Monkeyshines, No. 1

Not much of anything, this "film" is a ghostly image of (probably) G. Sacco Albanese, a worker at the Edison Laboratories. It was shot by William Heise and W.K.L. Dickson, the co-inventor of the Kinetoscope, along with Thomas Edison.

The film is only a few seconds long, and it is hard to distinguish what, of anything, is going on. Of course, with being the first American motion picture, and one of the first ever, it has significant historical merit.

I rated it a 2 of out 10. Only its historical value gives it more than a 1.

Monkeyshines, No. 1, 2, and 3.

Shot in late, 1890, these are the first known films shot in the U. S. A. William Kennedy Laurie Dickson and William Heise, both working in the Edison Laboratory, shot these experimental films.

In 1888, Thomas Edison became interested in the motion picture, spurred the activity of a number of inventors in the U. S. and in Europe. Edison wanted to combine the motion picture with his previous invention, the phonograph. In this way, he would be able to capture both the sound and visuals of a live event like an opera and show it to a captive audience.

Initially, Edison thought he could capture pictures on a wax cylinder, in the same way he captured sounds on his phonograph. In early 1889, he assigned one of his employees, William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, to begin working on the design. The cylinders did not work. It was impossible to reduce a picture to a pinpoints, the way sound was reduced.

Influenced by the work of European inventors including Etiennes-Jules Mary in France and William Friese-Greene, Edison was ultimately convinced to switch to a system that involved perforated film.

By the end of 1890, Dickson and his associate, William Heise, were able to shoot this experimental films. In these, a co-worker makes some broad movements. All that you can make out are just some kind of a weird shape moving. From these humble beginnings, a monolitihic industry would grow in a relatively short period of time.

From Shadow Plays to the Phenakistoscope, to the phantasmagoria of the 18th Century 'Magic Lanterns' or the spinning slits of the Phenakistoscope invented by Joseph Plateau, and the simultaneous independent invention, in 1833, by the Austrian Simon Stampfer (Stroboscope). In 1867, the Zoetrope lantern astonished the world till Muybridge's Zoopraxiscope device of 1879. The Zoopraxiscope's photographic rudiments inspired legendary inventors to invent. Thomas Edison came up with the Kinetoscope and the designer W.K.L.Dixon (sometimes spelt as Dickson) worked for Edison in the USA and then in 1894 moved to England where he helped develop the Mutoscope machines. Thus, finally, we arrive at Dickson's 'The MonkeyShines'. Dickson is significantly a part of Film history because these film shorts were widely acclaimed as The first 'movie shows', or moving picture shows. However, The Lumiere brothers in France, Auguste and Louis, produced what is arguably the first real cinema show with the presentation of their Lumiere Cinematographe to a paying audience at the Grand Cafe in Paris on 28th December 1895. The only real brouhaha between these two landmark moments in history being the issue of pioneering and the attributing factors of being billed as the 'inventors' of modern film and cinema.

As much as it's certainly interesting to see history from 132 years ago, this is one of the weakest footages, as it's very hard to tell what's going on. Newark Athlete and the Blacksmith Scene make for far more interesting viewing experiences.

It's interesting from the point of view that it's 1889, it's an historical footage, but.... lets be honest, the europeans did even better in 1887 and 1888, with even better resolution and you can actually see what are the objects and what was going on.... but unfortunately this is not the case with this one. I'm sorry Edison but I stand with Le Prince. Yes, it was more than a century ago, but still compared to other works prior to this one, and the theory that Edison knew about what the europeans were doing, its.... I dont know, disappointing and disconcerting?

Still, it's an historical footage, so it's interesting.