Production at the New Edison Studio

Between early 1901 and early 1903 film production at the new Edison studio was clearly the most important in America. There, filmmaking personnel assumed unprecedented (by American standards) control over motion-picture storytelling, and as a result, the production company, rather than the exhibitor, began to create the program. Edison’s filmmakers, along with those in other countries, began to elaborate a system of representation, of spatial and temporal relations between shots, that typified the cinema for the remaining years covered by this volume. An understanding of this development requires careful scrutiny of the films because the process took place over the course of many pictures, and with frequent interruptions and digressions.

The collaborative team undertaking this important shift consisted of George S. Fleming, an actor and scenic designer, and Edwin S. Porter. The Edison Company hired Fleming for twenty dollars a week and placed him in charge of its new studio, while Porter was shifted from the Edison laboratory to serve as cameraman. Although Porter was the junior member of this collaborative team, he quickly emerged as its key contributor: his expertise as an electrician and mechanic help to maintain the studio in operating order, and at the same time, his work as a motion-picture operator and exhibitor made him familiar with the kinds of films that pleased audiences.

Working under White’s supervision, Fleming and Porter soon established their worth with films like KANSAS SALOON SMASHERS (© 23 February 1901), which reenacted and burlesqued a recent news event—Carrie Nation’s saloon-smashing spree in Wichita, Kansas. For the one-shot film, men in drag played many of the female roles, making the women sexually unappealing. The women’s invasion of a male refuge is seemingly attributed to sexual frustration and the concomitant need for revenge. With imitation a sure indication of a film’s commercial value, it was notable that Lubin was selling MRS . NATION AND HER HATCHET BRIGADE by early March, and Biograph made CARRIE NATION SMASHING A SALOON (NO. 1845) for its exhibition service and mutoscopes in early April. Porter and Fleming had quickly produced a hit.

The new studio resulted in a burst of activity; Edison copyrighted sixty films in the six months following its completion, and many more pictures were made. Thirty-five (58 percent) used actors of some kind. Among the vaudeville performers who frequented the studio were the Gordon Sisters with their boxing act, the Lukens brothers, who were novel gymnasts, and the Faust family of acrobats. Laura Corn-stock and her dog, Mannie, appeared in LAURA COMSTOCK’S BAG-PUNCHING DOG , a two-shot film in which Porter asserted editorial control by following a portrait-like view of the attractive Comstock and her dog with a shot of Mannie punching a suspended bag with his nose. In the late 1890s, as we have seen, exhibitors often showed portraits of prominent persons in their programs using lantern slides. Portraits of admirals were followed by scenes of their ships. Porter, the veteran exhibitor, recognized that the film producer could adeptly appropriate this practice, and thus LAURA COMSTOCK’S BAG-PUNCHING DOG introduced what Tom Gunning calls the “emblematic close-up.” This technique became popular with other American producers and remained in frequent use throughout the period. 25

The Edison Manufacturing Company produced an abundance of comedies. Some, such as HAPPY HOOLIGAN APRIL-FOOLED and HAPPY HOOLIGAN SURPRISED , consisted of one shot and were quite similar to those made in the 1890s. Often Porter added a brief tag or punch line at the conclusion of a typical one-shot scene. In THE FINISH OF BRIDGET MCKEEN , made that February, the Irish cook has difficulty lighting the stove and adds kerosine. With Porter substituting a dummy for the actor by using stop-action techniques, an explosion sends the cook flying up into the air. After an extended period, pieces of her body fall back to earth. (Here time is stretched rather than condensed, as with most pro-filmic manipulations of time in early films.) The picture then dissolves to the last scene, a painted backdrop of a grave on which is written “Here Lies the Remains of Bridget McKeen, Who Started a Fire with Kerosine.” This additional shot did not make any sense when shown on its own and so was sold with the first scene. In this regard, the output of two-shot pictures did not directly challenge the editorial prerogatives of the exhibitor. Yet these films reveal a filmmaking team eager to juxtapose shots to produce a more effective picture.

Beginning with THE FINISH OF BRIDGET MCKEEN , the dissolve from one scene to the next became a common procedure at the Edison Manufacturing Company. Executed during the printing process rather than in the camera, it enabled the producer to exert editorial control in a manner that enhanced exhibition. In most high-class lantern programs, exhibitors dissolved from slide to slide; some exhibitors even dissolved from slides to film or from film to film. To execute such techniques in the projection booth with films was difficult and required extra personnel. Thus Porter and Fleming found ways to give potential purchasers something extra.

Groups of actualities, filmed under White’s supervision, complemented Fleming and Porter’s comedies. In addition to President McKinley’s second inauguration, particular emphasis was placed on the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, New York. OPENING , PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION was photographed on 20 May 1901, and at least another twenty films followed shortly thereafter. 26 One of the most popular of these was A T RIP A ROUND THE P AN -AMERICAN EXPOSITION , a 625-foot, ten-minute film taken from the front of a launch that toured the canal winding through the exposition grounds. Exhibitors could purchase the film in shorter lengths of 200, 300, 400, or 500 feet. PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION BY NIGHT , photographed by Porter, was a technical tour de force that began with a smooth, sweeping panorama

of the electric tower during the day and continued at night in the same direction and at the same pace, with the lights of the tower providing a decorative image. Only a new and highly sophisticated panning mechanism made this film possible. The time change was modeled on a popular stereopticon convention—day-to-night dissolving views.

In early September, James White and several kinetograph department employees filmed William McKinley’s visit to the Pan-American Exposition on President’s Day, 5 September (PRESIDENT M C KINLEY’S SPEECH AT THE PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION and PRESIDENT M C KINLEY REVIEWING THE TROOPS AT THE PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION ). On the following day, the camera crew waited outside the Temple of Music while McKinley was inside shaking hands with well-wishers. Suddenly the President was gunned down by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz, and the camera crew filmed the stunned and angry crowd. These scenes were an Edison exclusive. After McKinley’s death, Edison cameramen, like their Biograph rivals, filmed the funeral ceremonies. PRESIDENT M C KINLEY’S FUNERAL CORTEGE AT BUFFALO , NEW YORK ; PRESIDENT M C KINLEY’S FUNERAL CORTEGE AT WASHINGTON , D.C., and a half-dozen films of the funeral at Canton, Ohio, fulfilled cinema’s promise as a visual newspaper. Films such as FUNERAL LEAVING THE PRESIDENT’S HOUSE AND CHURCH AT CANTON , OHIO consisted of many brief shots as the cameramen struggled to capture glimpses of the casket on the way to the cemetery. Camera movement and improvised shooting convey a sense of immediacy and urgency.

The Edison Company assumed greater editorial control than before. PRESIDENT M C KINLEY’S FUNERAL CORTEGE AT BUFFALO , NEW YORK was a 400-foot “series” consisting of four separate films held together by dissolves introduced in the printing stage. COMPLETE FUNERAL CORTEGE AT CANTON , O HIO was another series, consisting of six different subjects. A similar approach was used for the America’s Cup races, which Edison cameramen filmed in early October. In these several instances, editorial responsibility had become a contested arena. If the exhibitor did not like the sequence of subjects or only wanted some of the films and not the whole series, Edison was happy to sell them on an individual basis. Programs and reviews indicate that most prominent exhibitors were not yet willing to relinquish control over this area of practice.

Editorial control remained ambiguous in the four-shot EXECUTION OF CZOLGOSZ WITH PANORAMA OF A UBURN PRISON , Porter and Fleming’s most ambitious undertaking during 1901. Exhibitors could purchase the picture either with or without the opening two shots, which were sweeping panoramas of Auburn State Prison taken on the morning that McKinley’s assassin, Czolgosz, was executed. Porter then dissolved to two studio scenes that reenacted the execution. Shot 3 shows Czolgosz in his cell. The wardens enter, open the cell door, and escort him off-camera. Shot 4 shows the testing of the electric chair, Czolgosz’s entrance, his being strapped to the chair, and the actual execution. Its strong frontal composition leaves the spectator with a headon view of the assassin’s death. Not only is the operational aesthetic at work in this display, but the spectator is turned into a witness (with the reenacted nature of this event suppressed).

EXECUTION OF CZOLGOSZ focuses attention on the filmic representation of space and time. In its longer form, at least, the film offers a well-developed spatial world. Its relationship between outside and inside, while just beginning to be utilized by American and European producers, was hardly novel, for it had been commonly used in stereopticon shows. Temporality was more puzzling and complex. Czolgosz’s cell was right next to the execution chamber, and in the actual sequence of events, the wardens tested the chair before removing the condemned man from his cell. The film did not present the scenes along a simple, linear time line. First, all actions in Czolgosz’s cell are shown, then everything of interest that took place in the execution chamber. Time does not move steadily forward as the scene shifts from scene 3 to scene 4. Portions of the two scenes occur simultaneously as Porter offers two different perspectives on the same event. Film thus allowed the spectator to be in two places simultaneously or see an event from two perspectives. It was this insight that underlay many of the innovations in cinematic representation that followed.

Edison’s July 1901 court victory over Biograph, although later overturned, meant that his company was virtually the only American film manufacturer providing exhibitors with films (the setbacks suffered by 35-mm competitors are discussed below). Pressure to reduce prices was eliminated as film sales rose 65 percent (from $49,756.22 in 1900–1901 to $82,107.82 in 1901–1902) and film profits rose 85 percent (from $20,278.26 to $37,433.90). The McKinley films provided the Edison Manufacturing Company with a rare opportunity to derive maximum commercial benefit from its legal monopoly, and it sold more than $45,000 worth of films in the last four months of 1901—practically equal to the whole of the previous business year.

The Edison Manufacturing Company adequately met its new responsibility as sole domestic supplier of films to American exhibitors throughout the summer and early fall of 1901. However, the absence of competition was soon felt, and by November, studio production had declined and then almost ceased. Only fourteen of the ninety-seven films copyrighted by Edison between mid November 1901 and mid April 1902 relied on actors, and many of these were acquired from Vitagraph. Much energy was devoted to JEFFRIES AND RUHLIN SPARRING CONTEST AT SAN FRANCISCO , CAL ., NOVEMBER 15, 1901. Since the disappointing fight had lasted only five rounds (barely twenty minutes), the picture could be shown only as one act in a variety program. New scenes were taken along the West Coast (PANORAMIC VIEW NEAR M T . GOLDEN ON THE CANADIAN PACIFIC R.R. and OSTRICH FARMS AT PASADENA ) and in Mexico City, where James White photographed a bullfight on 2 February.

During White’s absence, production on the East Coast practically ceased. Porter and Fleming returned to the studio in early 1902 with a few productions, but nothing compared to the first months of 1901. One clever effort was UNCLE JOSH AT THE MOVING PICTURE SHOW , which lampoons a rube farmer who confuses what he sees on the screen with real life and becomes more and more involved with the images. He climbs on stage and mimics an attractive female dancer in the first film but jumps back into his seat as the onrushing Black Diamond Express approaches in the next. The denouement comes when he tries to break up a kissing scene and stops the show

instead. An imitation of Robert Paul’s THE COUNTRYMAN’S FIRST SIGHT OF THE ANIMATED PICTURES (1901), Edison’s version was redone to feature its own films and titles, advertising the projecting kinetoscope.

Duping of European fiction films effectively substituted for studio production, although the Edison staff still found it necessary to shoot American news events and scenes of local interest. With White’s return from Mexico, the kinetograph department resumed its treatment of cinema as a visual newspaper. Films were taken of

important news events such as the Paterson, New Jersey, fire of 9 February 1902. Multicamera coverage was used for the visit of Prince Henry of Prussia to the United States in late February and early March. A kinetograph record of Theodore Roosevelt’s appearance at the Charleston (South Carolina) Exposition on President’s Day, 9 April, demonstrated the chief executive’s courage in emulating McKinley’s fateful visit to the Buffalo Exposition six months earlier (PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT REVIEWING THE TROOPS AT CHARLESTON EXPOSITION ).