Early Cinema Gateway
Biographies
- Adventures in Cybersound
A huge collection of biographical information on inventors of all kinds, from Leonardo Da Vinci to Thomas Edison, with some emphasis on cinema's inventors and pioneers, such as Birt Acres, Robert Paul, W-K.L. Dickson, Georges Demeny, Eadweard Muybridge and Urban's associate G.A. Smith. All gathered together by Dr Russell Naughton, with photographs and links to the sources of information. - Alfred John West F.R.G.S. - Film Pioneer
Alfred West of Southsea became renowned for his popular 'multi-media' (film, photography, song, lecture) patriotic show Our Navy which toured widely from 1898, giving many people their first view of film. He also supplied some films for Urban. Basic information, and extracts from West's unpublished autobiography, all put together by his great-grandson. - American Family Immigration History Center
This phenomenal new resource records the name, age, nationality, sex, marital status and vessel of every arrival at New York's Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924. It therefore serves as an outstanding research for tool for early film history - a regular crosser of the Atlantic such as Charles Urban is recorded several times, and the ships' manifests reveal those passengers that accompanied him. Other family history research resources such as the Mormon church's FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service and Ancestry.com, which includes the Social Security Death Index for America, offer considerable assistance to those researching the personalities of the early film period. - The Bioscope
Family history site devoted to the Studts and Wadbrook Bioscope showmen, who operated at travelling fairs in South Wales at the turn of the century. - Birt Acres (1854-1918) - Film Pioneer
Page on British film pioneer Acres, with some interesting family detail in between some questionable details about the very first films taken in Britain. - The Brothers Manaki
Pioneers of Macedonian cinema, Yanaki and Milton Manaki, who started their cinema careers with a Bioscope from the Charles Urban Trading Company. - Charlie Chaplin Archive
Stylish site from the Cineteca del Comune di Bologna. The site supports the Chaplin Project, organised jointly by the Cineteca and the Association Chaplin, and is building up a comprehensive catalogue of Chaplin papers, inlcuding scripts, sketches, photographs, manuscripts and set drawings. There is information on film restorations and other events. In Italian and English. - Charlie Chaplin UK
Very informative site on Chaplin and those who worked with him, with history, biographies, chronology, articles, audio recordings and other features. - Cinémathèque Méliès
Average site on Georges Méliès, French magician and master of fantasy in the early years of cinema, who filmed a dramatisation of the coronation of Edward VII for Urban. Includes a biography and filmography. In French. - Collection Gabriel Veyre
Biographical site for the Lumière cameraman Gabriel Veyre, with photographs and some moving image examples. - Eadweard Muybridge
One hundred animated Muybridge photographic sequences, produced from plates in his 1887 work Animal locomotion. Produced by the UCR/California Museum of Photography. - earlycinema.com
A promising new site with wide-ranging information on the early cinema period, biographies (Acres, Paul, Dickson, Méliès etc), timeline and an A-Z of terms. Some errors, huge gaps, but welcome enthusiasm. - Edison National Historic Site Home Page
Informative site on all aspects of Thomas Edison's prolific career, including film. The site is currently closed for improvements. However, parts are still accessible, notably the extensive photographic collection on display at Collection-Edison NHS. - Étienne-Jules Marey: Movement in Light
Very impressive "online exhibition", constructed along panoramic lines, on the life and work of chronophotographer Étienne-Jules Marey. Extensively illustrated, with some Quicktime animations. The site mirrored an exhibiton put on by the Cinémathèque Française at the Fondation Electricité de France-Espace Electra in 2000, and anticipates the future Maison du Cinéma (now under construction), which will feature such complementary online exhibits. In French and English. - The Films of Burton Holmes
Curious, half-done site on Burton Holmes, lecturer and pioneer of the travelogue film. - Les Indépendants du 1er Siècle
Curiously eclectic site on French filmmakers of the 20th century, including entries on figures from the early cinema period: Albert Capellani, Emile Cohl, Louis Feuillade, Alice Guy and Max Linder. In French. - Institut Lumière
The Institut Lumière in Lyon protects the heritage of the photographic manufacturers and pioneer filmmakers the Lumière family. The site contains general information on Auguste and Louis Lumière, the Cinématographe and its films, and information including beautiful reproductions of their Autochrome still photography. In French, with English version under construction. - Ivo Blom's Home Page
Dutch film archivist's home page, which includes an account written for the Dutch trade paper Der Kinematograaf in 1918 by cameraman Anton Nöggerath Jr of a trip he took to Iceland in 1901, filming for the Warwick Trading Company. Nöggerath, the son of an Amsterdam showman, worked for Urban at Warwick between 1897 and 1904. The site (in English) is in HTML and Flash versions (the latter with surprise sound effects). - Lillian Gish: Offical Web Site
Rather dull 'official' website for the one of the most accomplished but now the most sentimentalised of early cinema actresses, with photos, biography and a plain list of film titles. - The Little Fellow - A Charlie Chaplin Fan Page
Chaplin fate site, with some good photographs available. - Lubin
Well-illustrated site devoted to American movie pioneer Siegmund Lubin. - Screen Archive South East
Screen Archive South East (formerly the South East Film & Video Archive), based at the University of Brighton, preserves local film and is a centre for the study of the Brighton and Hove filmmakers of the 1900s, among them G.A. Smith, inventor of Kinemacolor. A detailed, illustrated biography is given. The site also contains a detailed chronology of early film production and exhibition in the Brighton and Hove area. - Screenonline
Impressive online encyclopdia and moving image educational resource from the British Film Institute. Combines the history of British film and television, through a complex strucutre based around themes, personalities, tours and special features. The biographical resources include many early cinema figures (including Charles Urban), taken from The Encyclopedia of British Film and The Reference Guide to British and Irish Film Directors. Screenonline comes with a huge number of streamed video clips, which are accessbile to UK educational users only. These include a number of classic early cinema titles, and a wide range of selections from the Topical Budget newsreel. - Slapstick
Wide selection of Quicktime movie clips for silent film comedians, including Chaplin, Lloyd, Arbuckle, Langdon and Max Linder. - Thomas A. Edison Papers
The Edison papers 1850-1898 have recently been made available on-line, many of them viewable as images. They include documents of the roots of the American film business, including the development of the Kinetoscope under W.K-L. Dickson, and Edison's commercial dealings with Maguire & Baucus and the Continental Commerce Company, employers of Charles Urban. Thorough identifications and indexing, a model of how to present documents on the Net, a superb resource all round. - Tokuku Nagai Takagi - Japan's First Film Actress
Intriguing biographical essay on a Japanese actress who appeared in four films made by the American company Thanhouser in 1911-12. From the Bright Lights Film Journal. - Unsung Divas of the Silent Screen
A selection of primarily American women silent film stars, including several who started in the early cinema period, with short biographies, web links and indications of video availability. Includes Norma Talmadge, Clara Kimball Young, Blanche Sweet, Lillian Gish, Asta Nielsen, Germany's Henny Porten, Italy's Francesca Bertini and Lyda Borelli, and the Russian actress Vera Kholodnaya. - Who's Who of Victorian Cinema
A biographical guide to filmmaking (in its broadest sense) in the late nineteenth-century, based on the 1996 book publication of the same title. Includes a wide range of extra resources designed both to aid the Victorian film specilaist and to help those with a general interest in the late-Victorian period.