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Edison Studios

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Edison Studios
IndustryMotion pictures
Founded1894;130 years ago(1894)
FounderThomas A. Edison
Defunct1918;106 years ago(1918)
Headquarters
United States
Number of locations
Area served
United States,Europe
Key people
ProductsSilent films
ParentEdison Manufacturing Company(1894–1911)
Thomas A. Edison, Inc.(1911–1918)

Edison Studioswas an Americanfilmproduction organization,owned by companies controlled by inventor and entrepreneur,Thomas Edison.Thestudiomade close to 1,200 films, as part of theEdison Manufacturing Company(1894–1911) and thenThomas A. Edison, Inc.(1911–1918), until the studio's closing in 1918. Of that number, 54 werefeature length,and the remainder wereshorts.[1]All of the company's films have fallen into the public domain because they were released before 1928.

History

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Several films in production at Edison's Bronx studio,c. 1912.Seated in the foreground, with his legs crossed, isCharles Brabin;seated to the rear, with the card "26" under his arm, isHarold M. Shaw.

The first production facility wasEdison's Black Mariastudio, inWest Orange, New Jersey,built in the winter of 1892–93. The second facility, a glass-enclosed rooftop studio built at 41 East 21st Street inManhattan's entertainment district, opened in 1901. In 1907, Edison had new facilities built, on Decatur Avenue and Oliver Place, in theBedford Parkneighborhood ofthe Bronx.

William Kennedy Dickson,an earlymotion pictureinnovator, film productioninventor,and assistant ofThomas A. Edison,eventually left to form theBiograph Company.
Horace G. Plimpton,an Edison Studios film producer 1909–1915

Thomas Edison himself played no direct part in the making of his studios' films, beyond being the owner and appointingWilliam Gilmoreas vice-president and general manager. Edison's assistantWilliam Kennedy Dickson,who supervised the development of Edison's motion picture system, produced the first Edison films intended for public exhibition, 1893–95. After Dickson's departure for theAmerican Mutoscope and Biograph Companyin 1895, he was replaced as director of production by cameramanWilliam Heise,then from 1896 to 1903, byJames H. White.When White left to supervise Edison's European interests in 1903, he was replaced byWilliam Markgraf(1903–1904), thenAlex T. Moore(1904–1909), andHorace G. Plimpton(1909–1915).

The first commercially exhibited motion pictures in the United States were from Edison, and premiered at aKinetoscopeparlor in New York City on April 14, 1894. The program consisted of ten short films, each less than a minute long, of athletes, dancers, and other performers. After competitors began exhibiting films on screens, Edison introduced its own,Projecting Kinetoscope,in late 1896.

The earliest productions were brief "actualities", showing everything, from acrobats, to parades, to fire calls. But, competition from French and British story films, in the early 1900s, rapidly changed the market. By 1904, 85% of Edison's sales were from story films.

In December 1908, Edison led the formation of theMotion Picture Patents Companyin an attempt to control the industry and shut out smaller producers.[2]The "Edison Trust", as it was nicknamed, was made up of Edison, Biograph,Essanay Studios,Kalem Company,George Kleine Productions,Lubin Studios,Georges Méliès,Pathé,Selig Studios,andVitagraph Studios,and dominated distribution through theGeneral Film Company.The Motion Picture Patents Co. and the General Film Co. were found guilty ofantitrustviolation in October 1915,[3]and were dissolved.[4]

The breakup of the Trust by federal courts, undermonopolylaws, and the loss of European markets duringWorld War I,hurt Edison financially. Edison sold its film business, including the Bronx studio, on 30 March 1918, to theLincoln & Parker Film Company,ofMassachusetts.

Notable productions

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Edison Studios produced thefirst motion picture adaptationofMary Shelley'sFrankenstein(1910).

Some of the studio's notable productions includeThe Kiss(1896);The Great Train Robbery(1903);Alice's Adventures in Wonderland(1910);Frankenstein(1910), the first film adaptation of the novel;The Battle of Trafalgar(1911);What Happened to Mary(1912), one of the earliestfilm serials;andThe Land Beyond the Sunset(1912), which was directed byHarold M. Shawand was later described by film historianWilliam K. Eversonas "'the screen's first genuinely lyrical film'".[5]The company also produced a number of short "Kinetophone"sound films in 1913–1914 using a sophisticated acoustical recording system capable of picking up sound from 30 feet away. They released a number ofRaoul Barrécartoon filmsin 1915 and the firstfilm versionof theRobert Louis Stevensonhistorical novelKidnapped.

Legacy

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Everson, calling Edison Studios "financially successful and artistically unambitious," wrote that other than directorsEdwin S. PorterandJohn Hancock Collins,

[T]he Edison studios never turned out a notable director, or even one above average. Nor did the Edison films show the sense of dynamic progress, that one gets, from studying theBiographfilms, on a year-by-year basis. On the contrary, there is a sense of stagnation.[6]

However, new restorations and screenings of Edison films in recent years contradict Everson's statement; indeed, Everson citingThe Land Beyond the Sunsetpoints out creativity at Edison beyond Porter and Collins, as it was directed byHarold M. Shaw(1877–1926), who later went on to a successful career directing in England, South Africa, and Lithuania before returning to the US in 1922. Other important directors who started at Edison includedOscar Apfel,Charles Brabin,Alan Crosland,J. Searle Dawley,andEdward H. Griffith.

Notable films

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See also

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References

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  1. ^Conot, Robert (1979).Thomas A. Edison: a streak of luck.New York, N.Y.: Da Capo Press.ISBN9780306802614.
  2. ^"Motion Picture Patents Company".Encyclopædia Britannica.Encyclopædia Britannica Online.Retrieved2007-04-13.
  3. ^U.S. v.Motion Picture Patents Company.,225 F. 800 (E.D. Pa. Oct. 1, 1915).
  4. ^"Company Records Series – Motion Picture Patents Company".The Thomas A. Edison Papers.Retrieved2007-04-13.
  5. ^Eagan, Daniel (2011)."Five Films About Faith",Smithsonian Magazine(Washington, D.C.), 15 December 2011, online copy of article from theSmithsonian Institution's original printed periodical. Retrieved 8 August 2021.
  6. ^Everson, William K. (1998).American Silent Film.New York: Da Capo Press.ISBN0-306-80876-5.
  7. ^"dokumen.tips".[permanent dead link]
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