Auguste and Louis Lumière

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Image:Fratelli Lumiere.jpg The Lumière brothers, Auguste Marie Louis Nicholas (19 October 1862, Besançon, France – 10 April 1954, Lyon) and Louis Jean (5 October 1864, Besançon, France – 6 June 1948, Bandol), were among the earliest filmmakers. They held their first public screening of movies at which admission was charged on December 28, 1895 in Paris at the Salon Indien du Grand Café, and preceded that public screening with several private presentations, the earliest being March 22, 1895.

Even though Max and Emil Skladanowsky had offered projected moving images to a paying public two months earlier (December 1, 1895, in Berlin), most film historians consider the Grand Café screening to be the most significant birth of the cinema as a commercial medium. For one thing, the Skladanowsky brothers' "films" were not recorded as motion pictures and were actually animated still photographs.

The Lumière brothers were accomplished inventors. To create their movies they developed the cinématographe — a three-in-one device that could record, develop, and project motion pictures.

1 History
2 Trivia
3 See also
4 References

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History

The Lumière brothers were born in Twin Valley, Besançon, France but brought up in Lyon. Their father 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 set to work to create moving pictures. They patented a number of significant processes leading up to their film camera - most notably the creation of sprocket holes in the film strip as a means of advancing the film through the camera and projector. The cinématographe itself was patented on 13 February 1895 and the first footage ever to be shot using it was recorded on 19 March 1895. This first film shows workers leaving the Lumière factory.

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 Lumière Factory), 46 seconds
La Voltige ("horse trick riders"), 46 seconds
La Pêche aux poissons rouges ("fishing for goldfish"), 42 seconds
Le Débarquement du Congrès de Photographie à Lyon ("the disembarkment of the Congress of Photographers in Lyon"), 48 seconds
Les Forgerons ("blacksmiths"), 49 seconds
Le Jardinier (l'Arroseur arrosé) ("the gardener, [the sprinkler sprinkled]"), 49 seconds
Le Repas (de bébé) ("baby's meal"), 41 seconds
Le Saut à la couverture ("jumping onto the blanket"), 41 seconds
La Place des Cordeliers à Lyon ("Cordeliers Square in Lyon"--a street scene), 44 seconds
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 and New York.

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 the Ciotat Station", but more commonly known as Arrival of a Train at a Station). 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.

The brothers stated that "the cinema is an invention without any future" and declined to sell their camera to other filmmakers such as Georges Méliès. Consequently, their role in the history of film was exceedingly brief. They turned their attentions to colour photography and in 1903 they patented a colour photography process, the "Autochrome Lumière", launched on the market in 1907. Throughout much of the 20th century, Lumière company was a major producer of photographic products in Europe, but the brand name, Lumière, disappeared from the marketplace following its merger with Ilford. The Lumières also developed other products such as a loudspeaker, "Lumière tulle gras" (a dressing to heal burns) and the homonoid forceps (a medical tool).

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