Edwin S. Porter was both a film pioneer and director. He was a film pioneer because he made people come back to the theaters and start watching movies. His movies also were good because they told a story by editing the move. Being a director he made some of the greatest films in 1902 and 1903. In 1902 he directed The Life of an American Fireman and in 1903 The Great Train Robbery. With these two skills he was able to direct great films and use special camera shots not know of at that present time. Porter was born on April 21st 1870 in Connellsville, Pennsylvania.
There was not really any information on his parents but they did his parents first named him Edward. Since he was pudgy people use to call him Betty. There was really no information on why they called him Betty but I am sure it meant something. In 1893 he joined United States Navy and changed his name. He changed his name to Edwin Stanton instead of Edward Stanton. He changed it after Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton before he went into the Navy. They did not go into any detail on why he did it but my guess is he did not like his name and changed it.
In the resources that I found I could not find much information about the rest of his family. I could not even find any information on what he did in his early years. The earliest I could find was starting in 1893. In 1895 he started to work for the Vitascope Marketing Company. He would use his talent of electrical engineering with the company. With Vitascope he was in the project of the first projected movie that was shown in New York. That date was April 23rd 1896. He used his skills in engineering at Edison’s Manufacturing Company’s Laboratory.
He let Edison for a while and went to Eden Musee Theatre in New York where he an operator. He was in charge of getting the films and projecting them onto the screen. His duties also were kind of illegal because he took a lot of films and edited them together to make fifteen-minute films. He would also take some of Melies films and put them into the show, since he like some of Melies work. The films would range from historical Wars and news films. During this time Porter also tried to create his own camera and projector but had no luck.
In 1900 the movies were losing their popularity and people were starting to stop coming to the movies. A fire in his New York City work area also made him look for some new work. In 1900 he returned to Edison’s Company to be a producer not an engineer. Edison was also having problems with his company and almost had to sell it to American Mutoscope & Biograph Company, his rival. After Edison hired Porter back he had him try to improve the Kinetoscope projector. In New York City Edison built a glass top studio to produce films with George S. Fleming.
Edison was the person who would work as a cameraman and Fleming as the scenic designer. Since the movies were not selling out and the movie industry was getting bad, Edison had went to producing only one-minute films which were viewed in the Kinetoscope Machine. The Kinetoscope Machine was a device you looked into and watched the show. You would put a penny in and crank the machine and you could watch it. The filmstrip was usually about 50 foot long or longer and you would crank it like a jack in the box to see it move. The work that Porter did for Edison was not the mechanical part of it but the producer and directing part.
He was put in charge of making the film for the Kinetoscope so they could make money that way. The Kinetoscope was a success for a while but then people were getting sick of it. They wanted something new because they were getting sick of looking through the hole and watching the film. Even when people started to get sick of it Edison still produced some films for the Knetoscope. People were starting to look into and experimenting with film projectors. They thought if they could get it projected more people could come and see the film. If they did this more people could pay money to see it and they would make more money.
Edison invented a projector years before but thought it would not help business. The though if he showed films to a bunch of people at once it would hurt business. Since the only goal was to make a profit he did not think it would be a good idea. The goal today is still to make money but back then they really had to compete with all the other people trying to steal his ideas. Since in the 1900’s they were starting to lose the people from going to see films so they had to do anything to stay in business. Then other investors thought if they opened up small theaters they could get more people to see the films.
The movie theaters would show some of the Edison’s Kinetoscope films to the bunches of people. They would that small image that you seen on in the Kinetoscope onto a big screen. After that Edison realized he could make money doing this he want to get involved. He wanted to make the money because they were his films. Since a lot of films were pirated back then they could not get them on the film. He went for the projector that he invented earlier in the 1890’s. He went to court and said that they used his patents to make the projector and said that was not there design.
He took them to court and got had them shut down because they were using Edison’s patent on the projector. Edison stared to open up theaters to make money on projecting his films. He told Porter to make longer films so that people would enjoy them. With his creativity he made to great five minute long movies. They were Uncle Toms Cabin and Jack In The Beanstalk. Porter used some of Melies trick in these movies, which made them great films for the audience. During this time Porter was the only director to shoot at night in his “Pan-American Exposition by Night”. He also had help from Fleming, which did all of the scenery and set design.
Between Porter and Fleming, they use the best editing and set design known of at that time. They worked well together and make some of the best films of the first films to be projected for and audience. In 1901 Fleming and Porter made another great film about the assassination of President William McKinley. The film was called The Execution of Czoloyosz. The guys named that shot President McKinley was Leon Czologosz and that is why is was called the Execution of Czoloyosz. Since they were trying to make people come to the theaters Porter went to the jail and shot the walls of the prison.
He used a panning action to show the whole jail. Then he showed the leading of Czologosz to the execution chamber. That way he combined documentary footage with his own footage. That has to do with Porters great directing and his experience with editing film. The question was raised but not fully resolved: could the production company dictate the terms of the larger narrative unit or was editing the final responsibility of the exhibitor? I think the production company should be the ones who edit the film. The exhibitor should not cut out part because they are bad.
If they cut out a part the movie my not be as good and no make complete sense. Another great Porter movie was The Life of an American Fireman. It is show from the inside first and then the outside. That way the people watching the film and see everything that is going on and happening in the film. The film shows firefighters rescuing a child and his mother from a building that is on fire. This film had a lot of tense moment and was a drama. This film showed things that can really happen to people. This film was different from Melies because it was true and of real life.
In Melies drama films they were all fantasy and not true. That is one think that Porter did differently then Melies. This movie also had a close-up of a hand pulling a fire alarm, which was different in that time. Since had did a lot of experimenting when being a cameraman, he learned a lot of good ideas and ways to use the camera. Right after this movie was made the Western era was born. After this movie Fleming left the Edison Company. Since westerns were becoming more popular Porter decide to make one. Even though it was only ten-minutes long it was a great film that did cost a lot of money.
Porter must have made “The Great Train Robbery” when the cost-conscious Edison was looking in the other direction. Edison was always worried about money just as all the other film directors were at that time. They went to New Jersey in the open area to film the movie so it would look like Wyoming. He borrowed a railroad train for the movie to make it look real and some house so they could rob the train. He even hired local people to play in the movie to fill the extra stops. That way he could make it look real and like it really happened.
Gilbert M. Anderson was the passenger in the movie that got shot trying to get away. He was not good on horses so Porter gave him that part. Anderson then changed his name to Broncho Billy Anderson and went on to make 400 films for the Essanay Company. This movie was full of action from the first scene to the last scene. One of the best scenes was the one when the pistol was pointed at the audience. The scene placed at the very end of the picture and never failed to send viewers in the front row diving for cover. To try to open his owe production-company Porter left Edison in 1909.
He was not successful and got offered a job by Adolf Zukor in 1912. He worked for the production company Famous Players – Paramount Studios. He was the person in charge of output of the studio and looked over the production. That company directed five of Mary Pickford’s films. In 1915 he sold all his shares of Famous Players put all his money in a Precision Machine Corporation. This company made motion picture equipment, which Porter loved to mess with. He was the president in the company so he had a lot of free time to mess with the think he liked to do.
He could improve the quality of the equipment and find different camera techniques. In 1929 the company lost all it money in the stock market crash. That meant that Porter lost of his money and had to go back to work in small shops. In the small shops he worked on movie projectors and motion picture devices. He enjoyed doing that because that what he enjoyed but starting from the beginning must be hard for him. “The man who had taken Edison’s gift and enhanced the possibilities of its magic for the world passed away in 1941. “
