Prestwich Model 4 [1898]

Designed by John Alfred Prestwich [1874-1952] and manufactured by the Prestwich Manufacturing Company in London, England, in ca. 1898. The camera had 400ft external magazines.
The first cameras had the magazines on the outside of the camera, but Prestwich and all the other camera manufacturers, except for Pathé, soon decided that for reasons of light leaking on the film it was best to enclose the magazines inside the camera body.
When there are no second takes, reliability of the camera is of the utmost importance. This is the reason Frank Hurley, the Australian photographer and cinematographer of the Shackleton Antarctic Expedition, chose a Prestwich as his cine camera. In October 1914, Hurley sailed on the wooden ship Endurance from Buenos Aires for Antarctica. He had to abandon his camera when the ice crushed the ship on November 21, 1915.

John Alfred Prestwich (1874 – 1952) was an English engineer.

Famous as much for his creation of cinematography projectors as his J. A. P. engines. He worked with S.Z. de Ferranti and later the cinema pioneer William Friese-Greene. He founded the company JA Prestwich Industries Ltd in 1895. He was awarded the Edward Longstreth Medal in 1919.

Léon Bouly

Léon Guillaume Bouly (1872 – 1932) was a French inventor who created the word cinematograph.

After devising chronophotography devices, Bouly applied a patent on a reversible device of photography and optics for the analysis and synthesis of motions, calling it the Cynématographe Léon Bouly on February 12, 1892. On December 27, 1893, he shortened his device name to cinématographe.

This device is able to perform both, shooting and projection. It uses a sensible film without perforations and all principles required by cinematography are available: the film's jerky sledding is synchronized with the shutter. Two of these devices are conserved in the French Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers.

In 1894, Bouly could not pay the rent for his patents and the name "cinématographe" became available again, it was patented by the Lumière Brothers who are not its original authors. Today, modern historians agree on the fact Léon Bouly was, before the Lumière Brothers, the true original inventor of the term cinématographe.

Louis Lumiere & Auguste Lumiere

Louis Jean Lumiere
Louis Jean (5 October 1864, Besançon, France – 6 June 1948, Bandol), were among the earliest filmmakers in history. (Appropriately, "lumière" translates as "light" in English.)

Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas

The Lumière brothers, Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas (19 October 1862, Besançon,France – 10 April 1954, Lyon)

HISTORY

The Lumière brothers were born in Besançon, France, in 1862 and 1864, and moved to Lyon in 1870, where both attended La Martiniere, the largest technical school in Lyon.[3] Their father, Claude-Antoine Lumière (1840–1911), ran a photographic firm and 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. Thecinématographe itself was patented on 13 February 1895 and 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 SCREENING

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'scinématographe device, which was patented the previous year. The cinématographe — a three-in-one device that could record, develop, and project motion pictures — 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 factories in Lyon", or, under its more common English title, Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory), 46 seconds
2. La Voltige ("Horse Trick Riders"), 46 seconds
3. La Pêche aux poissons rouges ("fishing for goldfish"), 42 seconds
4. Le Débarquement du Congrès de Photographie à Lyon ("the disembarkment of the Congress of Photographers in Lyon"), 48 seconds
5. Les Forgerons ("Blacksmiths"), 49 seconds
6. Le Jardinier (l'Arroseur Arrosé) ("The Gardener," or "The Sprinkler Sprinkled"), 49 seconds
7. Le Repas ("Baby's Breakfast"), 41 seconds
8. Le Saut à la couverture ("Jumping Onto the Blanket"), 41 seconds
9. La Place des Cordeliers à Lyon ("Cordeliers Square in Lyon"--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 Bombay, London, 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 Station", 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.

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

Classic Motion Picture Camera

Bouly Cinématographe [1892]

Manufactured by Léon-Guillaume Bouly [1872-1932] in Paris, France. In the Bouly Cinématographe, the film is driven by a segmental roller, and stopped intermittently by a pressure pad. Bouly deposited a second patent, 27 December 1893, for a machine said to be capable of both filming and projecting. The Bouly bands were not perforated, and would not have given a steady projection.