Monkeyshines, No. 1

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.

I have endearing respect for all these early attempts at filmaking and yet they do not all possess the same amount of interest. With Monkeyshines (whether Nos. 1 or 2) I hardly know what it is I am looking at.

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.

Monekyshines, No. 1 (1890)

Monkeyshines, No. 2 (1890)

These two films by Edison, as well as a third one I haven't seen, are believed to be the very first to be shot in the United States. None of the three were meant to be seen by the public as Edison was just trying to test the cylinder of the Kinetograph format. William K.L. Dickson and William Heise are created with trying this experiment in June of 1889 or the last week of November 1890, experts debate which date is correct. Needless to say, outside a historic level, there's nothing much here to see. A few images flicker in front of our eyes and on the whole I'd say No. 2 is better as we can actually see the figure. The first test is pretty brutal and hard to figure out exactly what you're looking at.

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.