Category: Film

I teach several classes for the Stephens College Low-Residency MFA in Screenwriting, including History of Screenwriting. In fact, I created the curriculum for that course from scratch and customized it to this particular MFA in that it covers ‘Screenwriting’ (not directors) and even more specifically, the class has a female-centric focus.  As part History of Screenwriting I, the first course in the four-class series, we focus on the early women screenwriters of the silent film era  who male historians have, for the most part, quietly forgotten in their books. In this series, I share with you some of the screenwriters and films that should be part of any screenwriters education. I believe that in order  to become a great screenwriter, you need to understand the deep history of screenwriting and the amazing people who created the career. — Dr. Rosanne Welch

Caicedo (with Pole) (1894)

According to Edison film historian C. Musser, Venezuelan rope and slack wire walker Juan Caicedo performed in the U.S. during 1894 and again at the end of the century. From May 14 to Sept. 8, 1894, he appeared at Koster & Bial’s Music Hall in New York City. 

From Raff & Gammon price list: The “King of the Wire” in his marvelous slack wire performance. $10.00.

OTHER TITLES
Title in Raff & Gammon price list: Caicedo 

Caicedo. No. 1 

CREATED/PUBLISHED
United States : Edison Manufacturing Co., [1894]

NOTES
Copyright: no reg. 

Performer: Juan A. Caicedo. 

Camera, William Heise. 

Filmed July 25, 1894, at the Edison Laboratory in West Orange, N.J. 

Received: 5-13-1994; viewing print; preservation; Hendricks (Gordon) Collection. 

SUBJECTS
Aerialists–United States.
Vaudeville–United States.
Wire rope–United States.
Venezuelans–United States.
Variety

RELATED NAMES
Dickson, W. K.-L. (William Kennedy-Laurie), 1860-1935, production.
Heise, William, camera.
Caicedo, Juan A., performer.
Thomas A. Edison, Inc. 
Hendricks (Gordon) Collection (Library of Congress) 

DIGITAL ID
edmp.4021 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mbrsmi/edmp.4021

Learn more about Thomas Edison and Early Movies with these books and videos

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! 

I teach several classes for the Stephens College Low-Residency MFA in Screenwriting, including History of Screenwriting. In fact, I created the curriculum for that course from scratch and customized it to this particular MFA in that it covers ‘Screenwriting’ (not directors) and even more specifically, the class has a female-centric focus.  As part History of Screenwriting I, the first course in the four-class series, we focus on the early women screenwriters of the silent film era  who male historians have, for the most part, quietly forgotten in their books. In this series, I share with you some of the screenwriters and films that should be part of any screenwriters education. I believe that in order  to become a great screenwriter, you need to understand the deep history of screenwriting and the amazing people who created the career. — Dr. Rosanne Welch

Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze (1894)

The earliest surviving copyrighted motion picture, the Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze is a short film made by W. K. L. Dickson in January 1894 for advertising purposes. Often referred to as “Fred Ott’s Sneeze,” this is is one of the world’s earliest motion pictures and America’s best known early film production. The star is Fred Ott, an Edison employee known to his fellow workers in the laboratory for his comic sneezing and other gags. This item was received in the Library of Congress on January 9, 1894, as a copyright deposit from Dickson.

Two other Edison experimental films on the Library’s YouTube site – DICKSON GREETING (May 1891) and NEWARK ATHLETE (May or June 1891), predate The Sneeze. The Sneeze was submitted for copyright as 45 frames from the motion picture printed as positive prints on paper rather than as a reel of film. The prints were mounted on cardboard and submitted to the Copyright Office in this form. The video of the Sneeze on loc.gov and YouTube was later rephotographed and turned into a moving image from these mounted frames.

SUMMARY
Film made for publicity purposes, as a series of still photographs to accompany an article in Harper’s weekly.

OTHER TITLES
Sneeze 
Fred Ott’s sneeze 

CREATED/PUBLISHED
United States : Edison Manufacturing Co., 1894.

NOTES
Copyright: W. K. L. Dickson; 9Jan1894; 2887. 

Performer: Fred Ott. 

Camera, William Heise. 

Filmed ca. January 2-7, 1894, in Edison’s Black Maria studio. 

SUBJECTS
Sneezing.
Publicity.
Motion picture industry–Public relations–United States.
Actuality

RELATED NAMES
Dickson, W. K.-L. (William Kennedy-Laurie), 1860-1935, production.
Ott, Frederic P., performer.
Heise, William, camera.
Thomas A. Edison, Inc. 
Hendricks (Gordon) Collection (Library of Congress) 
Paper Print Collection (Library of Congress) 

DIGITAL ID 
edmp.0026A http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mbrsmi/edmp.0026A

Learn more about Thomas Edison and Early Movies with these books and videos

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! 

I teach several classes for the Stephens College Low-Residency MFA in Screenwriting, including History of Screenwriting. In fact, I created the curriculum for that course from scratch and customized it to this particular MFA in that it covers ‘Screenwriting’ (not directors) and even more specifically, the class has a female-centric focus.  As part History of Screenwriting I, the first course in the four-class series, we focus on the early women screenwriters of the silent film era  who male historians have, for the most part, quietly forgotten in their books. In this series, I share with you some of the screenwriters and films that should be part of any screenwriters education. I believe that in order  to become a great screenwriter, you need to understand the deep history of screenwriting and the amazing people who created the career. — Dr. Rosanne Welch

Men Boxing, William K. L. Dickson, William Heise – Edison Manufacturing Company, 1891

Men Boxing is an 1891 American short black-and-white silent actuality film, produced and directed by William K.L. Dickson and William Heise for the Edison Manufacturing Company, featuring two Edison employees with boxing gloves, pretending to spar in a boxing ring. The 12 feet of film was shot between May and June 1891 at the Edison Laboratory Photographic Building in West Orange, New Jersey, on the Edison-Dickson-Heise experimental horizontal-feed kinetograph camera and viewer, through a round aperture on 3/4 inch (19mm) wide film with a single edge row of sprocket perforations, as an experimental demonstration and was never publicly shown. A print has been preserved in the US Library of Congress film archive as part of the Gordon Hendricks collection.^[1][2] — Wikipedia

Learn more about Thomas Edison and Early Movies with these books and videos

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! 

I teach several classes for the Stephens College Low-Residency MFA in Screenwriting, including History of Screenwriting. In fact, I created the curriculum for that course from scratch and customized it to this particular MFA in that it covers ‘Screenwriting’ (not directors) and even more specifically, the class has a female-centric focus.  As part History of Screenwriting I, the first course in the four-class series, we focus on the early women screenwriters of the silent film era  who male historians have, for the most part, quietly forgotten in their books. In this series, I share with you some of the screenwriters and films that should be part of any screenwriters education. I believe that in order  to become a great screenwriter, you need to understand the deep history of screenwriting and the amazing people who created the career. — Dr. Rosanne Welch

Leaving Jerusalem by Railway (Auguste and Louis Lumiére, France, 1896)

Départ de Jérusalem en chemin de fer (translated into English as Leaving Jerusalem by Railway) is an 1897 film directed by Alexandre Promio and released by the Lumière brothers. Lasting for roughly 50 seconds, it shows the goodbyes of many passersby – first Europeans, then Palestinian Arabs, then Palestinian Jews – as a train leaves Jerusalem.

Leaving Jerusalem by Railway contains what is possibly the first depiction of camera movement in the history of film. Some instead credit The Haverstraw Tunnel with this innovation,^[1] but only the year of release is available for the two; therefore it is unknown which came first. — Wikipedia

Learn more about the Lumiere Brothers with these books

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! 

I teach several classes for the Stephens College Low-Residency MFA in Screenwriting, including History of Screenwriting. In fact, I created the curriculum for that course from scratch and customized it to this particular MFA in that it covers ‘Screenwriting’ (not directors) and even more specifically, the class has a female-centric focus.  As part History of Screenwriting I, the first course in the four-class series, we focus on the early women screenwriters of the silent film era  who male historians have, for the most part, quietly forgotten in their books. In this series, I share with you some of the screenwriters and films that should be part of any screenwriters education. I believe that in order  to become a great screenwriter, you need to understand the deep history of screenwriting and the amazing people who created the career. — Dr. Rosanne Welch

Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (The Lumière Brothers, 1895)

‘Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat’ is considered to be the first motion picture in modern history (altough more an experiment from the Lumière-brothers to use their ‘invention’ of film, it shows a train arriving at a passenger station). Popular legend has it that, when this film was shown, the first-night audience fled the cafe in terror, fearing being run over by the “approaching” train.

Learn more about the Lumiere Brothers with these books

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!