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Claire loves photography and cinema and she has been talking with The Grandma about Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, the French artist who filmed the first motion picture, Roundhay Garden Scene, on a day like today in 1888.
Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince (28 August 1841-disappeared 16 September 1890; declared dead 16 September 1897) was a French artist and the inventor of an early motion-picture camera, and director of Roundhay Garden Scene. He was possibly the first person to shoot a moving picture sequence using a single lens camera and a strip of (paper) film. He has been credited as the Father of Cinematography but, due to his disappearance in 1890, his work did not influence the commercial development of cinema.
Le Prince was born on 28 August 1841 in Metz.
In October 1888, Le Prince filmed moving-picture sequences of family members in Leeds, in the 1888 short film Roundhay Garden, and of his son Louis playing the accordion, using his single-lens camera and Eastman's paper negative film. In the next eighteen months, he also made a film of Leeds Bridge. His work appears to precede the inventions of his contemporaries, such as Friese-Greene and Donisthorpe as well as being years ahead of the Lumière brothers and Dickson (who did the moving image work for Thomas Edison).
Le Prince disappeared on 16 September 1890. Numerous conspiracy theories emerged about his disappearance, including murder, disappearance in order to start a new life, and suicide. However, no conclusive evidence was found for any of these theories.
In early 1890, Edison workers had begun experimenting with celluloid film to capture moving images. The first public results of these experiments were shown in May 1891. Le Prince's widow and son, Adolphe, were keen to advance Louis's cause as the inventor of cinematography.
In 1898, Adolphe appeared as a witness for the defence in a court case brought by Thomas Edison against the American Mutoscope Company, in which Edison claimed to be the first and sole inventor of cinematography, and thus entitled to royalties for the use of the process. Film shot with cameras built according to Le Prince's patent were presented. Eventually, the court ruled in Edison's favour, however, a year later that ruling was overturned, but Edison reissued his patents and succeeded in controlling the US film industry for many years.
Seven years after his disappearance, Le Prince was declared dead on 16 September 1897.
In September 1890, Le Prince was preparing for a trip to the United States, supposedly to publicly premiere his work and join his wife and children. Before this journey, he decided to return to France to visit his brother in Dijon. Then, on 16 September, he took a train to Paris, but having taken a later train than planned, his friends in Paris discovered that he was not on board. He was never seen again by his family or friends, nor was the luggage he was traveling with ever found. The last person to see Le Prince at the Dijon station was his brother. The French police, Scotland Yard and the family undertook exhaustive searches, but never found him. Le Prince was officially declared dead in 1897. A number of mostly unsubstantiated theories have been proposed.
On 10 January 1888, Le Prince was granted an American patent on a 16-lens device that he claimed could serve as both motion picture camera (which he termed the receiver or photo-camera) and a projector (which he called the deliverer or stereopticon). That same day he took out a near-identical provisional patent for the same devices in Great Britain, proposing a system of preferably 3, 4, 8, 9, 16 or more lenses. Shortly before the final version was submitted he added a sentence which described a single-lens system, but this was neither fully explained nor illustrated, unlike the several pages of description of the multi-lens system, meaning the single-lens camera was not legally covered by patent.
This addendum was submitted on 10 October 1888 and, on 14 October, Le Prince used his single-lens camera to film Roundhay Garden Scene. During the period 1889-1890 he worked with the mechanic James Longley on various deliverers (projectors) with one, two, three and sixteen lenses. The images were to be separated, printed and mounted individually, sometimes on a flexible band, moved by metal eyelets.
The single lens projector used individual pictures mounted in wooden frames. His assistant, James Longley, claimed the three-lens version was the most successful. Those close to Le Prince have testified to him projecting his first films in his workshop as tests, but they were never presented to anyone outside his immediate circle of family and associates and the nature of the projector is unknown.
In 1889, he took French-American dual citizenship in order to establish himself with his family in New York City and to follow up his research. However, he was never able to perform his planned public exhibition at the Morris-Jumel Mansion in Manhattan, in September 1890, due to his disappearance.
In France, an appreciation society was created as L'Association des Amis de Le Prince (Association of Le Prince's Friends), which still exists in Lyon.
More information: Science Media Museum
Roundhay Garden Scene is a short silent motion picture filmed by French inventor Louis Le Prince at Oakwood Grange in Roundhay, Leeds, in Yorkshire, England on 14 October 1888.
It is believed to be the oldest surviving film. The camera used was patented in the United Kingdom on 16 November 1888.
According to Le Prince's son, Adolphe, Roundhay Garden Scene was made at Oakwood Grange, the home of Joseph and Sarah Whitley, in Roundhay, Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, on 14 October 1888.
The footage features Adolphe, the Whitleys, and Annie Hartley leisurely walking around the garden of Oakwood Grange. Sarah is seen walking -or dancing- backward as she turns around, and Joseph's coattails fly as he turns also. Joseph (1817-1891) and Sarah (née Robinson, 1816-1888) were the parents of Elizabeth, Louis Le Prince's wife, and Hartley is believed to have been a friend of the Le Princes. Sarah Whitley died ten days after the scene was filmed.
Oakwood Grange was demolished in 1972 and replaced with modern housing; the only remnants of it are the garden walls at the end of Oakwood Grange Lane. The adjacent stately home, Oakwood Hall, still stands, and is now a nursing home.
Roundhay Garden Scene was recorded on Eastman Kodak paper base photographic film using Le Prince's single-lens camera.
In the 1930s, the Science Museum in London produced a photographic glass plate copy of 20 surviving frames from the original negative before it was lost. The copied frames were later printed on 35 mm film. Adolphe Le Prince stated that the film was shot at 12 frames per second (fps), but analysis suggests that it was shot at 7 fps.
The First Film, a 2015 documentary about Louis Le Prince, shows it at 7 fps.
More information: Garden of Memory
was in many ways a very extraordinary man,
apart from his inventive genius,
which was undoubtedly great.
He stood 6ft. 3in. or 4in. in his stockings,
well built in proportion,
and he was most gentle and considerate and,
though an inventor, of an extremely placid disposition
which nothing appeared to ruffle.
Frederic Mason
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