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- American Film Industry
- American Film Industry: Class 2: Edison, Nickelodeons, and the Trust
- Edison and the Beginnings of Film Commerce
- Edison Captures Motion
- Kinetograph
apparatus that produced the pictures
- Dickson Camera Test (1891)
- Men Boxing (1891)
- Fred Ott’s Sneeze (1894)
- Kinetoscope
peep-show viewing machine that exhibited them
- exhibition at Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, May 1893
- Edison Markets Movies
- Edison Manufacturing Company
spring 1894
- making and selling Kinetoscope and Kinetophone
- movies produced by expert techinicians
- Kinetoscope Company
spun off from the Edison Manufacturing Company, April 1894
- marketing short films
- distributing equipment
- outfitted kinetoscope parlors
- Holland Brothers Kinetoscope Parlor on Broadway in New
York City
- patrons paid 25¢ to view a row of kinetoscope machines
- kinetoscopes boomed in major US cities in 1894
- kinetoscope films
- Athlete with Wand (1894)
- Boxing Cats (1894)
- Fireman Rescuing Men and Women (1901)
- Edison Projects Movies
- Louis and Auguste Lumiere
- developed cinematographe in Paris, December 28, 1895
- camera
- projector
- Grand Café screenings
- filmed actualities
- Edison solves film breakage dillemma
- Film would break in Edison’s early projectors
- Latham Loop
- designed by Woodville, Gray, and Otway Latham
- used a pair of gears to minimize the tension created by
the take up reel
- allowed for films longer than 100 feet in length
- Edison’s Projector: Vitascope
- premiered April 23, 1896 at Koster’s and Bial’s Music
Hall on Broadway
- live orchestra was on hand
- established new invention of publicly screened motion
pictures
- films would mature as narrative made films more distinct
- From Kinetoscope to Nickelodeons
- Kinetoscope Parlors
- peaked in popularity in 1894
- Vaudeville and Make-Shift Theaters
- following vaudeville strike, movies were shown in vaudeville
theaters
- saloons
- penny arcades
- during intermissions at theater productions
- Nickelodeons
- attendant with rise of story films
- specialized storefront theaters
- cinema-only venues
- admission price: 5¢ to view a program of short movies
- boomed in large cities
- incorporated in shopping districts
- working-class audiences
- weekly program changes put demand on production
- risk of fire
- concern about immigrants and working poor being improperly
indoctrinated
- Edwin S. Porter
- Gay Shoe Clerk (1903)
- Jack and the Beanstalk (1902)
- The Great Train Robbery (1902)
- Life of an American Fireman (1903)
- The Kleptomaniac (1905)
- The Consolidation of the Trust
- Movies were on the decline in 1908
- Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest
- Edison established the MPPC
December 1908
- Edison
- Biograph
- Vitagraph
- Essanay
- Kalem
- Selig Polyscope
- Lubin
- Star Film
- Pathé Frères
- Kleine Optical
- Aims of the Trust
- Consolidated patents into a pool
- fix prices
- restrict the distribution and exhibtion of foreign-made films
- regulate domestic program
- control film licensing
- had exclusive access to raw film stock, via Eastman Kodak
- Effects of the Trust
- put independents out of business
- financial boon for its members
- bigger profits allowed for investment in streamlining production
- Innovations of the Trust
- established an exchange system
- standardized the movies length at one reel
- pricing per reel was also standardized
- negotiated fire insurance coverage for nickelodeons
- General Film Company
- served as distribution brokers
- bought prints from studios
- sold them to studios
- established an “exchange” system
- Fall of the Trust
- Motion Picture Distribution and Sales Company
- Carl Laemmle
- William Fox
- Adolph Zukor
- began marketing multi-reel films
- Kodak leaves the Trust
- did not have a profit sharing interest in the Trust
- began selling film to independents
- MPPC v. IMP (1912) reaches US district court
- Trust sued over the use of a camera
- court threw out the Latham loop patent
- independents could begin producing more freely with formerly
licensed equipment
- Trust Grows Stale
- audiences grew tired of single reel
- standard pricing did not encourage innovative filmmaking
- independents grew more popular and took over the film industry