Early Filmmaking and Exhibition

Early Filmmaking and Exhibition

1)The cinema may have been an astonishing novelty in the 1890s, but it came into being
    within a varied context of Victorian leisure-time activities.
2) Dramatic troupes put on plays, lecturers used magic-lantern slides to illustrate their talks,
    and concerts featuring the newly invented phonograph brought the sounds of big-city
    orchestras to a wide public.
3)Vaudeville gave middle-class audiences a variety of acts on a single program, ranging from
   performing animals to plate-spinning jugglers to slapstick comedians.
4)Burlesque offered a similar potpourri of acts, though less family-oriented with their vulgar
  comedy and occasional nudity.

The new medium of film
1)moved smoothly into this spectrum of popular entertainment.
2)Like the early films that we have already mentioned, most subjects were nonfiction,
   or actualities.
3)Actualities - These included scenics, or short travelogues, offering views of distant lands.
   News events might be depicted in brief topicals.

From the beginning, fiction films were also important.
1)Typically these were brief staged scenes.
2)The Lumières’ Arroseur arrosé AKA The Waterer Watered, presented in their first program
   in 1895, showed a boy tricking a gardener by stepping on his hose.
3)Such simple jokes formed a major genre of early filmmaking.
4)Some of these fiction films were shot outdoors, but simple painted backdrops were quickly
   adopted and remained common for decades.

The Waterer Watered (Auguste & Louie Lumière, 1895) 
Info on YouTube
The world's 1st comedy, The Sprinkler Sprinkled (also known as L'Arroseur Arrosé and The Waterer Watered) was shot in Lyon in the spring of 1895. The film portrays a simple practical joke in which a gardener is tormented by a boy who steps on the hose that the gardener is using to water his plants, cutting off the water flow. When the gardener tilts the nozzle up to inspect it, the boy releases the hose, causing the water to spray him. The gardener is stunned and his hat is knocked off, but he soon catches on. A chase ensues, both on and off-screen (the camera never moves from its original position) until the gardener catches the boy and administers a spanking. Louis Lumière used his own gardener, François Clerc, to portray the gardener.

Click Here for the Water Watered film

Filmming styles
1) Most films in this early period consisted of a single shot.
2)The camera was set up in one position, and the action unfolded during a continuous take.
3)Film historian Jon Lewis describes the visual style of Sandow (1886): Edison's filmmakers -
   W. K. L. Dickson, James White, and William Heise - opted for an aesthetic that closely
   mimicked photographic portraiture.
4) Subjects were placed in front of a flat black backdrop and lit from the front.
5)No effort was made at simulating depth within the two-dimensional image.

Sandow (W. K. L. Dickson & William Heise, 1896)
from YouTube: SUMMARY According to vaudeville historian Joe Laurie, Jr., Sandow--who was managed by Flo Ziegfeld--was "the greatest of the strong men and who received the most publicity" (Vaudeville, 1972, p. 33).
Click Here for Sandow clip

Blacksmithing Scene (1893)

1)Blacksmithing Scene is an 1893 American short black-and-white silent film directed by
   William K. L. Dickson.
2)It is historically significant as the first Kinetoscope film shown in public exhibition on
   May 9, 1893, and is the earliest known example of actors performing a role in a film.

Blacksmithing Scene (W. K. L. Dickson & William Heise, 1893)
Blacksmithing Scene film clip

Notes from YouTube:

Blacksmith Scene (1893) - 1st Staged Narrative in Film - William K.L. Dickson | William Heise

The 1st commercially exhibited film and the 1st staged scene with actors performing a role, Blacksmith Scene is a Kinetoscope film first shown on May 9, 1893.  It was filmed entirely within the Black Maria studio at West Orange, New Jersey, in the USA, which is widely referred to as "America's First Movie Studio".

The scene is all filmed from a stationary camera. On screen is a large anvil with a blacksmith behind it and one to either side (portrayed by Edison employees). The smith in the middle uses a heated metal rod he has removed from a fire and places it on the anvil. All three begin a rhythmic hammering. After several blows the metal rod is returned to the fire. One smith pulls out a bottle of beer, and they each take a drink. Following this drink they then resume their work.