Lumiere Brothers

Lumière Cinématographe [1895]

The brothers Louis [1864-1948] and Auguste Lumière [1862-1954] were the most successful photographic plate manufacturers in France. They first saw an Edison Kinetoscope in the summer of 1894. Impressed by the demonstration but put off by the high prices demanded by Edison's agents, they decided to develop their own product. In February 1895, they patented a combined camera, projector and printer, which used an intermittent claw derived from the mechanism used in sewing machines to move the cloth. The intermittent pull-down of the film was accomplished by a claw driven by two cams, one of which produced the vertical motion of the claw, and the other its insertion into the sprocket holes in the film before pulldown, and then its withdrawal afterwards. The apparatus was called the Cinématographe. [The small box on top contained the unexposed negative.

The first public presentation was made at the Société d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale in Paris on 22 March 1895. The public saw a one-minute film of workers leaving the Lumière factory in Lyons ['La sortie des usines Lumière']. Encouraged by its reception, further films were made and for the first time on 28 December 1895 an audience [33 persons] paid to see projected, moving photographic pictures in the 'Salon Indien' of the Grand Café, Boulevard des Capucins, Paris.

At the end of October 1895, Jules Carpentier [1851-1921] began to manufacture the Cinématographe [the first model had been built at Lyons]. The machine traveled to and fro between Lyons and Paris, for the final delicate adjustments, and the definitive model was finished by the end of the year. Lumière then asked Carpentier to make 200 of them. Carpentier continued to work with Lumière: at least 700 or 800 Cinématographes were eventually made.

Lumiere Film