The First Movie Ever Made

A few weeks ago we were talking about movies (real shocker there huh?) and I overheard my daughter asking my mom what the first movie ever made was.  My mom didn't know and neither did I.  So after thinking about it and first remembering and then forgetting to look it up, I finally sat down today and did just that.

What I found out was interesting!  And a little bit confusing.  (I'm pretty sure I have all my facts straight, but if you find out something different please let me know as there was a lot of info to sort out.)

First up, the Praxinoscope.

Charles-Emile Reynaud was a French science teacher and was responsible for the first projected animated cartoon films.  Reynaud created the Praxinoscope in 1877.  The praxinoscope was an animation device, the successor to the zoetrope.  Like the zoetrope, it used a strip of pictures placed around the inner surface of a spinning cylinder.  The praxinoscope improved on the zoetrope by replacing its narrow viewing slits with an inner circle of mirrors, placed so that the reflections of the pictures appeared more or less stationary in a position as the wheel turned.  Someone looking in the mirrors would therefore see a rapid succession of images producing the illusion of motion, with a brighter and less distorted picture than the zoetrope offered.  In 1892 Reynaud projected the first animated film in public, called Pauvre Pierrot (aka Poor Pete) using the Theatre Optique, an improved version capable of projecting images on a screen from a longer roll of pictures.  Reynaud is the first to use perforated strips.  This allowed him to show hand drawn animated cartoons to larger audiences.  It was however soon eclipsed by the photographic film projector of the Lumière Brothers.

But we'll get to them in a minute.

First we have to talk about the Kinetoscope.

The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device. Though not a movie projector—it was designed for films to be viewed individually through the window of a cabinet housing its components—the Kinetoscope introduced the basic approach that would become the standard for all cinematic projection before the advent of video: it creates the illusion of movement by conveying a strip of perforated film bearing sequential images over a light source with a high-speed shutter. First described in conceptual terms by U.S. inventor Thomas Edison in 1888, it was largely developed by his employee William Kennedy Laurie Dickson between 1889 and 1892. Dickson and his team at the Edison lab also devised the Kinetograph, an innovative motion picture camera with rapid intermittent, or stop-and-go, film movement, to photograph movies for in-house experiments and, eventually, commercial Kinetoscope presentations.  The trial, or camera test, of the kinetoscope was a series of movies called Monkeyshines.  Monkeyshines, No. 1 may very well be the first movie ever shot using a continuous strip of film.

We now come back to Auguste and Louis Lumière.

It was not until 1892 that the brothers began to create moving pictures. They patented a number of significant processes leading up to their film camera - most notably film perforations (originally implemented by Emile Reynaud) as a means of advancing the film through the camera and projector. The cinématographe itself was patented on February 13, 1895 and the first footage ever to be recorded using it was recorded on March 19, 1895. This first film shows workers leaving the Lumière factory.  The Lumières held their first private screening of projected motion pictures in 1895.  Their first public screening of films at which admission was charged was held on December 28, 1895, at Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris. This history-making presentation featured ten short films, including their first film, Sortie des Usines Lumière à Lyon (Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory).  Each film is 17 meters long, which, when hand cranked through a projector, runs approximately 50 seconds.  It is believed their first film was actually recorded that same year (1895) with Léon Bouly's cinématographe device, which was patented the previous year. The cinématographe — a three-in-one device that could record, develop, and project motion pictures — was further developed by the Lumières. 

Though there were many other early cinematographers, film historians consider the Grande Café screening to be the true birth of the cinema as a commercial medium.

As interesting as all this might be (well to me at least) it doesn't really answer what the first movie ever made was.

So let's change it up.

The Great Train Robbery is a 1903 American action Western film by Edwin S. Porter. Twelve minutes long, it is considered a milestone in film making, expanding on Porter's previous work Life of an American Fireman. The film used a number of innovative techniques including cross cutting, double exposure composite editing, camera movement and on location shooting. Cross-cuts were a new, sophisticated editing technique. Some prints were also hand colored in certain scenes. None of the techniques were original to The Great Train Robbery, and it is now considered that it was heavily influenced by Frank Mottershaw's earlier British film A Daring Daylight Burglary. 

The Great Train Robbery is considered to be the first real full length movie - the first narrative Western film with a storyline - and the first real smash hit.

The movie was directed and photographed by Edwin S. Porter, a former Edison Studios cameraman. Actors in the movie included Alfred C. Abadie, "Broncho" Billy Anderson and Justus D. Barnes, although there were no credits. Though a Western, it was filmed in Milltown, New Jersey.

So, there you have it. The Great Train Robbery could be considered the first real "movie" ever made.  I think...