Edison Studios was an American film production organization , owned by companies controlled by inventor and entrepreneur, Thomas Edison . The studio made close to 1,200 films, as part of the Edison Manufacturing Company (1894–1911) and then Thomas A. Edison, Inc. (1911–1918), until the studio's closing in 1918. Of that number, 54 were feature length , and the remainder were shorts . All of the company's films have fallen into the public domain because they were released before 1928.
22-650: The first production facility was Edison's Black Maria studio, in West Orange, New Jersey , built in the winter of 1892–93. The second facility, a glass-enclosed rooftop studio built at 41 East 21st Street in Manhattan 's entertainment district, opened in 1901. In 1907, Edison had new facilities built, on Decatur Avenue and Oliver Place, in the Bedford Park neighborhood of the Bronx . Thomas Edison himself played no direct part in
44-522: A Kinetoscope parlor 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
66-605: A notable director, or even one above average. Nor did the Edison films show the sense of dynamic progress, that one gets, from studying the Biograph films, on a year-by-year basis. On the contrary, there is a sense of stagnation. However, new restorations and screenings of Edison films in recent years contradict Everson's statement; indeed, Everson citing The Land Beyond the Sunset points out creativity at Edison beyond Porter and Collins, as it
88-581: A series of still photographs to accompany an article in Harper's Weekly . It was the earliest motion picture to be registered for copyright – composed of an optical record of Ott sneezing comically for the camera. The first films shot at the Black Maria included segments of magic shows, plays, vaudeville performances (with dancers and strongmen), acts from Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show , various boxing matches and cockfights , and scantily-clad women. Many of
110-730: The General Film Company . The Motion Picture Patents Co. and the General Film Co. were found guilty of antitrust violation in October 1915, and were dissolved. The breakup of the Trust by federal courts, under monopoly laws, and the loss of European markets during World War I , hurt Edison financially. Edison sold its film business, including the Bronx studio, on 30 March 1918, to the Lincoln & Parker Film Company , of Massachusetts . Some of
132-415: The Black Maria from all over the country in order to be in the films. These silent movies featured dancers, pugilists , magicians and vaudeville performers. Their appearances at the studio were used as publicity opportunities by Edison, who would often pose with the performers for newspaper articles. The Black Maria fell into disuse when film productions moved to New York, and the Edison company dismantled
154-553: The Black Maria were deposited for copyright by W. K. Dickson at the Library of Congress in August, 1893. In early January 1894, The Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze (aka Fred Ott's Sneeze ) was one of the first series of short films made by Dickson for the Kinetoscope in Edison's Black Maria studio with fellow assistant Fred Ott. The short film was made for publicity purposes, as
176-685: The building in 1903. The U. S. National Park Service maintains a reproduction of the Black Maria, built in 1954 at what is now the Edison National Historic Site in West Orange. A previous reconstruction had been built and dedicated in May 1940 when MGM held the world premiere of Edison, the Man starring Spencer Tracy in theaters throughout The Oranges ( West Orange , East Orange , South Orange , and Orange ). The Black Maria was, according to
198-678: The building, which included a tar-paper-covered dark studio room with a retractable roof, began in December 1892 and was completed the following year at a cost of $ 637.67 ($ 21,624 in 2023 dollars). In early May 1893 at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences , Edison conducted the world's first public demonstration of films shot using the Kinetograph in the Black Maria, with a Kinetoscope viewer. The exhibited film showed three people pretending to be blacksmiths . The first motion pictures made in
220-635: 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 the Motion Picture Patents Company in an attempt to control the industry and shut out smaller producers. 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 , and Vitagraph Studios , and dominated distribution through
242-514: The early Edison moving images released after 1895, however, were non-fictional "actualities" filmed on location: views of ordinary slices of life – street scenes, the activities of police or firemen, or shots of a passing train. On Saturday, April 14, 1894, Edison's Kinetoscope began commercial operation. The Holland Brothers (Andrew M. Holland and George C. Holland) opened the first Kinetoscope Parlor at 1155 Broadway in New York City and for
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#1732858519207264-423: The first time, they commercially exhibited movies, as we know them today, in their amusement arcade. Patrons paid ¢25 ($ 9 in 2023 dollars) as the admission charge to view films in five kinetoscope machines placed in two rows. Nearly 500 people became cinema's first major audience during the showings of films with titles such as Barber Shop , Blacksmiths , Cock Fight , Wrestling , and Trapeze . Edison's film studio
286-461: The making of his studios' films, beyond being the owner and appointing William Gilmore as vice-president and general manager. Edison's assistant William 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 the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company in 1895, he
308-411: The staff who worked there, a small and uncomfortable place to work. Edison employees W. K. Dickson and Jonathan Campbell coined the name – it reminded them of police Black Marias , (police vans, also known as "paddywagons") of the time because they were also cramped, stuffy and a similar black color. Edison himself called it "The Doghouse", but that name never took hold. The Black Maria
330-572: The studio in 1903. The Thomas Alva Edison Foundation built a replica Black Maria on the original site in 1954. The rebuilt studio was used to exhibit films to the public until it closed in the 1980s. In 2022 the National Park Service embarked on a two-year rehabilitation of the structure, involving extensive repairs, a new exterior, and an accessible ramp. The Black Maria opened again to the public in April 2024 with new exhibits, interpretive panels,
352-503: The studio's notable productions include The 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 earliest film serials ; and The Land Beyond the Sunset (1912), which was directed by Harold M. Shaw and
374-484: Was Thomas Edison 's film production studio in West Orange , New Jersey . It was the world's first film studio. In 1893, the world's first film production studio, the Black Maria, or the cinematographic Theater, was completed on the grounds of Edison's laboratories (now Thomas Edison National Historical Park ), at West Orange , New Jersey , for the purpose of making film strips for the Kinetoscope . Construction of
396-417: Was covered in black tarpaper and had a huge window in the ceiling that opened up to let in sunlight because early films required a tremendous amount of bright light. It was built on a turntable so the window could rotate toward the sun throughout the day, supplying natural light for hundreds of Edison movie productions over its eight-year lifespan. When word spread about the new invention, performers flocked to
418-638: Was directed by Harold 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 included Oscar Apfel , Charles Brabin , Alan Crosland , J. Searle Dawley , and Edward H. Griffith . Edison%27s Black Maria 40°47′03″N 74°14′01″W / 40.7843°N 74.2337°W / 40.7843; -74.2337 The Black Maria ( / m ə ˈ r aɪ . ə / mə- RY -ə )
440-718: Was later described by film historian William K. Everson as "'the screen's first genuinely lyrical film'". 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 of Raoul Barré cartoon films in 1915 and the first film version of the Robert Louis Stevenson historical novel Kidnapped . Everson, calling Edison Studios "financially successful and artistically unambitious," wrote that other than directors Edwin S. Porter and John Hancock Collins , [T]he Edison studios never turned out
462-465: Was replaced as director of production by cameraman William Heise , then from 1896 to 1903, by James H. White . When White left to supervise Edison's European interests in 1903, he was replaced by William Markgraf (1903–1904), then Alex T. Moore (1904–1909), and Horace G. Plimpton (1909–1915). The first commercially exhibited motion pictures in the United States were from Edison, and premiered at
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#1732858519207484-533: Was used to supply films for this sensational new form of entertainment. More Kinetoscope parlors soon opened in other cities ( San Francisco , Atlantic City , and Chicago ). In 1901, the first public film was screened in Oberlin, Ohio , starting the transition from kinetoscope to screen. When Edison built a glass-enclosed rooftop movie studio in New York City, the Black Maria was closed in January 1901, and Edison demolished
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