Biography company

Biograph Company

Defunct American film studio

The Biograph Company, also known as greatness American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, was a motion picture deportment founded in 1895 and quiescent until 1916. It was righteousness first company in the Concerted States devoted entirely to album production and exhibition, and look after two decades was one wages the most prolific, releasing go around 3000 short films and 12 feature films.[1][2] During the high noon of silent film as unornamented medium, Biograph was the governing prominent U.S.

film studio instruct one of the most fine and influential studios worldwide, single rivaled by Germany's UFA, Sweden's Svensk Filmindustri and France's Pathé. The company was home with reference to pioneering director D. W. Filmmaker and such actors as Procession Pickford, Lillian Gish, and Lionel Barrymore.

Founding

The company was in progress by William Kennedy Dickson, doublecross inventor at Thomas Edison's workplace who helped pioneer the study of capturing moving images edge film.

Dickson left Edison attach April 1895, joining with inventors Herman Casler, Harry Marvin roost businessman Elias Koopman to combine the American Mutoscope Company be sure about New Jersey on December 30, 1895.[3] The firm manufactured birth Mutoscope and made flip-card cinema for it as a contender to Edison's Kinetoscope for separate "peep shows", making the people Edison's chief competitor in nobleness nickelodeon market.

In the season of 1896 the Biograph projector was released, offering superior advance quality to Edison's Vitascope projector. The company soon became elegant leader in the film labour, with distribution and production subsidiaries around the world, including excellence British Mutoscope Co. In 1899 it changed its name highlight the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, and in 1908 letter simply the Biograph Company.[4]

To block violating Edison's motion picture patents, Biograph cameras from 1895 work stoppage 1902 used a large-format ep, measuring 2+23⁄32 inches (69 mm) nationalized, with an image area more than a few 2 by 2+1⁄2 inches (51 mm × 64 mm), four times that be more or less Edison's 35 mm format.

The camera used friction feed instead flawless Edison's sprocket feed to guidebook the film to the space. The camera itself punched a-one sprocket hole on each auxiliary of the frame as integrity film was exposed at 30 frames per second.[5][6] A filmy case victory in March 1902 allowed Biograph and other producers and distributors to use dignity less expensive 35 mm format in need an Edison license, although Biograph did not completely phase sudden occurrence 68 mm production until autumn center 1903.[7] Biograph offered prints form both formats to exhibitors waiting for 1905, when it discontinued goodness larger format.[8][9] Commenting on ethics 1902 Biograph Company short fell The Flying Train, Ashley Swinnerton of the Museum of Further Art said that the 68 mm format has become "of from tip to toe interest to researchers ...

for the large image area affords stunning visual clarity and quality."[10]

Biograph films before 1903, were typically "actualities," documentary film footage vacation actual persons, places and yarn, each film usually less by two minutes long, such rightfully the one of the Command State Express, which premiered circus October 12, 1896, in Pristine York City.[11] The occasional description film, usually a comedy, was typically shot in one outlook, with no editing.

Spurred tribute by competition from Edison swallow British and European producers, Biograph production from 1903 onward was increasingly dominated by narratives. Style the stories became more set-up the films became longer, market multiple scenes to tell illustriousness story, although an individual outlook was still usually presented come by one shot without editing.

Biograph's production of actualities ended chunk 1908 in favor of character narrative film.

Studio

Main article: Biograph Studios

The company's first studio was located on the roof depict 841 Broadway at 13th Dig for. in Manhattan, known then on account of the Hackett Carhart Building perch today as the Roosevelt Shop.

The set-up was similar stand firm Thomas Edison's "Black Maria" mission West Orange, New Jersey, get a feel for the studio itself being on horseback on circular tracks to reproduction able to get the first possible sunlight (as of 1988 the foundations of this equipment were still extant). The society moved in 1906 to trim converted brownstone mansion at 11 East 14th Street near Combination Square, a building that was razed in the 1960s.[12] That was Biograph's first indoor bungalow, and the first movie discussion group in the world to bet exclusively on artificial light.

Biograph moved again in 1913, restructuring it entered feature-film production, be introduced to a new state-of-the-art studio seizure 175th Street in the Borough. Among the first projects filmed there was Chocolate Dynamite, which was shot in late Honoured 1913 and was a split-reel comedy short, not a feature-film release.[13]

There was the problem obey the underground "duping" business, veer people would illegally duplicate graceful copyrighted movie and then fly the title screen with rank company and copyright notice title sell it to theaters.

Rope in order to make the short-lived audience aware that they were watching an American Biograph cover (regardless of whether it was illegally "duped" or not) honesty AB logo would be notably placed in random parts appeal to the movie.[14]

Rise of D. Unprotected. Griffith

DirectorD.

W. Griffith joined Biograph in 1908 as a columnist and actor, but within months became its principal director. Extract 1908, the company's head supervisor Wallace McCutcheon grew ill, very last his son Wallace McCutcheon Jr. took his place but was not able to make unembellished successful film for the company.[15] As a result of these failed productions, studio head Beset Marvin gave the position epitome head director to Griffith, whose first film was The Kismet of Dollie.[15] Griffith helped inaugurate many of the conventions after everything else narrative film, including cross-cutting go-slow show events occurring simultaneously bind different places, the flashback, nobleness fade-in/fade-out, the interposition of closeups within a scene, and first-class moderated acting style more apposite for film.

Although Griffith blunt not invent these techniques, sharptasting made them a regular substance of the film vocabulary. Government prolific output—often one new integument a week—and willingness to appraise in many different genres helped the company become a superior commercial success. Many early moving picture stars were Biograph performers, with Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Robert Harron, Arthur V.

Johnson, Florence Auer, Robert G. Vignola, Owen Comic, Alan Hale Sr., Florence Soldier, Blanche Sweet, Harry Carey, Crook Kirkwood Sr., Mabel Normand, Speechmaker B. Walthall, Mae Marsh, cope with Dorothy Davenport. Mack Sennett biting his craft as an affair and director of comedies take care of Biograph. After debuting at Biograph, Mary Pickford also became spick top star at the mill and would soon be report on to audiences as "The Biograph Girl".[16]

In January 1910, Griffith take Lee Dougherty with the scatter of the Biograph acting air travelled to Los Angeles.

Decide the purpose of the conversation was to shoot Ramona revere authentic locations, it was likewise to determine the suitability be beneficial to the West Coast as wonderful place for a permanent atelier. The group set up clean up small facility at Washington Way and Grand Avenue. After that, Griffith and his players arranged to go a little too north to a small commune they had heard about turn this way was friendly and had lovely floral scenery.

They decided pick on travel there and fell integrate love with this little locus called Hollywood. Biograph then troublefree the first film ever make a way into Hollywood called In Old California, a Latino melodrama about glory early days of Mexico-owned California.[17] Griffith and the Biograph company filmed other short movies convenient various locations, then traveled monitor to New York.

After influence East Coast film community heard about Hollywood, other companies began to migrate there. Biograph's around film launched Hollywood as character future movie capital of blue blood the gentry world. It opened a atelier at Pico and Georgia streets in downtown Los Angeles (where the Los Angeles Convention Spirit now stands) in 1911, bracket sent a film crew count up work there each year awaiting 1916.

Griffith left Biograph predicament October 1913 after finishing Judith of Bethulia, unhappy with significance company's resistance to larger budgets, feature film production or delivery onscreen credit to him be first the cast. With him went many of the Biograph lob, his cameraman Billy Bitzer reprove his production crew.

As natty final slight to Griffith, Biograph delayed release of Judith pay no attention to Bethulia until March 1914, elect avoid a profit-sharing arrangement probity company had with him.[18]

Decline

In Dec 1908 Biograph joined Edison encumber forming the Motion Picture Patents Company in an attempt assail control the industry and secure out smaller producers.[19] The "Edison Trust," as it was nicknamed, was made up of Discoverer, Biograph, Essanay Studios, Kalem Society, George Kleine Productions, Lubin Studios, Georges Méliès, Pathé, Selig Studios and Vitagraph Studios, and atuated distribution through the General Release Co.

The Motion Picture Patents Co. and the General Vinyl Co. were found guilty panic about antitrust violation in October 1915 and dissolved.[20]

Shielded by the Flow, Biograph had been slow get on the right side of enter feature film production. Inadequate contracted with the theatrical uphold of Klaw & Erlanger small fry 1913 to produce movie versions of the latter's plays.

Corruption first released feature, Classmates, came out in February 1914, make sure of 69 other American features challenging been released in 1912–13.[21] Publish was hampered by Biograph make use of a special perforation pattern finely tuned the Klaw & Erlanger traits category that was incompatible with sorry projectors, forcing exhibitors to residence incumbency specialized equipment from Biograph staging order to show the cinema.

With the exodus of leadership studio's best actors to Filmmaker, Biograph was unable to enrich a marketable star system owing to the independent companies were knowledge, and after the Trust's descend, Biograph found itself behind nobleness times. The Biograph Co. unconfined its last new feature-length motion pictures in 1915 and its first name new short films in 1916.[22] Biograph spent the remainder eradicate the silent era reissuing sheltered old films, and leasing warmth Bronx studio to other producers.

When the company fell keep to financial hard times, the Biograph Studio facilities and film work in the Bronx were derived by one of Biograph Company's creditors, the Empire Trust Gang, although some of the ex-Biograph staff were retained to make the studio and laboratory corridor. Herbert Yates acquired the Biograph Studios facilities and film work in 1928.

Biograph Studios sentence and film laboratory were ended a subsidiary of his Concentrated Film Industries in 1928.[23][24] Illustriousness studio facilities and laboratory destroyed down in 1980.[25]

In 1939, Flag Barry, founder of the disc department at the Museum confiscate Modern Art, acquired 900 cans of film from the Actinograph Corp.

Bronx Biograph studio dispatch laboratory facitlies, which was end its film vault and provision to destroy all the single. One uncompleted film, Lime Kiln Field Day (1913), with plug all African American cast, was found among the many cans of film, and shown move MOMA in November 2014.

From 1954 to 1957, Sterling Leader-writers Company distributed a package fortify 100 quarter-hour television shows coroneted Movie Museum, featuring Biograph, Artificer and other early films stranger the vaults of the Museum of Modern Art and righteousness George Eastman House.

Filmography

See also

References

  1. ^Elias Savada, ed. (1995). The English Film Institute Catalog of Action Pictures Produced in the Common States: Film Beginnings, 1893–1910 — A Work in Progress: out-and-out. A. Scarecrow Press. ISBN .
  2. ^Lauritzen, Einar; Lundquist, Gunnar (1976).

    American Film-Index 1908–1915: Motion Pictures, July 1908 – December 1915. distributed descendant Akademiebokhandeln, University of Stockholm. Stockholm: Film-Index. ISBN .

  3. ^New Jersey. Dept. enterprise State (1900). Corporations of Virgin Jersey: List of Certificates Filed in the Department of Run about like a headless chicken During the Year 1895–1899 Inclusive.

    MacCrellish & Quigley. p. 30.

  4. ^Slide, Suffragist (1998). The New Historical Phrasebook of the American Film Industry. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. ISBN .
  5. ^Billy Bitzer. "The Biograph Camera". The Operating Cameraman. No. Spring 1995. Company of Camera Operators.

    Archived strip the original on November 1, 2004. Retrieved November 30, 2004.

  6. ^Musser, Charles (1994). The Emergence show evidence of Cinema: The American Screen handle 1907. Berkeley, California: University be more or less California Press. pp. 303–313. ISBN .
  7. ^"Continued Authorized Battles".

    A Guide to Hue and cry Picture Catalogs by American Producers and Distributors. Rutgers University.

  8. ^Gunning, Take it easy (December 12, 1993). D. Weak. Griffith and the Origins lady American Narrative Film: The Trustworthy Years at Biograph. University near Illinois Press.

    p. 88. ISBN . Accessed via Google Print.

  9. ^Vaidhyanathan, Siva (April 1, 2003). Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Affluence and How It Threatens Creativity. New York University Press. p. 88. ISBN .Accessed via Google Print.
  10. ^Swinnerton, Ashley (August 6, 2020).

    "Film Tomb Summer Camp, Week One: Chief Programs". . Museum of Another Art.

  11. ^SilentEra entry
  12. ^Alleman, Richard (1988), The Movie Lover's Guide to Pristine York, New York: Harper & Row, ISBN , p. 147–148
  13. ^Graham, Cooper C.; Higgins, Steve; Mancini, Elaine; Viera, João Luiz.

    Entry for "Chocolate Dynamite", D. W. Griffith captivated the Biograph Company. Metuchen, Recent Jersey and London: The Strawman Press, 1985, p. 210. Retrieved via Internet Archive (San Francisco, California), June 15, 2023. Concern to Wikipedia page for Chocolate Dynamite to see a 1913 photograph of the new glass-inclosed studio at Biograph's Bronx facilities.

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

    The Movies, Simon & Schuster (1981 edition)

  15. ^ ab"D.W. Griffith Biography". . Archived from the virgin on August 30, 2008.
  16. ^"Mary Actress, Silent Movie Star". . Retrieved July 24, 2019.
  17. ^Robertson, Patrick (2001).

    Film Facts. New York: Boosting Books. p. 21. ISBN . Although In Old California was the pull it off movie shot specifically in Flavor, Biograph had already filmed A Daring Hold-Up in Southern California in Los Angeles in 1906. Niver, Kemp R. (1971). Biograph Bulletins, 1896–1908. Los Angeles: Locare Research Group.

    p. 262. The Selig Polyscope Company made pictures shamble the Los Angeles area kick up a fuss 1908 and 1909, and began construction of a movie works class in Edendale, just east reveal Hollywood, in 1909.

  18. ^Bowser, Eileen (1990). The Transformation of Cinema 1907–1915. Berkeley: University of California Exhort.

    p. 253. ISBN .

  19. ^"Motion Picture Patents Company". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica On the internet. Archived from the original film May 8, 2006. Retrieved Apr 13, 2007.
  20. ^"Company Records Series – Motion Picture Patents Company". The Thomas A. Edison Papers.

    Archived from the original on May well 25, 2007. Retrieved April 13, 2007.

  21. ^Hanson, Patricia King, ed.

    Jackson

    (1989). The American Peel Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures: Feature Films, 1911–1920. Berkeley: Hospital of California Press. ISBN .

  22. ^Lauritzen, Einar; Gunnar Lundquist (1984). American Film-Index, 1916–1920: Motion Pictures, January 1916 – December 1920.

    Distributed exceed Tonnheims (Huddinge, Sweden). Stockholm, Sweden: Film-Index. ISBN .

  23. ^Tuska, Jon (1999). The Vanishing Legion: A History collide Mascot Pictures, 1927–1935. Jefferson, Northern Carolina: McFarland & Company. p. 42. ISBN . The last trade be successful Biograph stock was reported infant The New York Times temper December 27, 1928, p.

    39. The Biograph trademarks were on the level abandoned by 1942. 15 USC 1127. The last of decency Biograph film copyrights expired suspend 1945, without any of them having been renewed for natty second term. Hurst, Walter Tie. (1992–1994). Film Superlist: Motion Films in the U.S. Public Domain. Hollywood, California: Hollywood Film Archives.

    ISBN .

  24. ^"Screen News Here and play a role Hollywood".

    Ethan hawke someone biography

    The New York Times. September 27, 1939. p. 29. Reign Trust Company, one of Biograph's creditors, had acquired the Borough studio but retained some endowment the Biograph staff to frank it. Empire Trust later reassigned the management of the studios to one of its personal subsidiaries, The Actinograph Corp., which held it until 1948.

    R.H. Hammer, Biograph's ex-general manager awful back to its Griffith date, donated what remained of Biograph's film collection to the Museum of Modern Art in 1939, around the time Actinograph Firm. closed its Biograph Bronx accommodation and laboratory facilities. Iris Barry, "Why Wait for Posterity?" Hollywood Quarterly, January 1946, pp.

    131–137. Reprinted in Hollywood Quarterly: Lp Culture in Postwar America, 1945–1957.

  25. ^"Bronx Blaze Damages Old Biograph Studios," The New York Times, July 9, 1980, p. B4.

External links