List of Years in Film - 19th Century in Film

19th Century in Film

See also: 19th century in film

• 1886 - Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince is granted an American dual-patent on a 16-lens device that combined a motion picture camera with a projector.
• 1888 - The Roundhay Garden Scene, shot in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England by Le Prince, is credited as the first film. It is recorded at a groundbreaking 20 frames per second and is the earliest surviving film. Thomas Edison describes the concept of the Kinetoscope, an early motion picture exhibition device.
• 1889 - Eastman Kodak is the first company to begin commercial production of film on a flexible transparent base, celluloid. The first moving pictures developed on celluloid film are made in Hyde Park, London by William Friese Greene.
• 1890 - William Dickson completes his work for Thomas Edison on the Kinetograph cylinder either in this year or 1889. Monkeyshines No. 1 becomes the first film shot on the system.
• 1891 - Thomas Edison files for a patent of the motion picture camera. Thomas Edison holds the first public presentation of his Kinetoscope for the National Federation of Women's Clubs.
• 1892 - The Kinetoscope is completed by W.K. Dickson, at the employ of Thomas Edison. In France, Charles-Émile Reynaud begins to have public screenings in Paris at the Théâtre Optique, with hundreds of drawings on a reel that he wound through his Projecting Praxinoscope, similar to the Zoetrope, to construct moving images that continued for 15 minutes. The Eastman Company becomes the Eastman Kodak Company. Max Skladanowsky develops a camera and shoots his first footage this year, but its unusual interleaved image format leaves him ultimately unable to exhibit it until work is completed on the Bioskop projector in late 1895.
• 1893 - Thomas Edison is granted Patent #493,426 for "An Apparatus for Exhibiting Photographs of Moving Objects" (The Kinetoscope). Edison builds "America's First Movie Studio", the Black Maria, in West Orange, New Jersey. The premiere of the completed Kinetoscope is held on May 9 at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences: The first film publicly shown on the system was Blacksmith Scene (aka Blacksmiths).
• 1894 - W.K. Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film. Thomas Edison records Fred Ott's sneeze. Auguste and Louis Lumière patent the Cinématographe, a combination movie camera and projector.
• 1895 - The cinématographe is patented. First footage ever to be shot using it is recorded on March 19. The Lumière brothers hold their first private screening of projected motion pictures on March 22. The Lumières give the first public screening at L'Eden, the world's first and oldest cinéma (theater), located in La Ciotat, France, on September 28. Gaumont Pictures is founded by the engineer-turned-inventor, Léon Gaumont. In the US, the Dickson Experimental Sound Film presents two men dancing to the sound of a violin player, in what The Celluloid Closet calls the first gay cinema reference. The first screening of movies at which admission was charged takes place on December 28, in Paris, at the Salon Indien du Grand Café. This historical screening is based on ten short films, in the following order (and respective length): Sortie de l'usine Lumière à Lyon (Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory), 46 seconds; La Voltige ("Horse Trick Riders"), 46 seconds: La Pêche aux Poissons Rouges ("Fishing for Goldfish"), 42 seconds; Le Débarquement du Congrès de Photographie à Lyon ("The Disembarkment of the Congress of Photographers in Lyon"), 48 seconds; Les Forgerons ("Blacksmiths"), 49 seconds; Le Jardinier (l'Arroseur Arrosé) ("The Gardener, "), 49 seconds; Le Repas (de Bébé) ("Baby's Meal"), 41 seconds; Le Saut à la Couverture ("Jumping Onto the Blanket"), 41 seconds; La Place des Cordeliers à Lyon ("Cordeliers Square in Lyon - a Street Scene"), 44 seconds; La Mer (Baignade en Mer) ("The Sea "), 38 seconds. In Germany, Emil and Max Skladanowsky develop their own film projector - they project from November 1 in Berlin. The American Mutoscope and Biograph Company motion pictures was founded in New Jersey by the KMCD Syndicate of William Kennedy Dickson, Henry Marvin, Herman Casler and Elias Koopman. Woodville Latham and his sons develop the Latham Loop - the concept of loose loops of film on either side of the intermittent movement to prevent stress from the jerky movement. This is debuted in the Eidoloscope, which is also the first widescreen format (1.85:1). Herman Casler of American Mutoscope Company, aka American Mutoscope and Biograph Company manufactures the Biograph 68 mm camera, which will become the first successful large format 68 mm (70 mm) film.
• 1896 - Pathé Frères is founded. In Britain, Birt Acres and Robert W. Paul developed their own film projector, the Theatrograph (later known as the Animatograph). Georges Méliès buys an English projector from Robert William Paul and shoots his first films. A projector called the Vitascope is designed by Charles Francis Jenkins. The first theater in the US dedicated exclusively to showing motion pictures is Vitascope Hall, established on Canal Street, New Orleans, Louisiana. The first screen kiss takes place between May Irwin and John Rice in The Kiss. The first female film director, Alice Guy-Blaché, presents The Cabbage Fairy. Cinema reaches India by way of The Lumière brothers ' Cinematography, unveiling six silent short films at the Watson Hotel in Bombay, namely Entry of Cinematographe, La Mer (Baignade en mer), L'Arrivée d'un Train en Gare de la Ciotat, A Demolition, Ladies & Soldiers on Wheels and Sortie de l'usine Lumière à Lyon. The tour of the Lumière brothers covers also London and New York.
• 1897 - Vitagraph is founded in New York. In England, the Prestwich Camera is patented. Harischandra Sakharam Bhatvadekar, alias Save Dada, imports a cine-camera from London at a price of 21 guineas and films the first Indian documentary film, a wrestling match in Hanging Gardens, Bombay. Daily screenings of films commence in Bombay by Clifton and Co.'s Meadows Street Photography Studio. 125 people die during a film screening at the Charity Bazaar in Paris after a curtain catches on fire from the ether used to fuel the projector lamp.
• 1898 - Méliès starts producing under the brand Star Film and directs brief commercials. Hiralal Sen starts filming scenes of theatre productions at the Classic Theatre in Calcutta.
• 1899 - The first long footage (over 100 meters), films with montage are made: The Dreyfus Affair and the first film version of Cinderella are both released by Méliès; the latter it is the first film to use a photographic dissolve (or fades). Georges Méliès also writes and directs Jeanne d'Arc, a film about Joan of Arc, which removes the viewer from spatial relations and institutionalized the use of the close-up.