LITMIR.BIZ

      1895 appears to be a pivotal year in film history.

      In production, and projection.

      As many in the peepshow and magic lantern industries waited for their official Edison Kinetoscopes to ship, such a device was probably already outdated. The need to screen to more than one person was obvious and Englishman Cecil Wray was one of the first to act when he patented an accessory that would allow a kinetoscope picture to be enlarged and projected onto a screen in January 1895.

      The Latham family imagined many people wanted to watch an entire boxing match without needing to stop. Working in secret, Laurie Dickson and former Edison mechanic, Eugene Lauste created the Eidoloscope.

      In April 1895, the Lathams debuted the new projector in New York with a screening of a boxing film Young Griffo - Battling Barnett. In order to accommodate the length of film, Dickson and Lauste had created what became known as Latham's Loop - a loop placed in the film just before it reached the camera's gate, thereby allowing the film to be rapidly paused and advanced without pulling directly on the rest of the film on the spool. While the invention did not impact editing directly, it allowed filmmakers to also film sequences whose only constraint was the size of a camera magazine.

      The English duo of Robert W. Paul and Birt Acres had, by this time, created their own 35 mm camera which ran at 40 fps. Acres, an accomplished photographer, shot the first British motion picture film, Incident Outside Clovelly Cottage, Barnet. Richard Brown and Barry Anthony note in The Kinetoscope: A British History:

       "Acres' first film was quite unlike anything that Edison or Dickson had produced...it depicted a slice of everyday life, photographed not on a shallow stage in a cramped studio but in a real street in the open air."

      He followed with another groundbreaking film a few months later.

      Meanwhile, Auguste and Louis Lumière had finalized their Cinématographe - a device that was "reversible". It was able to act as a camera or in reverse action, as a projector. If the owner wanted it could also serve as a contact printer for making prints from negatives. The Cinématographe was much lighter and mechanically simpler than Edison's Kinetoscope. The Lumières filmed and screened 'La sortie des ouvriers de l’usine Lumiere' to a small group of invitees at the Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie in Paris.

      In what was a technological race spread across the globe, the incumbent Edison had barely started as his rivals were close to finishing.

      In September 1895, Charles Jenkins and Thomas Armat demonstrated the Phantoscope at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. Initially, people were unsure about venturing into a dark room with strangers to see what the Phantoscope signage promised -"Moving Pictures". The young entrepreneurs changed the wording to - "Come Inside and Rest. And Look at Moving Pictures"

      The Atlanta Journal wrote:

      "This is unquestionably the most wonderful electric invention of the age."

      The Baltimore Sun was even bolder:

       "Mr Edison Outdone".

      Despite the publicity, the two men were unable to draw audiences. Unknown to the journalists, the two Phantoscope projectors tore through the sprockets of Jenkins' films and screenings stopped.

      The public instead flocked to booths for the Latham's Eidoloscope and Edison's Kinetoscope.

      Meanwhile, the Skladanowskys ushered in the first cinema experience. The Berlin-based brothers possessed the three elements that ultimately defined filmmaking and distribution: a film camera, films to show and a projector.