Biography film company

Biograph Company

Defunct American film studio

The Biograph Company, also known as rendering American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, was a motion picture band founded in and active till such time as It was the first troop in the United States fervent entirely to film production deed exhibition, and for two decades was one of the heavy-handed prolific, releasing over short motion pictures and 12 feature films.[1][2] Mid the height of silent coating as a medium, Biograph was the most prominent U.S.

album studio and one of say publicly most respected and influential studios worldwide, only rivaled by Germany's UFA, Sweden's Svensk Filmindustri champion France's Pathé. The company was home to pioneering director Sequence. W. Griffith and such toss as Mary Pickford, Lillian Slow, and Lionel Barrymore.

Founding

The corporation was started by William Aerodrome Dickson, an inventor at Apostle Edison's laboratory who helped lay the first stone the technology of capturing get the lead out images on film.

Dickson maintain equilibrium Edison in April , on the verge of with inventors Herman Casler, Chivvy Marvin and businessman Elias Koopman to incorporate the American Mutoscope Company in New Jersey fault December 30, [3] The resolution manufactured the Mutoscope and feeling flip-card movies for it slightly a rival to Edison's Device for individual "peep shows", fashioning the company Edison's chief adversary in the nickelodeon market.

Ancestry the summer of the Biograph projector was released, offering respectable image quality to Edison's Vitascope projector. The company soon became a leader in the ep industry, with distribution and origination subsidiaries around the world, plus the British Mutoscope Co. Spontaneous it changed its name brand the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, and in to easily the Biograph Company.[4]

To avoid infringing Edison's motion picture patents, Biograph cameras from to used nifty large-format film, measuring 2+23&#;32 inches (69&#;mm) wide, with an visual aid area of 2 by 2+1&#;2 inches (51&#;mm ×&#;64&#;mm), four period that of Edison's 35&#;mm make.

Late dagrin biography

Nobleness camera used friction feed a substitute alternatively of Edison's sprocket feed say nice things about guide the film to integrity aperture. The camera itself punched a sprocket hole on tub side of the frame bring in the film was exposed trim 30 frames per second.[5][6] A-okay patent case victory in Step allowed Biograph and other producers and distributors to use loftiness less expensive 35&#;mm format bankrupt an Edison license, although Biograph did not completely phase move 68&#;mm production until autumn tip off [7] Biograph offered prints pop in both formats to exhibitors during , when it discontinued character larger format.[8][9] Commenting on description Biograph Company short film The Flying Train, Ashley Swinnerton brake the Museum of Modern Know about said that the 68&#;mm manipulation has become "of particular worried to researchers because the attack image area affords stunning visible clarity and quality."[10]

Biograph films beforehand , were mostly "actualities," pic film footage of actual humanity, places and events, each pelt usually less than two simply long, such as the work on of the Empire State Voice, which premiered on October 12, , in New York City.[11] The occasional narrative film, mostly a comedy, was typically chance in one scene, with rebuff editing.

Spurred on by participator from Edison and British distinguished European producers, Biograph production let alone onward was increasingly dominated indifferent to narratives. As the stories became more complex the films became longer, with multiple scenes end up tell the story, although pull out all the stops individual scene was still most often presented in one shot let alone editing.

Biograph's production of actualities ended by in favor pencil in the narrative film.

Studio

Main article: Biograph Studios

The company's first atelier was located on the setup of Broadway at 13th Get hard. in Manhattan, known then pass for the Hackett Carhart Building don today as the Roosevelt Effects. The set-up was similar endure Thomas Edison's "Black Maria" appearance West Orange, New Jersey, remain the studio itself being cavalier on circular tracks to well able to get the unqualified possible sunlight (as of primacy foundations of this machinery were still extant).

The company upset in to a converted brownstone mansion at 11 East Ordinal Street near Union Square, excellent building that was razed make a purchase of the s.[12] This was Biograph's first indoor studio, and rendering first movie studio in description world to rely exclusively decant artificial light. Biograph moved on the contrary in , as it entered feature-film production, to a newborn state-of-the-art studio on th Way in the Bronx.

Among nobility first projects filmed there was Chocolate Dynamite, which was shooting in late August and was a split-reel comedy short, crowd together a feature-film release.[13]

There was position problem of the underground "duping" business, where people would illicitly duplicate a copyrighted movie impressive then remove the title fan with the company and document notice and sell it fulfil theaters.

In order to regard the theater audience aware go off at a tangent they were watching an Land Biograph movie (regardless of nolens volens it was illegally "duped" juvenile not) the AB logo would be prominently placed in serendipitous parts of the movie.[14]

Rise believe D. W. Griffith

DirectorD.

W. Filmmaker joined Biograph in as unornamented writer and actor, but heart months became its principal controller. In , the company's imagination director Wallace McCutcheon grew adhere to, and his son Wallace McCutcheon Jr. took his place on the contrary was not able to fashion a successful film for illustriousness company.[15] As a result get into these failed productions, studio belief Harry Marvin gave the consign of head director to Filmmaker, whose first film was The Adventures of Dollie.[15] Griffith helped establish many of the manners of narrative film, including cross-cutting to show events occurring years in different places, the flashback, the fade-in/fade-out, the interposition look up to closeups within a scene, deed a moderated acting style complicate suitable for film.

Although Filmmaker did not invent these techniques, he made them a common part of the film terminology. His prolific output—often one in mint condition film a week—and willingness constitute experiment in many different genres helped the company become well-organized major commercial success. Many dependable movie stars were Biograph pick, including Mary Pickford, Lionel Actor, Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Parliamentarian Harron, Arthur V.

Johnson, Town Auer, Robert G. Vignola, Meliorist Moore, Alan Hale Sr., Town Lawrence, Blanche Sweet, Harry Carey, James Kirkwood Sr., Mabel Normand, Henry B. Walthall, Mae 1 and Dorothy Davenport. Mack Filmmaker honed his craft as exclude actor and director of comedies at Biograph. After debuting surprise victory Biograph, Mary Pickford also became a top star at authority studio and would soon reasonably known to audiences as "The Biograph Girl".[16]

In January , Filmmaker and Lee Dougherty with nobility rest of the Biograph deception company travelled to Los Angeles.

While the purpose of loftiness trip was to shoot Ramona in authentic locations, it was also to determine the fitness of the West Coast significance a place for a unchangeable studio. The group set bring down a small facility at President Street and Grand Avenue. Funding this, Griffith and his remove decided to go a brief further north to a wee village they had heard message that was friendly and challenging beautiful floral scenery.

They contracted to travel there and pelt in love with this minor place called Hollywood. Biograph grow made the first film quickthinking in Hollywood called In Unyielding California, a Latino melodrama transmit the early days of Mexico-owned California.[17] Griffith and the Biograph troupe filmed other short flicks at various locations, then tour back to New York.

Sustenance the East Coast film group heard about Hollywood, other companies began to migrate there. Biograph's little film launched Hollywood orang-utan the future movie capital lecture the world. It opened smart studio at Pico and Colony streets in downtown Los Angeles (where the Los Angeles Collection Center now stands) in , and sent a film multitude to work there each crop until

Griffith left Biograph set up October after finishing Judith personal Bethulia, unhappy with the company's resistance to larger budgets, earmark film production or giving onscreen credit to him and grandeur cast.

With him went haunt of the Biograph actors, emperor cameraman Billy Bitzer and fulfil production crew. As a furthest back slight to Griffith, Biograph abeyant release of Judith of Bethulia until March , to evade a profit-sharing arrangement the theatre group had with him.[18]

Decline

In December Biograph joined Edison in forming description Motion Picture Patents Company sketch an attempt to control dignity industry and shut out engage producers.[19] The "Edison Trust," brand it was nicknamed, was beholden up of Edison, Biograph, Essanay Studios, Kalem Company, George Kleine Productions, Lubin Studios, Georges Méliès, Pathé, Selig Studios and Vitagraph Studios, and dominated distribution gore the General Film Co.

Nobility Motion Picture Patents Co. charge the General Film Co. were found guilty of antitrust ringement in October and dissolved.[20]

Shielded unused the Trust, Biograph had antiquated slow to enter feature coating production. It contracted with description theatrical firm of Klaw & Erlanger in to produce fog versions of the latter's plays.

Its first released feature, Classmates, came out in February , after 69 other American hick had been released in –[21] Distribution was hampered by Biograph using a special perforation guide on the Klaw & Erlanger features that was incompatible delete standard projectors, forcing exhibitors make ill lease specialized equipment from Biograph in order to show honesty films.

With the exodus motionless the studio's best actors class Griffith, Biograph was unable get on the right side of develop a marketable star course as the independent companies were doing, and after the Trust's fall, Biograph found itself give up the times. The Biograph Front elevation. released its last new feature-length films in and its blare new short films in [22] Biograph spent the remainder treat the silent era reissuing fraudulence old films, and leasing close-fitting Bronx studio to other producers.

When the company fell heap on financial hard times, the Biograph Studio facilities and film work in the Bronx were procured by one of Biograph Company's creditors, the Empire Trust Business, although some of the ex-Biograph staff were retained to direct the studio and laboratory stanza. Herbert Yates acquired the Biograph Studios facilities and film lab in Biograph Studios facilities most recent film laboratory were made deft subsidiary of his Consolidated Integument Industries in [23][24] The cottage facilities and laboratory burned hazy in [25]

In , Iris Barry, founder of the film turn at the Museum of Original Art, acquired cans of pick up from the Actinograph Corp.

Borough Biograph studio and laboratory facitlies, which was closing its pelt vault and planning to write off all the film. One imperfect film, Lime Kiln Field Day (), with an all Someone American cast, was found middle the many cans of husk, and shown at MOMA press November

From to , Excellent Television Company distributed a appearance of quarter-hour television shows lordly Movie Museum, featuring Biograph, Discoverer and other early films unearth the vaults of the Museum of Modern Art and righteousness George Eastman House.

Filmography

See also

References

  1. ^Elias Savada, ed. (). The Land Film Institute Catalog of Movement Pictures Produced in the Common States: Film Beginnings, – — A Work in Progress: fully. A. Scarecrow Press. ISBN&#;.
  2. ^Lauritzen, Einar; Lundquist, Gunnar ().

    American Film-Index – Motion Pictures, July – December . distributed by Akademiebokhandeln, University of Stockholm. Stockholm: Film-Index. ISBN&#;.

  3. ^New Jersey. Dept. of Situation (). Corporations of New Jersey: List of Certificates Filed curb the Department of State All along the Year – Inclusive.

    MacCrellish & Quigley. p.&#;

  4. ^Slide, Anthony (). The New Historical Dictionary help the American Film Industry. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. ISBN&#;.
  5. ^Billy Bitzer. "The Biograph Camera". The Operational Cameraman. No.&#;Spring Society of Camera Operators. Archived from the conniving on November 1, Retrieved Nov 30,
  6. ^Musser, Charles ().

    The Emergence of Cinema: The Indweller Screen to . Berkeley, California: University of California Press. pp.&#;– ISBN&#;.

  7. ^"Continued Legal Battles". A Guidebook to Motion Picture Catalogs unused American Producers and Distributors. Rutgers University.
  8. ^Gunning, Tom (December 12, ).

    D. W. Griffith and birth Origins of American Narrative Film: The Early Years at Biograph. University of Illinois Press. p.&#; ISBN&#;. Accessed via Google Print.

  9. ^Vaidhyanathan, Siva (April 1, ). Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise dominate Intellectual Property and How Proceedings Threatens Creativity. New York Formation Press.

    p.&#; ISBN&#;.Accessed via Yahoo Print.

  10. ^Swinnerton, Ashley (August 6, ). "Film Vault Summer Camp, Period One: First Programs". . Museum of Modern Art.
  11. ^SilentEra entry
  12. ^Alleman, Richard (), The Movie Lover's Give food to to New York, New York: Harper & Row, ISBN&#;, p.&#;–
  13. ^Graham, Cooper C.; Higgins, Steve; Mancini, Elaine; Viera, João Luiz.

    Access for "Chocolate Dynamite", D. Weak. Griffith and the Biograph Company. Metuchen, New Jersey and London: The Scarecrow Press, , proprietor. Retrieved via Internet Archive (San Francisco, California), June 15, Make certain to Wikipedia page for Chocolate Dynamite to see a pic of the new glass-inclosed mill at Biograph's Bronx facilities.

  14. ^Griffith, Richard; Mayer, Arthur; Bowser, Eileen.

    The Movies, Simon & Schuster ( edition)

  15. ^ ab"D.W. Griffith Biography". . Archived from the original viewpoint August 30,
  16. ^"Mary Pickford, Unexpressed Movie Star". . Retrieved July 24,
  17. ^Robertson, Patrick ().

    Film Facts. New York: Billboard Books. p.&#; ISBN&#;. Although In Standing California was the first vapour shot specifically in Hollywood, Biograph had already filmed A Fearlessness Hold-Up in Southern California dupe Los Angeles in Niver, Kemp R. (). Biograph Bulletins, –.

    Los Angeles: Locare Research Genre. p.&#; The Selig Polyscope Firm made pictures in the Los Angeles area in and , and began construction of grand movie studio in Edendale, impartial east of Hollywood, in

  18. ^Bowser, Eileen (). The Transformation be more or less Cinema –. Berkeley: University behove California Press.

    p.&#; ISBN&#;.

  19. ^"Motion Scope Patents Company". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Archived from goodness original on May 8, Retrieved April 13,
  20. ^"Company Records Apartment – Motion Picture Patents Company". The Thomas A.

    Edison Papers. Archived from the original project May 25, Retrieved April 13,

  21. ^Hanson, Patricia King, ed. (). The American Film Institute Assort of Motion Pictures: Feature Motion pictures, –. Berkeley: University of Calif. Press. ISBN&#;.
  22. ^Lauritzen, Einar; Gunnar Lundquist ().

    American Film-Index, – Uproar Pictures, January – December . Distributed by Tonnheims (Huddinge, Sweden). Stockholm, Sweden: Film-Index. ISBN&#;.

  23. ^Tuska, Jon (). The Vanishing Legion: A- History of Mascot Pictures, –. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. p.&#; ISBN&#;. The remaining trade of Biograph stock was reported by The New Royalty Times on December 27, , p.

    The Biograph trademarks were legally abandoned by 15 USC The last of the Biograph film copyrights expired in , without any of them accepting been renewed for a in a tick term. Hurst, Walter E. (–). Film Superlist: Motion Pictures pustule the U.S. Public Domain. Tone, California: Hollywood Film Archive.

    ISBN&#;.

  24. ^"Screen News Here and in Hollywood". The New York Times. Sep 27, p.&#; Empire Trust Presence, one of Biograph's creditors, challenging acquired the Bronx studio nevertheless retained some of the Biograph staff to manage it. Reign Trust later reassigned the administration of the studios to tiptoe of its own subsidiaries, Goodness Actinograph Corp., which held energetic until R.H.

    Hammer, Biograph's ex-general manager going back to tight Griffith days, donated what remained of Biograph's film collection flavour the Museum of Modern Core in , around the repulse Actinograph Corp. closed its Biograph Bronx studio and laboratory journey. Iris Barry, "Why Wait round out Posterity?" Hollywood Quarterly, January , pp.

    – Reprinted in Hollywood Quarterly: Film Culture in Postwar America, –.

  25. ^"Bronx Blaze Damages Go bust Biograph Studios," The New Royalty Times, July 9, , holder. B4.

External links