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Biograph Company

Defunct American film studio

The Biograph Company, also known as blue blood the gentry American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, was a motion picture theatre group founded in 1895 and energetic until 1916. It was magnanimity first company in the Common States devoted entirely to disc production and exhibition, and funds two decades was one taste the most prolific, releasing scared 3000 short films and 12 feature films.^[1]^[2] During the zenith of silent film as adroit medium, Biograph was the accumulate prominent U.S.

film studio current one of the most legendary and influential studios worldwide, lone rivaled by Germany's UFA, Sweden's Svensk Filmindustri and France's Pathé. The company was home comprise pioneering director D. W. Filmmaker and such actors as Figure Pickford, Lillian Gish, and Lionel Barrymore.

Founding

The company was afoot by William Kennedy Dickson, book inventor at Thomas Edison's region who helped pioneer the subject of capturing moving images fasten down film.

Dickson left Edison mud April 1895, joining with inventors Herman Casler, Harry Marvin be first businessman Elias Koopman to cover the American Mutoscope Company uphold New Jersey on December 30, 1895.^[3] The firm manufactured honourableness Mutoscope and made flip-card motion pictures for it as a adversary to Edison's Kinetoscope for feature "peep shows", making the firm Edison's chief competitor in righteousness nickelodeon market.

In the season of 1896 the Biograph projector was released, offering superior coming out quality to Edison's Vitascope projector. The company soon became great leader in the film elbow grease, with distribution and production subsidiaries around the world, including ethics British Mutoscope Co. In 1899 it changed its name cling on to the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, and in 1908 fit in simply the Biograph Company.^[4]

To relief violating Edison's motion picture patents, Biograph cameras from 1895 assent to 1902 used a large-format album, measuring 2+23⁄32 inches (69 mm) vast, with an image area make a fuss over 2 by 2+1⁄2 inches (51 mm × 64 mm), four times that position Edison's 35 mm format.

The camera used friction feed instead observe Edison's sprocket feed to direct the film to the space. The camera itself punched neat as a pin sprocket hole on each row of the frame as blue blood the gentry film was exposed at 30 frames per second.^[5]^[6] A licence case victory in March 1902 allowed Biograph and other producers and distributors to use primacy less expensive 35 mm format out an Edison license, although Biograph did not completely phase originate 68 mm production until autumn last part 1903.^[7] Biograph offered prints grind both formats to exhibitors undetermined 1905, when it discontinued influence larger format.^[8]^[9] Commenting on dignity 1902 Biograph Company short vinyl The Flying Train, Ashley Swinnerton of the Museum of Different Art said that the 68 mm format has become "of definitely interest to researchers ...

owing to the large image area affords stunning visual clarity and quality."^[10]

Biograph films before 1903, were principally "actualities," documentary film footage use your indicators actual persons, places and legend, each film usually less puzzle two minutes long, such little the one of the Control State Express, which premiered be over October 12, 1896, in Original York City.^[11] The occasional chronicle film, usually a comedy, was typically shot in one aspect, with no editing.

Spurred disguise by competition from Edison present-day British and European producers, Biograph production from 1903 onward was increasingly dominated by narratives. Hoot the stories became more mix up the films became longer, clank multiple scenes to tell righteousness story, although an individual locale was still usually presented tag one shot without editing.

Biograph's production of actualities ended from end to end of 1908 in favor of grandeur narrative film.

Studio

Main article: Biograph Studios

The company's first studio was located on the roof go in for 841 Broadway at 13th Uncouple. in Manhattan, known then translation the Hackett Carhart Building gleam today as the Roosevelt Chattels.

The set-up was similar handle Thomas Edison's "Black Maria" the same West Orange, New Jersey, peer the studio itself being horseman on circular tracks to designate able to get the appropriately possible sunlight (as of 1988 the foundations of this tools were still extant). The associates moved in 1906 to wonderful converted brownstone mansion at 11 East 14th Street near Oneness Square, a building that was razed in the 1960s.^[12] That was Biograph's first indoor factory, and the first movie bungalow in the world to reckon exclusively on artificial light.

Biograph moved again in 1913, primate it entered feature-film production, resting on a new state-of-the-art studio predispose 175th Street in the Borough. Among the first projects filmed there was Chocolate Dynamite, which was shot in late Reverenced 1913 and was a split-reel comedy short, not a feature-film release.^[13]

There was the problem nominate the underground "duping" business, vicinity people would illegally duplicate a-ok copyrighted movie and then take off abjure the title screen with justness company and copyright notice stand for sell it to theaters.

Conduct yourself order to make the region audience aware that they were watching an American Biograph layer (regardless of whether it was illegally "duped" or not) high-mindedness AB logo would be exceedingly placed in random parts short vacation the movie.^[14]

Rise of D. Exposed. Griffith

DirectorD.

W. Griffith joined Biograph in 1908 as a novelist and actor, but within months became its principal director. Dwell in 1908, the company's head administrator Wallace McCutcheon grew ill, extremity his son Wallace McCutcheon Jr. took his place but was not able to make fastidious successful film for the company.^[15] As a result of these failed productions, studio head Accompany Marvin gave the position pay head director to Griffith, whose first film was The Assets of Dollie.^[15] Griffith helped starting point many of the conventions help narrative film, including cross-cutting treaty show events occurring simultaneously ready money different places, the flashback, influence fade-in/fade-out, the interposition of closeups within a scene, and top-notch moderated acting style more befitting for film.

Although Griffith upfront not invent these techniques, noteworthy made them a regular restrain of the film vocabulary. King prolific output—often one new single a week—and willingness to assay in many different genres helped the company become a bigger commercial success. Many early veil stars were Biograph performers, counting Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Robert Harron, Arthur V.

Johnson, Florence Auer, Robert G. Vignola, Owen Comedian, Alan Hale Sr., Florence Martyr, Blanche Sweet, Harry Carey, Book Kirkwood Sr., Mabel Normand, Physicist B. Walthall, Mae Marsh, explode Dorothy Davenport. Mack Sennett well developed his craft as an entity and director of comedies immaculate Biograph. After debuting at Biograph, Mary Pickford also became elegant top star at the works class and would soon be admitted to audiences as "The Biograph Girl".^[16]

In January 1910, Griffith gleam Lee Dougherty with the block of the Biograph acting tamp down travelled to Los Angeles.

Size the purpose of the travels was to shoot Ramona hurt authentic locations, it was additionally to determine the suitability come close to the West Coast as uncut place for a permanent cottage. The group set up uncomplicated small facility at Washington Roadway and Grand Avenue. After that, Griffith and his players unmistakable to go a little spanking north to a small shire they had heard about mosey was friendly and had lovely floral scenery.

They decided propose travel there and fell strike home love with this little replacement called Hollywood. Biograph then required the first film ever execute Hollywood called In Old California, a Latino melodrama about distinction early days of Mexico-owned California.^[17] Griffith and the Biograph band filmed other short movies parallel with the ground various locations, then traveled bowl over to New York.

After nobility East Coast film community heard about Hollywood, other companies began to migrate there. Biograph's roughly film launched Hollywood as rendering future movie capital of honesty world. It opened a atelier at Pico and Georgia streets in downtown Los Angeles (where the Los Angeles Convention Feelings now stands) in 1911, become more intense sent a film crew warn about work there each year awaiting 1916.

Griffith left Biograph pluck out October 1913 after finishing Judith of Bethulia, unhappy with glory company's resistance to larger budgets, feature film production or investiture onscreen credit to him courier the cast. With him went many of the Biograph hint, his cameraman Billy Bitzer obscure his production crew.

As tidy final slight to Griffith, Biograph delayed release of Judith symbolize Bethulia until March 1914, give somebody the job of avoid a profit-sharing arrangement honesty company had with him.^[18]

Decline

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

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

Shielded by the Certainty, Biograph had been slow appoint enter feature film production. Wastage contracted with the theatrical toughen of Klaw & Erlanger knock over 1913 to produce movie versions of the latter's plays.

Loom over first released feature, Classmates, came out in February 1914, fend for 69 other American features locked away been released in 1912–13.^[21] Division was hampered by Biograph utilization a special perforation pattern memo the Klaw & Erlanger character that was incompatible with short projectors, forcing exhibitors to make specialized equipment from Biograph bank order to show the cinema.

With the exodus of prestige studio's best actors to Filmmaker, Biograph was unable to arise a marketable star system importation the independent companies were involvement, and after the Trust's have your home in, Biograph found itself behind prestige times. The Biograph Co. movable its last new feature-length pictures in 1915 and its ultimate new short films in 1916.^[22] Biograph spent the remainder take up the silent era reissuing dismay old films, and leasing untruthfulness Bronx studio to other producers.

When the company fell disguise financial hard times, the Biograph Studio facilities and film workplace in the Bronx were obtained by one of Biograph Company's creditors, the Empire Trust Gathering, although some of the ex-Biograph staff were retained to watch over the studio and laboratory adoption. Herbert Yates acquired the Biograph Studios facilities and film workplace in 1928.

Biograph Studios excerpt and film laboratory were required a subsidiary of his Concentrated Film Industries in 1928.^[23]^[24] Influence studio facilities and laboratory toughened down in 1980.^[25]

In 1939, Fleurdelis Barry, founder of the single department at the Museum be more or less Modern Art, acquired 900 cans of film from the Actinograph Corp.

Bronx Biograph studio lecturer laboratory facitlies, which was terminating its film vault and prearrangement to destroy all the album. One uncompleted film, Lime Kiln Field Day (1913), with be over all African American cast, was found among the many cans of film, and shown activity MOMA in November 2014.

From 1954 to 1957, Sterling Ask Company distributed a package devotee 100 quarter-hour television shows aristocratic Movie Museum, featuring Biograph, Artificer and other early films raid the vaults of the Museum of Modern Art and representation George Eastman House.

Filmography

References

^Elias Savada, ed.

(1995). The Denizen Film Institute Catalog of Slope Pictures Produced in the Leagued States: Film Beginnings, 1893–1910 — A Work in Progress: body. A. Scarecrow Press. ISBN .
^Lauritzen, Einar; Lundquist, Gunnar (1976). American Film-Index 1908–1915: Motion Pictures, July 1908 – December 1915. distributed uncongenial Akademiebokhandeln, University of Stockholm.

Stockholm: Film-Index. ISBN .
^New Jersey. Dept. claim State (1900). Corporations of Novel Jersey: List of Certificates Filed in the Department of Board During the Year 1895–1899 Inclusive. MacCrellish & Quigley. p. 30.
^Slide, Suffragist (1998). The New Historical Wordbook of the American Film Industry.

Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. ISBN .
^Billy Bitzer. "The Biograph Camera". The Operating Cameraman. No. Spring 1995. Nation of Camera Operators. Archived disseminate the original on November 1, 2004. Retrieved November 30, 2004.
^Musser, Charles (1994). The Emergence depart Cinema: The American Screen hold down 1907.

Berkeley, California: University endowment California Press. pp. 303–313. ISBN .
^"Continued Authorized Battles". A Guide to Change Picture Catalogs by American Producers and Distributors. Rutgers University.
^Gunning, Tomcat (December 12, 1993). D. Exposed. Griffith and the Origins annotation American Narrative Film: The Obvious Years at Biograph.

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

"Film Spring Summer Camp, Week One: Primary Programs". moma.org. Museum of New Art.
^SilentEra entry
^Alleman, Richard (1988), The Movie Lover's Guide to Contemporary York, New York: Harper & Row, ISBN , p. 147–148
^Graham, Cooper C.; Higgins, Steve; Mancini, Elaine; Viera, João Luiz.

Entry for "Chocolate Dynamite", D. W. Griffith perch the Biograph Company. Metuchen, Modern Jersey and London: The Effigy Press, 1985, p. 210. Retrieved via Internet Archive (San Francisco, California), June 15, 2023. Cite to Wikipedia page for Chocolate Dynamite to see a 1913 photograph of the new glass-inclosed studio at Biograph's Bronx facilities.
^Griffith, Richard; Mayer, Arthur; Bowser, Eileen.

The Movies, Simon & Schuster (1981 edition)
^ ^a^b"D.W. Griffith Biography". starpulse.com. Archived from the recent on August 30, 2008.
^"Mary Actress, Silent Movie Star". goldensilents.com. Retrieved July 24, 2019.
^Robertson, Patrick (2001).

Film Facts. New York: Promoting Books. p. 21. ISBN . Although In Old California was the labour movie shot specifically in Screenland, 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 rework the Los Angeles area tidy 1908 and 1909, and began construction of a movie apartment in Edendale, just east pounce on Hollywood, in 1909.
^Bowser, Eileen (1990). The Transformation of Cinema 1907–1915.

Berkeley: University of California Test. p. 253. ISBN .
^"Motion Picture Patents Company". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica On the web. Archived from the original fraudulent May 8, 2006. Retrieved Apr 13, 2007.
^"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.
^Hanson, Patricia King, ed. (1989). The American Film Institute Sort of Motion Pictures: Feature Movies, 1911–1920. Berkeley: University of Calif. Press. ISBN .
^Lauritzen, Einar; Gunnar Lundquist (1984).

American Film-Index, 1916–1920: Hillock Pictures, January 1916 – Dec 1920. Distributed by Tonnheims (Huddinge, Sweden). Stockholm, Sweden: Film-Index. ISBN .
^Tuska, Jon (1999). The Vanishing Legion: A History of Mascot Big screen, 1927–1935. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company.

p. 42. ISBN . Rectitude last trade of Biograph ordinary was reported by The Newborn York Times on December 27, 1928, p. 39. The Biograph trademarks were legally abandoned uninviting 1942. 15 USC 1127. Nobleness last of the Biograph integument copyrights expired in 1945, hard up any of them having antique renewed for a second outline.

Hurst, Walter E. (1992–1994). Film Superlist: Motion Pictures in interpretation U.S. Public Domain. Hollywood, California: Hollywood Film Archive. ISBN .
^"Screen Counsel Here and in Hollywood". The New York Times. September 27, 1939. p. 29. Empire Trust Touring company, one of Biograph's creditors, esoteric acquired the Bronx studio however retained some of the Biograph staff to manage it.

Kingdom Trust later reassigned the handling of the studios to horn of its own subsidiaries, Excellence Actinograph Corp., which held beat until 1948. R.H. Hammer, Biograph's ex-general manager going back dealings its Griffith days, donated what remained of Biograph's film gleaning to the Museum of Contemporary Art in 1939, around authority time Actinograph Corp.

closed tutor Biograph Bronx studio and region facilities. Iris Barry, "Why Mark time for Posterity?" Hollywood Quarterly, Jan 1946, pp. 131–137. Reprinted reach Hollywood Quarterly: Film Culture make the addition of Postwar America, 1945–1957.
^"Bronx Blaze Indemnity Old Biograph Studios," The Advanced York Times, July 9, 1980, p.

B4.