Question by loveandtea: Who did the first film edit?
I remember seeing the first film edit ever in my film class in high school and I believe it was a man who accidentally shut off his camera while filming a fire truck driving down the street or something like that. It was really short of course, black and white, and silent. Does anyone know the name of the man who did this? I’ve been searching all over and can’t find anything.
Best answer:
Answer by Works in Movie Theatre
LIFE OF AN AMERICAN FIREMAN (1903)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0000447/
Edwin S. Porter is generally thought to be the American filmmaker who first put film editing to use. Porter migrated to the United States as a young sailor and worked as a mechanic before joining the film laboratory of Thomas Alva Edison in the late 1890s. Early films by Thomas Edison (whose company invented a motion camera and projector) and others were short films that were one long, static, locked-down shot. Motion in the shot was all that was necessary to amuse an audience, so the first films simply showed activity such as traffic moving on a city street. There was no story and no editing. Each film ran as long as there was film in the camera. When Edison’s motion picture studio wanted to increase the length of the short films, Edison came to Porter. Porter made the breakthrough film Life of an American Fireman in 1903. The film was among the first that had a plot, action, and even a closeup of a hand pulling a fire alarm.
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