History of the Lumiere Brothers

The Lumiere Brothers:

Sons of Lyons based portrait painter, Antoine Lumiere. Auguste and Louis Lumiere, or the Lumiere brothers in short, are believed by some to be the brainchild of cinematography.

After discovering the financial rewards of photography, Antoine Lumiere gave up on his profession of art and instead set up his own business manufacturing and supplying photographic equipment. His youngest son Louis, who began experimenting on the equipment his father was producing, joined him in the business.

During his experiments, Louis discovered a way to assist the development of photography as well as developing a new ‘dry plate’ process at the age of 17, it was known as the ‘Etiquette Bleue’ process, which gave his fathers business a boost, it shortly after went into mass production.

By 1894, the brothers were manufacturing approximately 15 million plates per annum.

By then, the very successful Antoine Lumiere, was invited to the demonstration of Thomas Edison’s Peephole Kinectoscope in the capital, Paris.

Once returned to Lyons, Antoine gave the kinectoscope to Louis, telling him to manufacture it.

Working through the winter of 1894, the brothers aimed to overcome the limitations and problems of the kinectoscope, the problems being the size and weight, and the fact that only one person could use it at a time.

By early 1895, the brothers had invented a device, combining camera with printer and projector, named Cinematographe. It was smaller, lighter and hand cranked (allowing every one to see) compared to Edison’s kinectoscope.

The first screening took place on the 22^nd March 1895 in Paris, France at a venue fit for the film, an industrial building. The film showed a compilation of moving pictures of factory workers leaving what is believed to be the Lumiere factory.

In the first four months of 1896, cinematographe theatres had opened in London, Brussels and New York.

Louis Lumiere went on to say the famous quote – “The cinema is an invention without any commercial future”.

The quote means that Louis thought cinema didn't have a bright future, he thought it would last only few years until the public found it old and boring, however, cinema turned out to be one of the biggest inventions to date.

Louis was the first of the brothers to die, on June 6^th 1948 in Bandol on the French Riviera, aged 83

Auguste died in the city of Lyons on April 10^th 1954, aged 91.

Antoine returned to Lyons after the success of cinematographe, where he painted until he died in 1895, he was 55 years old.


Along with the breakthrough film, La Sortie de usines Lumiere (Employees leaving the Lumiere factory (1895), the Lumiere brothers also made:
La Voltige (Trick Riding - 1895)
La Peche aux Poissons Rouges (Fishing for Goldfish - 1895)
Le Debarquement du Congress de Photographie a Lyons (The Photographical Congress arrives in Lyon - 1895)
Les Forgerons (Blacksmith Scene - 1895)
L'Arroseur Arrose (Tables tuned on the Garderner - 1895)
Repas de Bebe (Baby's Dinner - 1895)
Place des Cordeliers a Lyon (Cordeliers' Square in Lyon - 1895)
and
La Mer (The Sea - 1895)

Information taken from and made into own words via website:
http://www.earlycinema.com/pioneers/lumiere_bio.html on Tuesday, 11th September 2012.