Auguste and Louis Lumière

The Lumière (pronounced: [lymjɛːʁ]) brothers, Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas [oÉ¡yst maʁi lwi nikÉ"la] (19 October 1862, Besançon, France â€" 10 April 1954, Lyon) and Louis Jean [lwi Ê'É'̃] (5 October 1864, Besançon, France â€" 6 June 1948, Bandol), were the first filmmakers in history. They patented the cinematograph, which in contrast to Edison's "peepshow" kinetoscope allowed simultaneous viewing by multiple parties. Their first film, Sortie de l'usine Lumière de Lyon, shot in 1894, is considered the first true motion picture.

History

The Lumière brothers were born in Besançon, France to Claude-Antoine Lumière and Jeanne Joséphine Costille Lumière. They moved to Lyon in 1870, where both attended La Martiniere, the largest technical school in Lyon. Their father, Claude-Antoine Lumière (1840â€"1911), ran a photographic firm where both brothers worked for him: Louis as a physicist and Auguste as a manager. Louis had made some improvements to the still-photograph process, the most notable being the dry-plate process, which was a major step towards moving images.

It was not until their father retired in 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 original cinématographe had been patented by Léon Guillaume Bouly on 12 February 1892. The brothers patented their own version on 13 February 1895. The first footage ever to be recorded using it was recorded on March 19, 1895. This first film shows workers leaving the Lumière factory.

First film screenings

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 â€" a three-in-one device that could record, develop, and project motion pictures â€" was further developed by the Lumières.

The public debut at the Grand Café came a few months later and consisted of the following ten short films (in order of presentation):

1. La Sortie de l'Usine Lumière à Lyon (literally, "the exit from the Lumière factory in Lyon", or, under its more common English title, Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory), 46 seconds
2. Le Jardinier (l'Arroseur Arrosé) ("The Gardener", or "The Sprinkler Sprinkled"), 49 seconds
3. Le Débarquement du Congrès de Photographie à Lyon ("the disembarkment of the Congress of Photographers in Lyon"), 48 seconds
4. La Voltige ("Horse Trick Riders"), 46 seconds
5. La Pêche aux poissons rouges ("fishing for goldfish"), 42 seconds
6. Les Forgerons ("Blacksmiths"), 49 seconds
7. Repas de bébé ("Baby's Breakfast" (lit. "baby's meal")), 41 seconds
8. Le Saut à la couverture ("Jumping Onto the Blanket"), 41 seconds
9. La Places des Cordeliers à Lyon ("Cordeliers Square in Lyon"â€"a street scene), 44 seconds
10. La Mer (Baignade en mer) ("the sea [bathing in the sea]"), 38 seconds

The Lumières went on tour with the cinématographe in 1896, visiting Brussels (the first place a movie was played outside Paris on the Galleries Saint-Hubert on March 1. 1896), Bombay, London, Montreal, New York and Buenos Aires.

The moving images had an immediate and significant influence on popular culture with L'Arrivée d'un Train en Gare de la Ciotat (literally, "the arrival of a train at La Ciotat", but more commonly known as Arrival of a Train at a Station) and Carmaux, défournage du coke (Drawing out the coke). Their actuality films, or actualités, are often cited as the first, primitive documentaries. They also made the first steps towards comedy film with the slapstick of L'Arroseur Arrosé.

Early color photography

The brothers stated that "the cinema is an invention without any future" and declined to sell their camera to other filmmakers such as Georges Méliès. This made many film makers upset. Consequently, their role in the history of film was exceedingly brief. They turned their attentions to color photography and in 1903 they patented a color photography process, the "Autochrome Lumière", launched on the market in 1907. Throughout much of the 20th century, the Lumière company was a major producer of photographic products in Europe, but the brand name, Lumière, disappeared from the marketplace following merger with Ilford. They also invented the color plate which really got photography on the road.

Other early cinematographers

The Lumière Brothers were not the only ones to claim the title of the first cinematographers. The scientific chronophotography devices developed by Eadweard Muybridge, Étienne-Jules Marey and Ottomar Anschütz in the 1880s were able to produce moving photographs, as was William Friese-Greene's 'chronophotographic' system, demonstrated in 1890, and Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope (developed by W K-L Dickson), premiered in 1891. Since 1892, the projected drawings of Émile Reynaud's Théâtre Optique were attracting Paris crowds to the Museé Grevin. Louis Le Prince and Claude Mechant had been shooting moving picture sequences on paper film as soon as 1888, but had never performed a public demonstration. Polish inventor, Kazimierz Prószyński had built his camera and projecting device, called Pleograph, in 1894. Max and Emil Skladanowsky, inventors of the Bioscop, had offered projected moving images to a paying public one month earlier (November 1, 1895, in Berlin). Nevertheless, film historians consider the Grand Café screening to be the true birth of the cinema as a commercial medium, because the Skladanowsky brothers' screening used an extremely impractical dual system motion picture projector that was immediately supplanted by the Lumiere cinematographe.

Although the Lumière brothers were not the first inventors to develop techniques to create motion pictures, they are often credited as among the first inventors of the technology for Cinema as a mass medium, and are among the first who understood how to use it.

See also

• 1895 in film
• 1896 in film
• 19th century in film
• History of film
• L'Idéal Cinéma Jacques Tati in Aniche the oldest still-active cinéma in the world, though not continuously, since November 23, 1905.
• List of works by Louis Botinelly

References

Further reading

• Chardère, B.; Borgé, G. and M. (1985). Les Lumière, Paris: Bibliothèque des Arts. ISBN 2-85047-068-6 (Language: French)
• Chardère, B. (1995). Les images des Lumière, Paris: Gallimard. ISBN 2-07-011462-7 (Language: French)
• Cook, David (2004). A History of Narrative Film (4th ed. ed.). New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-97868-0. 
• Lavédrine, Bertrand and Gandolfo, Jean-Paul. (2013). The Lumière Autochrome: History, Technology, and Preservation, Los Angeles: Getty Publications. ISBN 978-1-60606-125-1
• Rittaud-Hutinet, Jacques. (1985). Le cinéma des origines, Seyssel: Champ Vallon. ISBN 2-903528-43-8 (Language: French)
• Mast, Gerald; Bruce F. Kawin (2006). A Short History of the Movies (9th ed. ed.). New York: Pearson Longman. ISBN 0-321-26232-8. 

External links

• Louis Lumière at the Internet Movie Database
• Auguste Lumière at the Internet Movie Database

• Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale
• Louis Lumière at Who's Who of Victorian Cinema
• Auguste Lumière at Who's Who of Victorian Cinema
• The films shown at the first public screening (QuickTime format) â€" December 28, 1895. Also includes a program for the event.
• Le musée Lumière â€" Lumière Museum
• autochrome color still of the Lumiere Brothers, 1907
• 1895 â€" Auguste and Louis Lumiere â€" The first real motion picture ever made on YouTube