractive and clear colour photographs ever taken.

Below, the cover from an original box of Autochromes.

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The Autochrome process was discovered by the Lumières, Louis and Auguste patenting it 17 December 1903, presenting it to the Académie des Sciences on 30 May 1904.

The first Autochrome plates were manufactured and marketed in 1907. They remained in production until 1935.

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A selection of other Autochromes to show the clarity and sharpness of the colour, all from the very early 20th century. Some are from BabelColour @StuartHumphryes on X.

1903
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT AT UNION SQUARE SAN FRANCISCO
The dedication of the Dewey Monument in Union Square, Thursday, 14 May 1903, photographed at 9:00am by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, now held in the Paper Print Collection of the Library of Congress. Herbert Miles operated the Biograph camera. AMBC production № 2376.

One of several films taken during President Theodore Roosevelt’s visit to San Francisco 12-14 May 1903 as part of his presidential tour of the West in 1903. Throngs of people are seen mostly on the return panorama of this extremely popular president.

Four minutes 38 seconds.

KIDDIES CAKE WALK (1903)
Filmed as a one-take dance by these two wee ones, a boy and a girl both aged four, mimicking an ‘adult cake-walk performance’ of the time. A Robert Paul production filmed with his Animatograph camera. Shot with 35mm film, 62 feet in all. Runs 1:27

According to the British Film Institute; “Around 1903 there seems to have been a sudden spike in the popularity of the ‘cakewalk’, a dance originating in American plantations around the mid-19th century. It was introduced into Europe around 1899 and featured in touring pantomime in Britain in 1900. Children would perform the dance in competitions up and down the country, so perhaps that’s how this four-year-old pair came to the attention of filmmaker Robert Paul – although they are so good that they could be a professional ‘act’ from a theatrical family.”

1903
THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY
Edwin Porter included this now-forgotten scene of one of the actor-outlaws, Justus D. Barnes, firing his gun at the camera. Edison allowed the theatre to have a copy of Barnes shooting either at the beginning, or at the end of the film. Colourised now, but not in 1903.

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These are the eighteen frames from the original film. The chamber contained blanks of course but at the time this scene was remembered as one that scared audiences out of their seats. Forget about trains. What about bullets. Can you imagine, had sound been included, what audiences would have done.

Justus D. Barnes (1862-1946) an American stage and film actor, below.

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1903
THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY
Gilbert ‘Max’ Broncho Billy Anderson (born Gilbert Maxwell Henry Aronson) [1880 – 1971], was one of the first big-time animated players and he played several roles in this based-on-true-events film;

🎞️ one of the bandits
🎞️ one the passengers
🎞️ one of the dancers

He was also a true life cowboy too.

This copy of mine is running 10:30 at 18 fps. It has Barnes shooting you out of your seat, at the end. It has added piano, just like in the theatre in 1903.

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The Globe Theatre in New York gave greater billing as a twin attraction in 1939 to The Great Train Robbery than it did to The Roaring Twenties with Cagney and Priscilla Lane. Top billing, thirty-six years later.

The original negative of The Great Train Robbery is listed in Edison’s catalogue, as Nº 200, MOMA Collection, Library of Congress. It was filmed at Edison’s New York studio, Essex County Park in New Jersey, and along the Lackawanna railroad line. It comprises 14 scenes, filmed November 1903.

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Less than two years later, Porter and Edison are back at it with a miniature version called . . . .

1905
THE LITTLE TRAIN ROBBERY
Just like old times but with smaller characters, a smaller train and a girl for a leader. Edwin Stanton Porter and Edison lampoon their first one. Filmed 3–23 August in Olympia Park, Connellsville, Pennsylvania. Filmed at 16 fps according to Library of Congress.

The Little Train Robbery is a significant little film, primarily because it’s a parody of one of the most important movies in early cinema, which was also made by the same director. It is a direct spoof of Porter’s hugely successful and influential 1903 film, The Great Train Robbery.

The Little Train Robbery is considered one of the earliest known examples of a film parody, and notably, it’s a self-parody since Porter directed both the original hit and the comedic remake. The film features an all-child cast as the bandits, led by a character called the Bandit Queen.

The Edison Company sought to capitalize on the immense popularity of The Great Train Robbery by offering a lighthearted, family-friendly version. While The Great Train Robbery was groundbreaking for its narrative structure and editing techniques like cross-cutting, The Little Train Robbery is a simpler, more linear comedy.

It shows that even in 1905, filmmakers were quick to use parody and self-reference, which is a common practice in cinema today.

^{Images the Nicholas Hiley Collection via Stephen Herbert}

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This optical motion simulator came with six slotted disks with sequential images, a stand, a turning rod, and the viewing hood. Motion was imparted by the turning of the attached rod. The price was 50¢ at the store, or 65¢ if mailed to you.

Zimmerman’s work on the Ludoscope is documented in historical records related to early cinematography, with artifacts preserved in collections such as the Jack & Beverly Wilgus Collection and the François Binétruy Collection. A photograph of him was published by Horatio Collins King in the History of Dickinson College (American University Magazine, February-May 1897).

Beyond these details, specific biographical information about his personal life, such as family or other professional contributions, is not well-documented.

^{Images the Nicholas Hiley Collection via Stephen Herbert}

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Here is the illustrated Ludoscope schematic from Zimmerman’s US patent filed 25 September 1903 and granted 5 January 1904, №748831. He was a Professor at Maryland State College. Photo of Zimmerman by Horatio Collins King from History of Dickinson College, reprinted from American University Magazine, February-May, 1897.

1905
THE PHONOSCÈNE
ALICE IDA ANTOINETTE GUY-BLACHÉ
Guy-Blaché demonstrates a behind-the-scenes sound-on-disc early movie set, filmed at the Gaumont studio at Buttes-Chaumont, Paris. Alice is in the foreground, bent over. Anatole Thiberville is on the camera. It runs 52 seconds.

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1905
LE VRAI JIU-JITSU
THE PHONOSCÈNE
Using her Phonoscène sound-on-disc system, Alice Guy-Blaché gives us perfect synchonisation using playback. Remember the double-horned Gramophone in Phonoscène which I showed directly above? This was how she matched the sound in editing.

There were no clapboards in 1905.

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1905
LA STATUE
ALICE GUY BLACHÉ (1873–1968)
While the film La Statue is often attributed to Alice, its production history is a subject of fascinating debate among film historians, illustrating the collaborative and sometimes uncredited nature of early cinema. The production of the short silent film offers a glimpse into the early period of narrative cinema and the pioneering work of Alice at Société des Établissements L. Gaumont (later re-titled Gaumont Film Company).

At the time of this film’s making, Alice was the Head of Production at the Gaumont Film Company in Paris. Under her leadership, the studio transitioned from making brief actualities, to narrative fiction, and trick films. Produced at Gaumont’s Cité Elgé studio in the Buttes-Chaumont neighborhood of Paris.

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in 1905, Alice Guy-Blaché was one of the
most prolific filmmakers in the world

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This facility featured a large glass-roofed studio that allowed for consistent lighting during the day. While Alice Guy-Blaché is widely and tentatively credited with directing La Statue, the Gaumont catalog of the time did not always credit directors.

Film historian Francis Lacassin included the film in her filmography, stating that “no one other than Alice Guy could have been the director,” although other directors like Victorin Jasset were also working at Gaumont in 1905.

The sets were designed by Henri Ménessier, who worked closely with Guy Blaché to create the illusion of a grand museum hall within the cramped studio space.

Pictured is the interior of the Cité Elgé studio in Buttes-Chaumont.

In 1905, Guy-Blaché was one of the most prolific filmmakers in the world. Her films from this period were typically short, up to about six minutes, though she was also experimenting with longer, more elaborate projects like Esmeralda (1905) and the multi-part La Vie du Christ (1906).

She experimented with cinematic techniques such as double exposures and masking effects, though La Statue itself is noted for its single, static shot, typical of early short comedies.

Four hundred and fifty-one directorial credits; 32 as a producer; 18 as writer; 4 as actress. La Statue is a 5-minute short one-reeler single static camera set-up, produced through Gaumont.

THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS 1905
Edwin Stanton Porter directed the action in this Edison Manufacturing Company film that lasts 14 minutes, made available to the Kinetoscopes on 16 December, 1905. It is historically significant as the first known film adaptation of Clement Clarke Moore’s 1823 poem, A Visit from St. Nicholas. Porter, who directed the landmark The Great Train Robbery (1903), used this film to experiment with narrative storytelling and early visual effects.

The most famous sequence involves a Panoramic shot of Santa’s sleigh flying over moonlit hills and a city. This was achieved using miniatures and a painted backdrop on a rotating turntable, a “jaw-dropping” technical feat for the era. Porter utilized substitution splices (stopping the camera to swap objects) to make Santa appear and disappear, or to magically transform a room with a Christmas tree and presents.

Unlike many later versions that used puppets or animation, the opening scenes feature Santa, played by Harry Eytinge, feeding a herd of live reindeer at the North Pole. The film alternates between Santa’s workshop and a domestic household where children are having a raucous pillow fight.

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He appeared in dozens of early silent shorts and serials, including: Jack and the Beanstalk (1912), where he played the Giant; What Happened to Mary (1912), which was the first serial film made in the United States; and Dolly of the Dailies (1914).

He was a Civil War veteran. He served in the US Navy and was given command of vessels such as the USS Shepherd Knapp and the USS Chillicothe. Before entering the burgeoning film industry, he was an established stage actor and producer, continuing a family tradition in the arts (his relatives included notable illustrators and actresses).

He was born on 5 March, 1862, and passed away in the Bronx on 19 October, 1928.

1905
MONOCULAR STEREOSCOPIC ANIMATION
THEODORE BROWN (1870–1938)
With cinematography well underway, Brown described his idea of Monocular Stereoscopy in an extensive and comprehensive manner in The Optician on 13 January, 1905. No special glasses required.

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Brown was proposing a stereoscopic 3D film system that didn’t require glasses. He stated that by utilizing little-known information about depth perception, conventional stereoscopic photography appeared to have eclipsed alternative methods of adding dimension to images.

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During the presentation of these little dancing girls, Brown came to the conclusion that, (maybe still fresh in his memory from the enthusiastic reception he received), that he recollected this from a year earlier;

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By 1929 Brown was still in a quest for 3D on film. Pictured, British patent № 319406, 23 September. For a comprehensive look into Brown’s Monocular Stereoscopy attempts, visit Revealed: The World’s First ‘3-D’ Film Show (Part 2) by Stephen Herbert.

THE ENCHANTED SEDAN CHAIR (1905)
Directed by Georges Méliès and released in France under the name, ‘La chaise à porteur enchantée.’ His background as a master magician is certainly evident here, and his mastery of editing. Star Film Company. Runs 3:07

1905
GAUMONT STÉRÉODROME
LÉON ERNEST GAUMONT (1864–1946)
The Gaumont Stéréodrome was a tray-based stereoscope designed and manufactured by Gaumont, introduced in 1903. It was a tabletop salon device for viewing stereoscopic glass plate transparencies.

The Stéréodrome, made by the Societé des Etablissements Gaumont in Paris, is a well-designed and sturdy Stereoscope for 2.36 x 5.11-inch glass stereoviews.

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The viewer is fully made of mahogany wood with chromed metalwork and bakelite eyepieces, and holds a chassis of glass plates that are served in sequence by the crank mechanism.

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The distance between the lenses may be adjusted as well as focused. Twenty slides can be stored in the bakelite slide tray. A crank is turned to display the photos one by one.

The finger grip on the sliding tray makes it easier to remove. It was a worthy competitor to Jules Richard’s Taxiphote— the two devices being the principal rivals in the French salon stereoscope market of the early 1900s.

It was made for automatic slide changing and viewing from magazines of twenty slides.

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Gaumont sold camera equipment and film, but in 1897 they also began making short films. Here is an ad for a Stéréodrome with projection lantern attached. There was also a projection variant.

Gaumont built a special projection lantern that worked with the Stéréodrome by removing the upper viewing section (the eyepieces and reflector mirror), leaving the slide mechanism exposed on the optical axis of the projection lens.

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Surviving examples turn up regularly at auction and with specialist dealers — well-regarded as elegant objects in mahogany (occasionally in rarer woods like thuya burl) and still functional after more than a century.

Léon Gaumont was a French industrialist and pioneer of the Motion Picture industry. Retiring in 1930, Gaumont had developed one of the most prominent film enterprises in history. His was one of the first film companies in the world and still exists today.

1906
PATHÉ FRÈRES
PUSSY’S BREAKFAST
In French this film is called Le Déjeuner de Minet. It’s listed in the Pathé Frères archive as film Nº 1298. On the internet and particularly in You Tube, much has been written. Much of it erroneous.

Not a lot is known about this film or it’s players except that the girl’s name is Estelle Roy De Menditte (1892-1988). Estelle was 14 years old at the time and the elderly lady is her actual grandmother. It’s possible both were known to the Pathé empire and were chosen for this but I can’t be sure of that.

Because it’s an early scenario, the story is quite simple; A young girl takes direction from her grandmother not to feed the cat her breakfast, but as most teens do, she proceeds to leave her cat some milk to drink. This copy has been chopped down to one minute and five seconds.

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Here is a colourised version of Pussy’s Breakfast filmed in October of 1905 in Troyes, France and released for viewing by the French public in 1906. This copy runs one minute and thirty seconds.

Estelle lived to the age of 96, dying in 1988. I have seen it written that she married and had eleven children. It has been cleaned up and the timing corrected. Estelle is known to have made several test films from this still-to-be-confirmed filmmaker. This is the only one found of her, and verified by her great grandson Abel Roy in 2021.

1906
HUMOROUS PHASES OF FUNNY FACES
JAMES STUART BLACKTON (1875-1941)
A short animation called Humorous Phases of Funny Faces by James Blackton. It proved hugely influential in the development of animated films in America.

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THE ENCHANTED DRAWING (1900)
James Stuart Blackton was the animator for this Edison Manufacturing production. Blackton draws images which appeared 3D and real (at the 42 second mark). Terrific early Cinema magic. Runs 1:33

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A MOVIE WITHIN A MOVIE
THE BURGLAR ON THE ROOF (1898)
Filmed on the roof of the Vitagraph building, the wife of the janitor sees a man (played by Blackton) burglarizing the skylight, not realizing a movie was being shot. She attacks him with a broom.

The camera was reset and the whole thing reenacted. Filmed in May 1897 but not made available to the public (released) until December the next year.

1906
THE MILES BROTHERS
A TRIP DOWN MARKET STREET
Filmed 14 April from the front of a cable car on Market Street San Francisco, travelling 1.5 miles in total at ten miles per hour. Photographed by the Miles Brothers. No stop lights or signs back then. Lots of traffic chaos.

Taken four days before the earthquake. Runs 11:52 at 15 frames each second. Watch to the end.

In 2010, film historian David Kiehn, co-founder of the Niles Essanay Film Museum in Niles, California, used automobile registration and meteorological data to date the film to the spring of 1906.

Kiehn eventually unearthed promotional materials from the film’s initial release, dating it to April 14th, 1906 and finally crediting the directors, the Miles Brothers (Harry, Herbert, Earle, Joe, Harry).

David Kiehn found even more interesting facts about this historic footage from the early post cinema era;

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^{On the set of The Gold Rush (1925)}

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the engineers at Bell and Howell created flawlessly aligned pictures by inserting one pin on the right side and one pin on the left side of each exposed frame

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^{Images Cinema Gear / Jim Danforth Collection}

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The engineers at Bell and Howell created flawlessly aligned pictures by inserting one pin on the right side and one pin on the left side of each exposed frame. Each pin kept the film firm from top to bottom, and the other from right to left.

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The 2709 began operating in 1912, and the first was sold to Chicago’s Essanay Pictures. Then the motion picture industry moved from Chicago, New York, and New Jersey to Hollywood. Pictured is Albert S. Howell, left, and Donald J. Bell.

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^{Images Cinema Gear / Jim Danforth Collection}

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By 1919 Bell and Howell had built virtually all of the equipment required to make movies in Hollywood. The 2709 was the most popular motion picture camera during the silent period.

Chaplin even owned one.

The 2709’s downfall was that Bell and Howell were not anticipating the sound era.

THE HOUSE OF GHOSTS (1906)
Segundo de Chomón directed this Pathé Frères production. Released in Denmark in 1906. US 1907. Terrific animation. Runs 5:51. La Maison ensorcelée (translated as The House of Ghosts) is a silent-era gem that showcases why Segundo de Chomón is often called the “Spanish Méliès.”

While Georges Méliès gets most of the credit for early cinematic magic, de Chomón was a technical wizard who pushed the boundaries of what was possible in 1906. This is one of the earliest and most impressive uses of a variety of special effects.

Objects move by themselves—most notably a dinner table that sets itself and food that prepares itself. Because de Chomón’s work was so technically proficient, many of his films were actually sold to American audiences as Méliès films to capitalize on the latter’s brand name.

BEN-HUR (1907)
The first telling of A Tale of the Christ. Original run time: 15 minutes. This copy is 10:01. Directed by Sidney Olcott and Frank Oakes Rose. Actors were Gene Gauntier, Harry T. Morey. First known instance of a copyright suit. One reel.

1907
THE STÉRÉO-CINÉMA
CHARLES-ÉMILE REYNAUD (1844-1918)
Reynaud created the Stéréo-Cinéma well beyond the pre cinema era, an invention patented in 1907. By this time, people were sitting comfortably in their seats watching the big screen. It was an optical device designed to produce the illusion of moving images in stereoscopic 3D, giving a sense of depth and motion.

Pictured is the Stéréo-Cinéma patented in 1907 by Émile Reynaud. Engraving by Louis Poyet in La Nature. Front and rear views.

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The Stéréo-Cinéma was a step beyond his Praxinoscope, arranged vertically with doubled components (one set for each eye) to create a stereoscopic effect. Despite its innovative design, the Stéréo-Cinéma was not commercially successful and did not achieve widespread use, overshadowed by the now-existent big silver screen. Only one known example of the device exists, as I am told it is preserved at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris.

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Pictured is the four-page Stéréo-Cinéma patent of 2 July 1907, № 379483 by Émile Reynaud.

UNCANNY ANTICIPATION
LONG DISTANCE WIRELESS PHOTOGRAPHY (1908)
Georges Méliès’ strange looking opaque projection contraption casts live images of five ladies and a man onto a black screen (not white). Listed as Nº 1091–1095 in the Star Film Company archives. Runs 6:23 Titled La Photographie électrique à distance, it’s a fascinating 1908 trick film by the legendary French cinema pioneer Georges Méliès.

While it’s often categorized as a comedy, modern historians view it as a prophetic work of science fiction that effectively predicted the invention of Television and video. Méliès himself plays an inventor (in the black beard) who has developed a machine capable of projecting images onto a large screen from a distance. The inventor shows off his device to an elderly couple. Even in 1908, Méliès was the master of in-camera special effects.

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The studio set in the film was designed to look remarkably like Méliès’s own real-world glass-house studio in Montreuil.

Released decades before the first working television, it accurately imagined a large screen showing live, moving images from a remote location (this where TV comes in and not film).

Critics suggest the film was a satire on the truth of photography, suggesting that cameras don’t just capture reality—they can distort it. It was one of the many films produced under Méliès’s famous Star Film Company catalogued as numbers 1091–1095).

Some film scholars like Linda Williams (University of California, Berkeley), have called this film an “uncanny anticipation of television,” noting how it “perfectly captures the voyeuristic nature of screen-based media.”

1908
IN THE LAND OF NOD [Dreams of Toyland]
Predating Pixar’s Toy Story (1995) by 88 years, Arthur Melbourne-Cooper (1874–1961) and his Alpha Trading Company developed this absolutely amazing stop-motion sequence of toys coming to life in a dream of a little boy. Mom puts him to bed and then the amazement begins. Runs 7:24 with animation beginning at 2:57.

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Cooper was born in St Albans to a photographer father, who trained him in photography from a young age and began his film career assisting Birt Acres in the 1890s.

Between 1896 and 1915 he produced around 300 films (roughly 36 of them animated), often under his own Alpha Trading Company, which he established around 1906 (some sources date the company earlier).

He also ran early cinemas in the area and later worked on documentaries, newsreels, and animated advertisements. He is best remembered today for his inventive puppet / stop-motion work with everyday objects like matches and children’s toys.

His technique involved painstaking frame-by-frame animation, frequently blending live-action bookends with dream sequences.

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There’s some scholarly debate about the exact dating of his very earliest animated shorts (like Matches: An Appeal), but films from the 1900s onward, including this one, are undisputedly his.

Shooting took place on an outdoor stage; you can spot moving shadows from the sun as proof of the practical setup.

Melbourne-Cooper revisited the “toys come alive” theme several times, but Dreams of Toyland / In the Land of Nod remains one of the best-known examples of his playful, inventive early animation.

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ÉMILE EUGÈNE JEAN LOUIS COURTET (1857-1938)
Émile Cohl was a French pioneering animator. Starting out as a caricaturist, he was later hired by Leon Gaumont.

^{Animations OKKULT Motion Pictures}

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Between 1908 and 1923 Émile Cohl completed more than 250 animated films. In Fantasmagorie, a stick figure interacts with a variety of morphing objects, including an elephant that transforms into a house. From February to June of 1908, Cohl worked on Fantasmagorie.

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1908
ÉMILE COHL’S FANTASMAGORIE
Here is Fantasmagorie in its entirety. Considered one of the first examples of conventional hand-drawn stop-motion animation. Made of 700+ drawings, each of which was exposed twice, it runs 1:51.

COUNT LEO TOLSTOY LOVED THE CINEMA
1908
On the eve of his 80th birthday in August 1908, Tolstoy gave a massive interview to a multitude of newspapermen when they visited his home. One thing that he said that I have never forgotten was this;

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Tolstoy saw an influx of Motion Picture newsreel cameramen flock into his home for a few historic moments.

On the future of cinema, Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy said;

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SEE some of the footage from that day, 29 August 1908 that was shot by the newsreels on Tolstoy’s 80^th birthday.

1909
PRINCESS NICOTINE (The Smoke Fairy)
Nicotine faeries wreck havoc on a smoker. The prolific Stuart Blackton directed and equals Méliès in special effects easily. Digitised from a beautifully preserved print. Gladys Hulette an early studio player, plays the older faerie.

Already a veteran by age 13. Runs 5:19

The prolific Stuart Blackton directed and equals Méliès in special effects easily. Digitised from a beautifully preserved print.

It was produced by the New York-based Vitagraph Company, then America’s leading film producer, which had been founded in 1897 by magician Albert E. Smith and Blackton. The film found its immediate source in another French film, Émile Cohl’s The Animated Matches (1908).

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Filmed at only at 18 frames per second from a 35mm print preserved by the Library of Congress in the Stuart Blackton Collection. Scientific American reported that the fairy “moves so realistically that she cannot be explained away by assuming that she is a doll, and yet it is impossible to understand how she can be a living being.”

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Gladys was on the New York stage from the age of three and the silent screen from age 7.  Her mom sang opera. In Princess Nicotine she was 13 years old. In all she made 138 acting films starting with Romeo and Juliet in 1908, and 1934’s One Hour Late.

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The older tobacco fairy is played by Gladys Hulette, being required to smoke at age 13.

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Princess Nicotine was the subject of a 1909 article in Scientific American. The film was later highlighted in Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot’s book Motion Pictures: How They Are Made and Worked in 1914.

Below are some of the over-large props made: Perfecto matches, corn cob pipe, and cigarette package.

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Perfecto Tobacco may have been the earliest instance of ‘product placement’ in a film

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“The effect of The Princess Nicotine when thrown upon the screen is so startling that it defies explanation by the uninitiated,” reported Scientific American. Pictured from Talbot p245 is the layout of the set, showing the positions of the props and actors.

The mirror / depth-of-field trick for the fairy-on-the-tabletop shots is genuinely clever engineering, especially for 1909.

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Gibson had four sisters and her father wanting a son encouraged her to be a tomboy.

She partook in rodeos from an early age and loved it, then changed her name after meeting master horseman Edmund Richard Hoot Gibson who would soon enter movies himself.

In 1909 seventeen year old Gibson saw an advertisement for girl riders and applied. She made Ranch Girls on a Rampage (1912) for the Selig Polyscope Company aged 20.

She went on to become:

🎞️ a trick rider
🎞️ a rodeo and vaudeville performer
🎞️ a radio performer
🎞️ a film producer
🎞️ an actress and stunt woman

GREAT CAMERA OBSCURAS AROUND THE WORLD
PORTABLE TRAVELLING TENT CAMERA OBSCURA
Trudi Lynn Smith is a Canadian artist, photographer, and anthropological researcher whose project, Portable Camera Obscura (begun in 2009), was literally a walk-in tent Camera Obscura that she transported to sites across Canada and the United States.

_{All photographs Trudi Lynn Smith}

What makes the project especially interesting from a pre cinema perspective is that Smith was not using the Camera Obscura primarily to record photographs. Instead, she treated it as an immersive optical event — essentially a proto-cinematic environment.

She described it as “a moving image on the tent wall” creating a “proto filmic experience.” 

The tent functioned as a darkroom-sized camera:

🎦 fully lightproof,
🎦 fitted with lenses or apertures,
🎦 projecting the exterior world inverted onto the interior white canvas walls,
🎦 with viewers physically entering the image space

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One thing that stands out historically is her explicit use of the term “proto filmic”

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From 2009 onward she carried the structure to multiple North American sites including:

🏞️ Waterton Lakes National Park
🏞️ Spiral Jetty
🏞️ Capitol Reef National Park
🏞️ universities and galleries in Philadelphia, Utah,
🏞️ Maryland, Victoria

A major component of the original 2009 work involved reenacting historical photographic viewpoints in Waterton Lakes National Park.

_{All photographs Trudi Lynn Smith}

Instead of re-photographing the scene conventionally, participants carried and assembled the obscura tent at historically photographed sites and then simply inhabited the projected image-space together.

That is unusually relevant to pre cinema history because it reverses the normal history of photography:

📸 no permanent image,
📸 no exposure,
📸 no reproducible object,
📸 only a transient optical experience

In other words, it revives the older experiential side of the Camera Obscura tradition that existed before photography fixed images chemically.

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Technically, the tent is 6–8 feet (1.8–2.4 m) long, roughly 4–6 feet (1.2–1.8 m) wide, tall enough for 3 adults seated or crouched inside. The lens is a single convex, or a basic magnifying-glass style optical element, rather than a compound photographic objective.

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Smith does not offer a lot of technical information on her website but from the exterior images, the lens housing appears fairly small relative to the tent wall: probably somewhere around 50–100mm diametre.

Because the image projects across the interior depth of the tent, I’m guessing the focal length was probably in the range of ~300 mm to ~1000 mm, depending on tent depth, desired image scale, and whether the projection surface was the opposite wall or intermediate fabric / screens.

_{All photographs Trudi Lynn Smith}

I will stop short of saying the project is over. No formal termination is recorded publicly, that I can find, but it’s not something she appears to be touring continuously anymore.

Like a tool, she brings it back into use when a project context fits? Similar to the Camera Obscura field practices of the 18th and 19th centuries.

THE EARLY STUDIOS
THANHOUSER
Edwin and Gertrude Thanhouser founded the Thanhouser Company, an early motion picture studio, in 1909. It later became the Thanhouser Film Corporation.

^{Image Thanhouser Film Corporation}

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WATCH The Actor’s Children, from 1910 here at Vimeo, with organ accompaniment. A Ben Model score.

One reel of approximately 1,000 feet, released 15 March. The first Thanhouser film, about the disappearance of an actor’s children, their thrilling adventure and how they return to their parents.

Runs 13:48

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Thanhouser Company’s first film studio location below, in New Rochelle, New York. It had been a skating rink.

This site burned down in 1913 and was rebuilt on a larger site a few miles away. Right image, from the Thanhouser Family Archive, by Pego Paar.

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WATCH The Evidence of the Film (1913) where a Motion Picture film is used to expose a crime, starring the beautiful Canadian, Florence LaBadie.

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You can also SEE many other Thanhouser films at https://vimeo.com/groups/thanhouser thanks to Ned Thanhouser, the grandson of founders Gertrude and Edwin Thanhouser.

Edwin was believed to have destroyed all his films but Ned has discovered approximately 150 of them.

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WATCH a comprehensive production of the Thanhouser history, a thorough telling by one of the Thanhouser’s himself, Ned, the grandson of Edwin, here at Vimeo.

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THANHOUSER ANIMATED PICTURES
THE WINTER’S TALE (1910)
With continuous commentary by Judith Buchanan. One reel of approximately 1,000 feet, 27 May, 1910. The first of six Shakespeare films by Thanhouser. At the time, the studio was just nine weeks old, and this film served as a high-profile prestige project to prove that independent film companies could produce sophisticated literary work rivaling the ‘Trust’ (the Motion Picture Patents Company).

Watch for the jester photo-bomb at :32 seconds. 13 minutes.

There were two directors: Barry O’Neil and Theodore Marston. It was written by Gertrude Thanhouser and Lloyd Lonergan. Gertrude was a former actress and a co-founder of the studio; her background in theatre was instrumental in the studio’s early focus on classics. The cast included Anna Rosemond as Hermione (the studio’s first leading lady), Frank H. Crane as Leontes and Martin Faust as Polixenes.

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Because the film had to move so quickly (compressing a complex, five-act Shakespearean play into such a short time was a massive undertaking), the producers made some interesting creative choices to simplify the plot for a silent audience. “Exit, pursued by a bear” was famously omitted.

In this Thanhouser version, Antigonus simply makes a peaceful exit. The Statue Scene: The film follows the traditional ending where Hermione is revealed to be alive, though surviving fragments of the film unfortunately cut off before this final scene.

Plot Compression: The film required audiences to have some fore-knowledge of the play to follow the rapid jumps in time and logic, a common trait of early “silent summaries of literature.”

For decades, many early Thanhouser films were considered lost due to a catastrophic studio fire in 1913 and the natural deterioration of nitrate film. A copy of this film survived in the Library of Congress, though it is a fragment, missing the ending, and shows signs of significant chemical decay.

In recent years, the Thanhouser Company Film Preservation released a restored version with a new score by Raymond A. Brubacher, making it accessible to modern Shakespearean and film scholars. Critics at the time, such as those at The Moving Picture World, gave the film rave reviews, calling it “the first Shakespeare adaptation by an Independent producer.”

It helped establish the Thanhouser name of quality, a reputation for high production values and intelligent storytelling that set the studio apart during the silent era.

READ The Moving Picture World article here.

1910
A SAD STORY
LUCILLE RICKSEN (1910-1925)
Ingeborg Myrtle Elisabeth Ericksen is another silent movie star who was projected to go far in films. Until she died at age 14 due to a combination of fatigue and Tuberculosis. Her name had been adapted to Lucille Ricksen when she was four, and beginning her modelling and acting career.

Lucille was over-worked by her mother from the start, and by age 8 mommy’s little meal ticket had made ten films in just 11 months. For a child this was overwhelming.

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Looking far beyond her years as she grew, Lucille rarely played a character her own age. Mostly, she played characters at least 3 to 5 years older and in one instance by 11 years of age she played a 22-year-old convincingly. The entire media of the time was unclear when she was born until after her death, it had been proven 1910 was the year.

Mom even got her little cash cow daughter to pose nude to a photographer in Chicago. These are 60 seconds of Lucille from one of the Samuel Goldwyn’s Edgar Series called Edgar’s Hamlet in 1920. Lucille is seen here approaching ten years of age.

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The exploitation of children in the entertainment industry back then was untamed. As a result, she fell ill with exhaustion by 1925 and shortly thereafter contracted tuberculosis. Lucille was likely the first child known to be exploited so badly that it could be seen as one of the worst cases ever seen.

On the right is Lucille, mom and brother Marshall.

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Lucille Ricksen made 36 films, all silent, from age 5 until her passing. Over-worked and worn out, her mother had passed away just two weeks prior, reminding me of the passing of both Carrie Fisher and mother Debby Reynolds, in 2016 not long after each other.

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Here on the right, Lucille is photographed the year she died in 1925 at age 14. She could pass for a 25 year old woman.

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Historian, author and Hollywood researcher Michael G. Ankerich tells us, “I grieve for the loss of a teenager who became one of the first causalities of Hollywood. If ever there was anyone who was helplessly sacrificed to Hollywood, it was little Lucille.”

As a child star, Lucille was named the “youngest leading lady” in movies.

The small cast includes Augustus Phillips as Dr. Frankenstein, Charles Ogle as the Monster, and Mary Fuller as the doctor’s fiancée.

Actors of the period were responsible for their own makeup and wardrobe, and Ogle was probably the one who developed the monster’s shambling appearance, perhaps inspired by drawings of how actor Thomas Potter Cooke had looked in the 1823 English Opera House stage production Presumption; or, The Fate of Frankenstein.

She wrote Frankenstein while she was just 21.

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Initially at a primitive studio at 41 East 21st Street in New York in 1901, Edison moved production to a warehouse in the Bedford Park neighbourhood in the Bronx, at the corner of Decatur Avenue and Oliver Place seen below, in 1907. This was the third studio he built, following his famous retractable-roof Black Maria in West Orange, New Jersey, and a glass-enclosed rooftop studio in Manhattan.

^{Pictured: the interior and exterior of the Edison Bronx studio at 41 East 21st Street, 1901}

The film’s most celebrated technical achievement is the creation of the monster. This was achieved using reverse photography: a paper-mâché dummy of the creature was burned, and the footage reversed, giving the illusion of the monster forming out of chemical fire.

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The mirror device used in the climax — the monster seen reflected where Frankenstein’s own image should be — is an invention of Dawley’s, with no equivalent in the novel.

The Bronx studio was noted for its use of glass to allow for ample natural light. Edison Studios operated from this location until the company sold its film business in 1918.

A ‘release’ in 1910 constituted about 40 copies.

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By 1910, motion pictures had begun to attract the attention of moral crusaders and reform groups. Edison, fearing a threat to his revenues, ordered that his films’ production quality and moral tone be improved. Frankenstein was seen as the perfect vehicle to launch production under this new banner.

The studio was explicit about this. The Edison Kinetogram trade periodical announced that the company had “carefully omitted anything which might by any possibility shock any portion of an audience.”

Wokism in 1910.

Edison’s Frankenstein was thought lost until collector Alois F. “Al” Dettlaff found a copy in the 1970s in Wisconsin inside a box of silents he had bought.

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The film was released on March 18, 1910. Moving Picture World, the leading trade publication of the time, declared that “no film has ever been released that can surpass it in power to fascinate an audience.”

Despite this, the film was deemed sacrilegious by some for its macabre content and was not shown in many theatres, meaning fewer prints circulated.

A report the next day from the New York Evening World stated;

The Edison Bronx studio had a short life—just six years. It was consumed by fire on 28 March, 1914.

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1910
FRANKENSTEIN
^{SPOILER ALERT}
No body parts, cadavers or lightning in this adaptation, let’s use potions and chemicals to create this monster from nothing. Directed by James Searle the self-proclaimed “first motion picture director” Dawley.  

Cinematography by Canadian James White. Originally 16 minutes, this copy that Alois Dettlaff found is 12:45. A Library of Congress restoration. Some scenes tinted rose or cyan. Re-created intertitles.

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TOP
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

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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