Film help: American Mutoscope and Biograph Company - Help.com

American mutoscope and Biograph Company is the oldest movie company in America, established 1895. Biograph is the most unique and historical motion pictures and entertainment company in existance. From its roots of over 100 years ago, Biograph is an all encompassing creative, and independent entertainment company. Our wide variety of entertainment includes independent films, wireless entertainment, cable/television, commercial production, promotional and corporate productions, multimedia, and theatre. with its history, diversity, and reputation.

American Mutoscope and Biograph Company

is the oldest movie company in America, established 1895. Biograph is the most unique and historical motion pictures and entertainment company in existance. From its roots of over 100 years ago, Biograph is an all encompassing creative, and independent entertainment company. Our wide variety of entertainment includes independent films, wireless entertainment, cable/television, commercial production, promotional and corporate productions, multimedia, and theatre. with its history, diversity, and reputation.

American Mutoscope and Biograph Company

The American Mutoscope and Biograph Company was a motion picture company founded in 1895. The company was started by nickelodeon producer William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, an inventor at Thomas Edison’s laboratory who helped pioneer the technology of capturing moving images on film.

Dickson left Edison and joined with Herman Casler, Henry Marvin and Elias Koopman to form the American Mutoscope Company, the first company entirely devoted to film production. The firm manufactured and made films for the Mutoscope as a rival to Edison’s Kinetoscope for individual “peep shows”, making the company Edison’s chief competitor in the nickelodeon market. In the summer of 1896 the Biograph projector was released, offering superior image quality to Edison’s Vitascope projector. The company soon became a leader in the film industry, with distribution and production subsidiaries around the world including the British Mutoscope Company. In 1899 it changed its name to the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, and in 1909 to simply the Biograph Company.

To avoid violating Edison’s motion picture patents, Biograph cameras from 1895 onwards used a large-format film measuring 2-23/32 inches (68mm) wide, with an image area of 2 by 2-1/2 inches, instead of Edison’s 35mm format. A patent case victory in March 1902 allowed Biograph and other producers and distributors to use the less expensive 35mm format without an Edison license. Biograph offered both formats to exhibitors until 1905, when it discontinued the larger format.
Among Biograph’s other accomplishments were being the first producers to film the Pope at the Vatican (1896); and the first company to shoot a movie in Hollywood: D.W. Griffith’s In Old California. Biograph also was the first major movie company to give complete creative control to a Black American, vaudevillian/comedian Bert Williams, who produced, directed and starred in the short comedies Fish (1916), and Natural Born Gambler (1916).

Director D.W. Griffith joined Biograph in 1908 and helped establish many of the conventions of narrative film as well as helped the company become a major commercial success. Many early movie stars were Biograph performers, including Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, and Robert Harron. Mack Sennett honed his craft as a director of comedies at Biograph.

In January of 1910, D.W. Griffith, and Lee Dougherty with the rest of the Biograph acting company, traveled to Los Angeles. While the purpose of the trip was to shoot the film Ramona in authentic locations, it was also to determine the suitability of the West Coast as a place for a permanent studio. The group set up a small facility at Washington Street and Grand Avenue (Where the Los Angeles Convention Center now stands). After this, Griffith and his players decided to go a little further north to a small village they had heard about that was friendly, and had beautiful floral scenery. They decided to travel there, and fell in love with this little place. The place was Hollywood. Biograph then made the first film ever in Hollywood called In Old California, a Latino melodrama about the early days of Mexico-owned California. Griffith and the Biograph troup then filmed other short movies at various locations, then travelled back to New York. After the east coast film community heard about Hollywood, other film companies began to migrate there. Biograph’s little film launched Hollywood as the future movie capital of the world. Following this, Biograph sent a film crew to work on the coast each year until 1916.

In December 1908, Biograph joined Edison in forming 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 the General Film Company. The Motion Picture Patents Co. and the General Film Co. were found guilty of antitrust violation in October 1915, and dissolved.

Shielded by the Trust, Biograph had been slow to enter feature film production (its first feature, Classmates, was released in February 1914, after sixty-nine other American features had been released in 1912-1913), or to develop a marketable star system as the independent companies were doing, and after the Trust’s fall, Biograph found itself behind the times. The Biograph Co. released its last new feature-length films in 1915, its last new short films in 1916, and was dissolved by 1929, having spent its later years leasing its studios to other producers.

In 1987, Biograph actress Blanche Sweet helped producer Thomas R. Bond, II and his father, the late Tommy Bond, who played “Butch” in Our Gang (The Little Rascals) revive the original company, which was incorporated in California in 1991 and is now an independent film and entertainment company located in downtown Los Angeles.

American Mutoscope and Biograph Company

The American Mutoscope and Biograph Company was founded in 1895, and the oldest motion pictures and entertainment company in America. The company was started by nickelodeon producer William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, an inventor at Thomas Edison’s laboratory who helped pioneer the technology of capturing moving images on film.

Dickson left Edison and joined with Herman Casler, Henry Marvin and Elias Koopman to form the American Mutoscope Company, the first company entirely devoted to film production. The firm manufactured and made films for the Mutoscope as a rival to Edison’s Kinetoscope for individual “peep shows”, making the company Edison’s chief competitor in the nickelodeon market. In the summer of 1896 the Biograph projector was released, offering superior image quality to Edison’s Vitascope projector. The company soon became a leader in the film industry, with distribution and production subsidiaries around the world including the British Mutoscope Company. In 1899 it changed its name to the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, and in 1909 to simply the Biograph Company.

To avoid violating Edison’s motion picture patents, Biograph cameras from 1895 onwards used a large-format film measuring 2-23/32 inches (68mm) wide, with an image area of 2 by 2-1/2 inches, instead of Edison’s 35mm format. A patent case victory in March 1902 allowed Biograph and other producers and distributors to use the less expensive 35mm format without an Edison license. Biograph offered both formats to exhibitors until 1905, when it discontinued the larger format.
Among Biograph’s other accomplishments were being the first producers to film the Pope at the Vatican (1896); and the first company to shoot a movie in Hollywood: D.W. Griffith’s In Old California. Biograph also was the first major movie company to give complete creative control to a Black American, vaudevillian/comedian Bert Williams, who produced, directed and starred in the short comedies Fish (1916), and Natural Born Gambler (1916).

Director D.W. Griffith joined Biograph in 1908 and helped establish many of the conventions of narrative film as well as helped the company become a major commercial success. Many early movie stars were Biograph performers, including Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, and Robert Harron. Mack Sennett honed his craft as a director of comedies at Biograph.

In January of 1910, D.W. Griffith, and Lee Dougherty with the rest of the Biograph acting company, traveled to Los Angeles. While the purpose of the trip was to shoot the film Ramona in authentic locations, it was also to determine the suitability of the West Coast as a place for a permanent studio. The group set up a small facility at Washington Street and Grand Avenue (Where the Los Angeles Convention Center now stands). After this, Griffith and his players decided to go a little further north to a small village they had heard about that was friendly, and had beautiful floral scenery. They decided to travel there, and fell in love with this little place. The place was Hollywood. Biograph then made the first film ever in Hollywood called In Old California, a Latino melodrama about the early days of Mexico-owned California. Griffith and the Biograph troup then filmed other short movies at various locations, then travelled back to New York. After the east coast film community heard about Hollywood, other film companies began to migrate there. Biograph’s little film launched Hollywood as the future movie capital of the world. Following this, Biograph sent a film crew to work on the coast each year until 1916.

In December 1908, Biograph joined Edison in forming 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 the General Film Company. The Motion Picture Patents Co. and the General Film Co. were found guilty of antitrust violation in October 1915, and dissolved.

Shielded by the Trust, Biograph had been slow to enter feature film production (its first feature, Classmates, was released in February 1914, after sixty-nine other American features had been released in 1912-1913), or to develop a marketable star system as the independent companies were doing, and after the Trust’s fall, Biograph found itself behind the times. The Biograph Co. released its last new feature-length films in 1915, its last new short films in 1916, and was dissolved by 1929, having spent its later years leasing its studios to other producers.

In 1987, Biograph actress Blanche Sweet helped producer Thomas R. Bond, II and his father, the late Tommy Bond, who played “Butch” in Our Gang (The Little Rascals) acquire and revive the original company, which was incorporated in California in 1991. It is still an independent film and entertainment company located in downtown Los Angeles.