The+Lumiére+Brothers

The Lumiére brothers were the very first filmmakers in history. They were born in Besançon, France. Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas Lumiére was born on October 19, 1862 and Louis Jean Lumiére was born two years later on October 5, 1864. In 1870, the Lumiére family moved to Lyon and three more children were born. Auguste and Lewis attended La Martinire which was the largest technical school in Lyon. Their father, Charles-Antoine owned a small factory that produced photographic plates, which was on the verge of closing down as the children grew up and left home. Fortunately, when Auguste returned home from military service the brothers created a machine that was necessary to automate their father's plate production and devised a successful new photo plate, called 'Etiquettes Bleue'. By 1884, a dozen new workers were employed at the factory and the business was saved.

The brothers began to create moving pictures in 1892, after their father retired from work. They spent a lot of time on trying to create their film camera, most notably film perforations. This would advance the film through the camera and projector. This method was called Cinématographe. The first Cinématographe was created in 1892 by Léon Guillaume Bouly. The Lumiére brothers created theirs three years later in 1895. The first film showed workers leaving the Lumiére factory after work. In 1905, after they saw the film they went to develop the first practical photographic color process, called the Lumiére Autochrome.

The Lumiére brothers had their first screening of their movies on December 28, 1895 at the Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris. Even though it only had ten short films, which were all 50 seconds, it was history-making for the film industry. Their first film was called, La Sortie de l'Usine Lumiére à Lyon which means the exit from the Lumiére factory in Lyon. The brothers declared that they would not be selling their camera to any other filmmakers because "the cinema is an invention without any future". This upset quite a few people. They also worked on their color photography in the 1890's which included the Lippmann process and their bichromated glue, a subtracted color process. Some examples of their inventions were exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900. In 1903, the brothers patented a color photographic process called the Autochrome Lumiére. It was launched on the markets in 1907. Much of the 20th century was filled with Lumiére photographic products, but the brand name Lumiére disappeared from the market place. Even though the Lumiére brothers were not the first Cinématographers in history, they are often credited for being the inventors of the technology for Cinema and are among the few who understood how to use it. By: Caitlyn Dixon